Barkskins by Annie Proulx Page B

went on, the fur trade had become unsettled and insecure. The coureur de bois no longer directly approached the trapper Indians to trade for furs—there were Indian specialists, middlemen, who arranged all that. Even now those good Indians were being pushed out by enemy tribes and the decline in beaver numbers. As Duquet learned the intricacies and politics of the fur trade he saw that what Forgeron said was true. Paddling in the milieux was no entry to wealth. The best that could come of it would be a short life of striving, of sleeping on riverbanks and looking up through the trees at a narrow slice of darkness stinging with stars like cast handfuls of salt.
    Some of the men carried flintlock muzzle-loaders, most the Charleville muskets used by the French army. But for Duquet the loading procedure was impossibly slow—without teeth he could not bite off the end of the cartridge, but had to tear it open with his fingers. Instead, he took as his weapon the French tomahawk, practiced endlessly until he could cleave the tail off a flying bird, gather up the body, have it gutted and half roasted while a comrade was still loading his musket.
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    Duquet hardened. He saw how the beaver quickly disappeared from hard-trapped areas, where the Indians took every animal, so intent were they on getting European tools and spirits, so harried were they by the acquisitive traders. The beaver country moved always farther north and west. Yet there were white men who gained prodigiously. They were not penniless runaway indentured servants. Duquet set out now to get as much as he could from his lowly position in the fur trade and swore to watch for better opportunities. He had come to New France hoping for quick riches and a return to Old France, but now he wondered if his destiny was not linked to the vast land with its infinite forests and violent rivers. Was not this country his place in the world? Yes, and he would make something of value of it. He went through a rare hour of introspection, seeing that his nature chilled other men. He consciously began to act as a smiling, open fellow of winning address who always had a good story and who, in the tavern, treated with a generous hand. He was sharpening his claws, and in his private center he was an opportunistic tiger—if he had to tear and maul his way to wealth he would do so.
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    He began to barter privately for furs, offering a drink or two of cheap rum to the naïve red men, hiding his activities from the others, sometimes caching the furs and returning later to pick them up. He bargained ruthlessly with the Indians, smiling guilelessly into the savage faces as he accepted their heavy bundles of furs for a yard of cheap cloth and a cup of adulterated whiskey—a monstrous profit.
    Within the year he was sick of the traders who had rescued him.
    â€œForgeron,” he said one day as they struggled up a portage trail. “I do not enjoy these persons, especially the guide. I intend to look for another opportunity. Will you come as well?”
    â€œWhy not?” said Forgeron. “One canoe is very like another. The guide is difficult, perhaps because of his terrible history. The Iroquois threw him into a fire to roast.”
    â€œThen why did they not finish the cooking and eat him?”
    â€œPerhaps you will have the chance to ask them that one day.”
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    They worked in harmony, although Forgeron attracted storms and wind. But he had a certain regard for the wild woods. He spoke often to Duquet of the forest and its great untapped wealth.
    â€œIf a man could get the logs out, there are a hundred thousand fortunes all around us the like of which the world has not seen since the days of Babylon. It is entirely a question of moving the wood to those who need it.” Duquet nodded and began to look at trees with a more acquisitive eye.
    They fell in with a