Читать книгу Barkskins - Энни Пру, Annie Proulx - Страница 18

Duquet could not keep his mind on furs. Again and again he considered the dense problems of the timber trade. First, the trees; the best ones did not always grow near river landings. And who would buy the raw logs when every man could cut what he needed? But sawn planks, ready to carpenter—that was the way. A water-powered sawmill or a sawpit with tools and men was a primary necessity.

He began to note objects made of wood: everything in the world. And it was all around him in quantities inexhaustible and prime. Could the Royal French Navy be persuaded to buy New France timber? England, he knew, badly wanted naval stores as the endless war had disrupted their heavy Baltic trade. Although England was the enemy there were great benefits in trading with them, perhaps possible through a third party. And what of Spain and Portugal? His mind began to weigh the possibilities.

He talked to himself as the Trépagnys did not care for the subject.

“Which trees are most desirable? Oak, of course, but oak is scattered and seems to grow only in certain places. Why it is not widespread, as pine and spruce, I do not know.” Could English shipbuilders use pine? Hemlock? Beech? How could he move the desirable mast trees from the forest to a ship? Indeed, he needed a ship and a captain if he was to deliver wood products to a land as distant as France.

Thinking of uncommon woods sent his thoughts back to the fur trade, his immediate calling. Why should he concentrate on beaver as everyone else did? There must be those who desired other furs as mink, ermine, otter, muskrat, fox, spotted lynx and marten. He decided to take a season gathering such luxury furs, then go to France with a shipload of rare pelts. He began at once, harrying the Indians for every kind of fur, acting as his own middleman. Sitting at the campfire drinking the harsh whiskey intended for the Indians (fiery with pequin peppers from the Caribe to prove its strength), on his last evening with the Trépagnys he declared that, while he was in France, he would find himself a wife and set her to work bearing children. The Trépagny brothers, in their farewell debauch, said jokingly, while he was at it, to bring back women for them.

Duquet took passage on a ship bound for France commanded by Captain Honoré Deyon, a grey and weathered man with a syphilitic chancre on his upper lip. When the captain invited him to dine Duquet used the opportunity and asked how he might find passage on a China-bound ship.

“I know European ships go there,” he said. Captain Deyon brushed the chancre with the knuckle of his right index finger and sighed heavily.

“All the world wants to go to China,” he said. “They say, sir, that it is an immensely rich country with many interesting and beautiful objects. On the return one may stop in the islands and purchase the best coffee. And it is known the profits from tea and silks are enormous, and coffee as well, I daresay. But it is not so easy to trade in China. For permission, one must be part of an official delegation as well as prepare great gifts for the emperor and the many officials. This gift, and many others, they take as their just due. And they are not much interested in western goods, only silver. They say they have everything they need or want in their own country. I have no idea what your goods are, but a lone merchant—if you are such, sir—really cannot do business there. It is too difficult.”

“My business is fine furs. But even if I cannot get there,” said Duquet, “how is it others reach China? Who does trade there? Who sends ships to China?”

“The Portuguese were first. Now the Dutch, England, and even France—all are trying to work the eastern trade. But the Dutch are the ones who go there regularly. The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie—the Dutch East India Company, largest business in the world, controls everything. Perhaps you can find a sympathetic captain who will take you aboard. And I have heard there are a few independent captain traders who are not tied to the VOC. Those are the men you should seek out. But I know none of them.”

He swallowed his tumbler of rum and delicately touched the sore on his lip with the long nail of his little finger. “And,” he said, “I doubt you speak Chinese.”

“Very little,” said Duquet. He would learn the most important words as soon as he heard them.

In La Rochelle, unpleasant feelings came over Duquet. The old smells of poverty nearly sent him bending and creeping along close to the walls as he had done in childhood. Relentless hunger and chilblains had been his childhood lot. Of his father he remembered beatings and curses, and at the last, a pair of receding legs.

His eyes burned from the smoke of greasy street fires and he thought of the clear rivers of Kébec, of the forest air, and with these cleansing memories he regained himself. Yet he was mortified that his clothes and person announced him as a country bumpkin in French streets.

In New France he and the Trépagny brothers had been skillful with war hatchets but he saw no hatchets on the streets of La Rochelle. He went to the armorers and purchased a Walloon sword, ambidextrous, flexible. He saw many of these on the street. It was a gentleman’s sword. One day, he swore silently, he would order fine garments and a full, rich wig.

In the area between rue des Petits-Bacs and rue Admyrauld, where the merchants congregated daily, he talked with a sallow wool merchant whose greasy hands trembled; when Duquet casually mentioned China, the merchant said his cousin had been a sailor pressed into three years’ service on a Dutch voyage from Hoorn to Guangzhou, that the English called Canton.

“He said it was a very long journey to a horrible place,” and the merchant passed back Duquet’s brandy bottle. “Very strong stink. Food? Affreux! Foreigners not allowed in the city, but penned up in a horrible foreigners’ quarter. He prayed to return home. And they despised the ship’s cargo, which was horses, the captain having heard the Chinese longed for them horribly. But in Canton the go-between merchant said China now had secured its own horses from the north. So the trip was for nothing. And on the return journey the captain was so angry he pushed all those horrible worthless horses into the sea. They could see them swimming after the ship for a long time.”

“Oh, horrible,” said Duquet, at once planning to make his way to Amsterdam or Hoorn. How many times had Forgeron told him the men of the Low Countries had a talent for business?

“Stay away from the East India Company ships. They are bound by hard rules and the captains take blood oaths to uphold them. It is a horrible, grasping company that allowed no competition for many years. Only East India ships were allowed to traverse the horrible Strait of Magellan. Now the Cape Horn route has been discovered their grasp is broken, but the old animosities linger. You must choose a captain with care.”