A day later they started their journey on two hired horses, one the yellow horse from Armenius’s former trip. “At the junction we will bypass the trail to the Duke purchases and go north. Cousin, I mention that we will pass a stump farm that belongs to an incompetent farmer, Anton Heinrich. He has worn out two farms already and is quickly ruining the third. He has a quite pretty daughter. You have heard all the old stories about farmers’ daughters? Yes, they are true. I lay with this girl but it was rather — I can’t say. Maybe we stop there again.”
So Dieter discovered an unknown side of his cousin. Nor had he suspected he could speak so casually of bribes, for the clerk had made it clear when they returned the next day that information about the pines farther north should be rewarded. Armenius told him that if they found heavy timber to be there they would certainly stop in on their return and make an arrangement. His cousin had become an American.
• • •
The Heinrich log house came in sight. Moony, one of the dummkopf sons, was splitting stove wood, Kelmar, the other, stacking it on the listing porch. As they came nearer Moony slammed his ax into the chopping block and ran inside, calling, “Ma! Ma!” A woman with two small children clutching her skirts came out. Dieter thought she looked like a barn cat. She had been at her washtub and her hands were like wet roots.
“Hullo, Mistress Kristina,” said Armenius cheerfully. “Is Anton at home today?”
The woman gave a howl, threw her apron up over her face and lurched inside. Armenius and Dieter looked at each other. Moony edged closer and stood clenching and unclenching his hands.
“What is wrong? Where is your father? Anton. Is he here?” Armenius saw the daughter holding the hands of two more children. He stepped toward her and she stepped back.
Moony opened his mouth to speak, as though he had something to tell but didn’t know how to go about it. Armenius looked at Kelmar.
“Was ist los? Tell me!” He remembered the two fools had a few words of English, a few words of Deutsch.
“Vater—” said Kelmar forcefully. And again, “Vater.”
“Ja?” encouraged Armenius.
“Kaput,” said Moony.
It was the girl who, keeping at a distance, told them a bizarre story. She looked only at Dieter and spoke to him in a low voice. If Armenius made a step in her direction she moved back. She said the father had been chopping trees with Moony and Kelmar. Father was not so quick. A big tree had fallen and pinned him to the ground. He cried for help. Moony and Kelmar came to him. They were strong. They seized the butt end of the tree and began to pull. They dragged the entire tree across Vater’s body as he shrieked. At this point Moony, who had been listening and grinning, gave an imitation of Vater’s agonizing cries.
“And where is he now?” asked Armenius.
“He did not live. That tree’s branches tore his belly and his inside came outside when they pulled.”
“Kaput,” said Moony.
“Fucked,” said Kelmar in clear English.
“Let us get away from this place,” said Dieter sotto voce. He did not like Moony and Kelmar and it was clear the girl was avoiding Armenius. The whole family seemed deranged. The thought came to him that his cousin might be something of a scoundrel. So?
• • •
They said nothing until dark fell and Armenius had a fire going.
He said, “I have never heard anything as stupid as that. Never. They could have trimmed the limbs and lifted it off him. They could have chopped away the crown and butt to small size. One could have pried it up while the other pulled the man out. They could have rigged a hoist.”
Dieter murmured, “Sometimes one must get tired of chopping trees endlessly.”
For the next ten days they walked through the great pines and Dieter became very quiet. Occasionally he scraped away the needles and examined the soil beneath the duff.
“You see?” said Armenius as they stood tiny and amazed in the kingdom of the pines.
“I do,” said Dieter as though pledging a marriage vow.
• • •
A decanter of brandy stood on a side table in Edward Duke’s mahogany office. Edward was turning the pages of a thick sheaf of survey pages and locating them on a crisp, new-drawn map of Saginaw Bay’s shoreline with the Duke & Sons sections neatly crosshatched in sepia ink. He had come to believe the exploration and discovery had all come about at his urging.
“Hullo, Cyrus. Ready for the great move?” Cyrus would head up the new offices in Detroit. A wagonload of desks and chairs, boxes of papers, ink bottles, pens and other office impedimenta had headed west two weeks before, three fresh-hired clerks to oversee the journey and unpacking. A fourth clerk, Lavinia Duke, would remain at the Boston office and work for Edward, Freegrace and James for a year arranging markets for their Michigan lumber. Edward had not been scandalized — Lavinia was blood kin. She was cleverer than any clerk Edward remembered. She brought order to chaos.
“I have something you need to see,” said Cyrus. He unfurled another map, laid it over Edward’s desk and handed him a new wad of survey information.
Edward stared at it without seeing anything remarkable.
“What is this supposed to be?” he said. “It looks like land parcels farther north — has James been enlarging the scope of the purchases? I do not feel we are ready to do this. We are quite overextended and need to see income before any more goes out—” He had finally noticed a name on the top survey page.
“What is this? Graf Ernst-August von Rotstein? A competitor?”
“Indeed. Look more closely.”
Edward peered. The purchaser of these northern timber lots was the RBB Timber Company. “Who are they? Maine men? How did they learn about this?”
“RBB stands for Rotstein, Breitsprecher and Breitsprecher. Our old landlooker has become our formidable competitor. You may remember his cousin, the manager of an estate forest in Prussia?”
“Ichabod Crane. I remember him perfectly. Dreadful fellow.”
“The dreadful fellow is related to Graf Ernst-August von Rotstein. He is enormously wealthy and already their holdings almost equal ours.”
“I knew it! I knew it! I never trusted Breitsprecher. The snake, the damnable cursèd python.”
“It is too bad Lennart chose this time to be away. But I will go to James’s house and let him know.” Lavinia, behind the door, heard it all and ran home, getting to James before Cyrus arrived.
“Papa! Treachery!” she shouted. “Breitsprecher and his cousin and a rich man have bought a quarter million acres of Michigan pine. They are now our enemies.” And so a rivalry began.
56. Lavinia
Edward, fat ancient Edward, who had become a great gourmand in the years since his wife Lydia’s death, called for a dinner party to celebrate the rich returns of the first Michigan cut.
“Everyone must come, though of course Cyrus and James cannot, for they are in Detroit. We’ll have those hearty lobsters, though how they shall be prepared I will leave to the chef, thrushes à la Liègeoise, and one of the black turkeys from Newport sweetened on acorns, la surprise and then an English rosbif with Russian salad. And whatever else the chef wishes to give us. The wines I will discuss with Freegrace.” He laughed his old man’s reedy heyheyhey as Lavinia wrote out the invitations. It was a Duke & Sons business affair, and without a doubt the company could afford to scrape the Boston Market stalls empty, stalls always heaped with the bounteous harvests of market hunters at pennies for a brace — pigeons, turkeys, wood thrushes and robins, pipits, countless ducks, swans and geese, even owls, reputed to taste like chicken.