Barkskins (51 page)

But Mr. Bone's vaunted enthusiasm for native people did not extend to the forests and shorelines they had inhabited. For Mr. Bone, only when the trees were gone, when houses crowded together and the soil was cultivated to grow European crops was it a real place.

On the return journey he said abruptly, as though he had been long arranging the words in his mind, “I came from Scotland to Philadelphia with my father. My mother died when I was but an infant. And two days after we arrived in this country Father also perished, a victim of some shipboard pestilence. So I was orphaned and thrown on my own resources.” He said nothing more.

•  •  •

Months later they were again alone in a coach that stank of stale urine on the way to Bangor, and Mr. Bone, who seemed unable to speak of his past unless in jolting motion, continued his history. “Relative to the events of my youth, after I found myself alone in a strange city, at first I begged bread and then coins from passersby, then I fell in with some boys who, like myself, were homeless. We contrived a society of cooperative thievery, taking chickens, garden plunder. For amusement we loitered near the stage stop, the farrier and blacksmith shops, places of interest to all boys. One day I happened to be alone watching one of the smiths and the man looked at me and said, ‘Pump the bellows, boy, my helper run off.' I pumped that bellows. At day's end he told me I was employed. I filled the tempering baths, pumped the bellows, ran errands and learned the best uses of the hardies, swages, bicks, holdfasts and mandrels, the twenty kinds of hammers, the fifty kinds of tongs, the punches and chisels. When Mr. Judah Bitter, the smith, saw I was interested he undertook to tutor me in the arcane lore of the forge and anvil. Even blacksmithing has its heroes and Mr. Bitter was such a one. He inculcated in me a love for the black metal. Well do I remember the day I made my first adze.”

Embedded in this strew of words Jinot scented a clue; Mr. Bone favored him because he glimpsed something that made him equate Jinot's situation with that of the poor orphan emigrant. Jinot could understand that for Joe Dogg, but not for himself. Or did Mr. Bone see him as a lump of raw iron that needed heating and pounding to be made into a tool? His employer drew his gold watch from its pocket and smiled at it. “My family treasure.”

The coach stopped and three more travelers boarded, but Mr. Bone was wrought up and he continued, in a hissing whisper he imagined reached only Jinot's ear. His breath reeked of strong peppermint from the candy he kept in his pocket.

“Mr. Bitter favored me with an invitation to join him as partner in his smithy. There would be a new sign—‘Bitter and Bone'—it sounds well, does it not?” He noticed then that the entire population of the coach was staring at him agog. And shut up.

But when they were at the rough inn, Mr. Bone returned to his subject. “As I said, Mr. Bitter offered me a partnership. I accepted. But before the arrangements were complete, Mr. Bitter, on his way home from the smithy, was run down by a profligate jehu swilled to the gills. The smithy went by inheritance law to an idiot nephew who could not tell an anvil from an anthill, and once more I was bereft and alone and without resources.

“I looked about me to discover what I might do. I saw the vast forests, saw the great need of thousands of people to build houses and barns, and so I decided on the ax. I recognized the opportunity and vowed my axes would be the best.”

Emboldened by the toddy Jinot had to ask. “Why favor me, Mr. Bone? I do wonder.” There was a long silence, then Mr. Bone stirred, sighed and spoke.

“When I saw the great injustices that my race visited on the native population I took a private vow to encourage young Indian men to take up a trade. It is the Christian way. Had I not become a smith I might have been drawn to the missionary life among the heathen. It is my hope that you may become the first Indian businessman, a part of the society in which you now live. Do you visit your people often? If not, you should, for there may be excellent business opportunities to be discovered. I think I have shown you how to see those opportunities.” Jinot shuddered inwardly.

•  •  •

Hugh Boss, the hammerman, became a friend, and Jinot began to spend Saturday evenings at the family household playing checkers. The Boss family lived in a large cabin a mile from the factory. Mrs. Boss, a pretty woman with wheat-colored hair and wide hips, was usually swollen with pregnancy. She hovered constantly over the cast-iron cooking range and was a notable cook. But what Jinot liked were the children, for the Boss family was large, from Minnie, at sixteen the oldest, to Baby, barely a year old, and eight more in between.

Minnie, petite, dark-haired and dark-eyed, had inherited Hugh Boss's scoliosis and once a month had to visit Dr. Mallard for cruel stretching exercises. In the doctor's “stretching room” she removed all her clothing above the waist, for the doctor had to observe her spine; stepped under an enormous tripod, where he fitted her into a complicated system of straps and pads that was his own invention. She was mightily stretched, almost hoisted into the air while Dr. Mallard adjusted the tension to force her spine into a straighter position. She told Jinot that at first she had been ashamed to stand half naked before the doctor but he was indifferent to anything but the curve of her spine and she no longer went crimson with embarrassment. After each treatment Minnie was carried home exhausted by the ordeal. Jinot, who understood the pain of stretching recalcitrant muscles and tissues, sometimes read aloud to her while she lay on the kitchen daybed with the coverlet drawn up under her small chin. She was not a pretty girl, but kind-natured despite the pain of her infirmity, and she responded to Jinot's sympathy with growing love which did not escape Hugh Boss's eye. For a long time nothing was said and he got used to the idea of Minnie and Jinot together, despite the years between them.

When Dr. Mallard said Minnie was much improved and he would allow two months between stretching sessions, the family declared a celebration. Hugh Boss gave her money for dress fabric. That Sunday she appeared in the new dress and Jinot's eyes went wide. The dress was the marvelous blue of Beatrix's old dressing gown and it was silk.

Hugh Boss took Jinot out to the cow barn, where he kept his jugs of hard cider.

“See here, Jinot, you know Minnie likes you a terrible lot.”

“I like her, too.” He fidgeted.

“Well, there's nothing to it then—we'll get the hitchin post set up.” A month later they were married in the front room of the Boss house. Minnie wore her blue silk dress and through the brief ceremony they could all hear the oaths and struggles of the men heaving up logs for the bridal couple's cabin in the back corner of Hugh Boss's pasture. Minnie thought of the flower game she played as a girl pulling petals off a daisy to discover who she would marry: rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. Well, he wasn't a chief.

With the birth of his and Minnie's first children—twin boys Amboise and Aaron, who resembled Kuntaw more than Hugh Boss—it seemed to Jinot that now he was like other men and could nearly understand once-mysterious truths. It could not last.

•  •  •

Minnie was a nervous mother, daily inspecting the posture of the boys to see if there were signs of scoliosis. She took Amboise and Aaron to Dr. Mallard as soon as they began walking, but he saw no sign of the deformity. “Of course, my dear, it can always appear later in life, often not visible even to the expert eye”—he blinked modestly—“until well under way. We shall keep a close watch on the children. Bring them in for consultation every six months, and we shall hope to catch it early if in fact it appears and correct any malformation. As for yourself, I had hopes that childbearing would help augment the stretching sessions you so bravely endured, but it seems it is not so. It has come to endurance rather than cure.” It was so; Minnie bent more and more to the left, her posture at table a decided lean. The left shoulder of her old jacket hanging on the wooden hook near the door hung low. She worried, worried about everything—that her father would catch a hand under the relentless hammer, that Jinot would disappear (for he often enough went away with Mr. Bone on business), that disease or pestilence would take them all. Many nights she woke shuddering from dreams of her children being torn apart by hydrophobic dogs, stretching out imploring little hands to her and she, straining every muscle but bound by her twisted back, unable to reach them but forced to hear their piteous cries.

Hugh Boss made play objects for the children, one winter, a glass-smooth birch plank with strips of polished steel embedded in the underside for snow sliding, a kind of toboggan. There was a stand of young spruce at the bottom of their sloping land, a favorite resort for the neighborhood children in summer as the narrow passages between the trees were a twisted maze, greenish and shadowy tunnels ideal for I Spy and the noisy intricacies of Sheep and Wolf. Jinot sometimes joined them in this game, they the sheep scampering through the tunnels, Jinot the ferocious howling wolf. In winter the snowy slope was the neighborhood sliding place. The winter Amboise and Aaron were six, a freakish rain storm gave Sam Withers, a prankish neighbor boy, the idea of sprinkling even more water on the already icy slide that it might freeze. A sharp temperature plunge converted the slope to a trackless icy pitch. Sam Withers, claiming responsibility for the ice, took the first ride. The plank swerved and curveted at speed, Sam screeching with excitement at his brilliant success. “Me! Me next!” Three boys squeezed together on the plank for the second ride, Sam in the back, then Aaron and in the front, Amboise. The greater weight gave the object more speed and a less wavering track. The toboggan could not be steered and remorselessly curved toward the spruce bosque, the metal strips on the underside of the ride setting up a whine, and every tiny ridge in the ice producing a clatter that gave proof of great speed. There was no avoiding the spiky trees and the conveyance plunged into the naked lower branches like a meteorite.

Minnie heard Aaron's shriek and Sam Withers's bawling roar for the whipping he knew he would get. She ran out in her apron, one shoe lost in the snow. On the icy slope she saw the boys entangled in the spruce, saw bloody-faced Aaron on hands and knees crawling toward her, saw Sam Withers stumble deeper into the trees, saw Amboise inert. She slipped and fell and had to creep to reach him.

Amboise lay on his right side, pierced through the neck by a dry stick-spear one of the children had left in the trees during the days of summer games; the pulsing fountain of blood was already down to a trickle, and she gave a cry that shook the limbs of the forest.

•  •  •

Jinot became grave and serious after the death of young Amboise. Away with Mr. Bone, he had not found out until late that evening, when their coach returned. By then Minnie and Aaron had fallen into a fatalistic calm. The three-year old twins, Lewie and Lancey, slept, unknowing, uncaring. Jinot went outside and walked the night with spasmodic spells of choking cries, returning to the house a little before dawn.

When he came in, cold and exhausted, Minnie, driven by habit, was making tea. They sat together at the blue-painted kitchen table, their hands locked as though all that could not be said could be understood through gripping fingers. The firelight shone from the grate and colored red the tears on their cheeks. The house was somber for days until Lewie and Lancey began to laugh and run again.

•  •  •

The loss of Amboise reawakened Jinot's hunger for relatives and he decided to find Elise and Josime. He began by constructing a careful and painful letter to Francis-Outger, for at least he knew he lived on Penobscot Bay and he was sure the half brother would know where Elise and Dr. Hallagher were. He sent off his letter with trepidation and doubted he would ever receive a reply. It was almost comical how quickly a letter came.

Dear Jinot.

I was inexpressibly delighted to have your missive. How glad I am that mother's lessons were not forgot. We have long wondered what adventures you have undergone, and your description of the terrible Miramichi fire, your injuries and the loss of our brother Amboise and your little son was painful to read. But it seems you have fallen on good times from your benefactor, Mr. Albert Bone. You have been fortunate too in choosing a wife and in your wealth of children.

I can grant your wish to know the whereabouts of Elise. She and Dr. Hallagher have a domicile in Boston. The address is below. Their youngest son, Humphrey, has an unusual medical condition where the muscles of the body somehow convert to bone. Learned doctors come to the house to examine and prescribe, but nothing really makes the ailment better. The poor child likely has not long to live before he is solid bone. I am sure Elise would skreech with joy if you were to pay a call on her. Boston is not so far distant from you. (Nor is Penobscot, and you are ever welcome here.)

As for Josime, your account of parting with him in Montreal is the most recent news. I have felt rather pained that he has never seen fit to write me as we are full blood brothers. I suffer bouts of pleurisy and debilitating headaches but suppose one must expect such ailments as one ages.

I will close now as I wish to get this off in the next post. I hope we may soon meet again and exchange news, at the very least, that we may continue to correspond.

Your affectionate half brother, Francis-Outger Sel

Penobscot Bay, Maine

Now Elise was on Jinot's mind constantly. A fortnight later, on a brilliant April day so enriched with untimely summer warmth that the horses took pleasure in being alive, tossed their heads and looked at the azure sky, he took the stage to Boston and began his search on foot. He had not written, thinking a surprise visit would be better, a bit of drama for Elise. He took half a day asking directions before he found the Hallaghers' plain brick two-story house. There was a clapboard addition on the south side and a sign reading:
DR. HALLAGHER, M.D
.