He removed a knife from his belt and touched the tip to the gelatinous surface of the eye, testing the blink reflex to be sure it was dead. After he released the bloodied paw from the trap Peyton used his hatchet against the trunk of a deadfall to remove the front paws above the wrists. He used his knife to cut through the fur along both thighs, from the feet to the bared flesh of the anus, then skinned out the back legs and cut the pelt free from the ankles. He tied one naked back leg to the branches of a tree about chest-high and worked the thick chimney-sweep tail clear of the tailbone, then split it open along the underside. He used the weight of his body to inch the pelt down the length of the carcass and free of the pawless front legs, pulling them from the fur like a child’s arms helped from a troublesome sweater. He clipped the ear cartilage from the skull, cut deftly around the eye sockets, then skinned out the black lips and the dark, still-wet nose.
Peyton reached a hand into the length of the animal’s coat and pulled the fur right-side out. It was a few weeks shy of priming out, but the plush was thick and even, the colour bright as life. The heat of the body still clinging to the pelt, the fur warm against his bare hands.
The Lake
March month, 1819
FIVE
Conditions on the river were near perfect for travel: steady ice, fair weather. There were eight of them in the party all told, Peyton and John Senior, Richmond, Taylor and Reilly, Matthew Hughster and William Cull — who was nearly the age of John Senior — and the youngster, Michael Sharpe. They walked from sun-up till well past dark, and without the loaded sledges they’d hauled up the river with Buchan they made astonishingly good time, averaging more than twenty miles a day. By the fourth night they had nearly reached Badger Bay Brook and were within a day of the lake. Two men were put under arms through the night, Taylor and Michael Sharpe taking the early watch while the others settled about the fire. Peyton lay awake, listening to Taylor talk to young Michael who was new to the shore and still too green to burn. He was telling the story of the man who died of exhaustion in a whorehouse after drinking a glass of beaver pride.
Michael Sharpe said, “A man can’t die from that.”
There was no conviction in his voice and Taylor laughed at him. “What would a pup your age know about it?”
“I know a thing or two.”
Taylor gave a long, dismissive groan. “I wasn’t much above your age when I come this way,” he said. “But not half as wet.”
“You come up to work for Master Peyton?” Michael Sharpe asked.
Taylor shook his head. “Harry Miller was the one took us on, me and Richmond.”
Three weeks after John Senior had carried them across to Miller’s property from Fogo Island, Tom Taylor kissed his new bride goodbye on the steps of Miller’s winter house. He and Richmond followed Miller into the woods for their first season of trapping, each man carrying packs that weighed in at eighty-five kilograms. There were two sledges hauled by dogs over the first snow of the season. The weight of the sledges and the thin snow made for heavy going and at times the men took it in turns to replace the dogs in the harness to haul over rough or exposed ground.
For the next three months the men bunked in together as winter came on in its full strength and snow filled the woods slowly like the bilge rising in a boat shipping water. They marked their lines through the bush, long crooked spokes extending from the hub of the log tilt. They were out for up to a week at a time and they took beaver, fox, marten and an occasional wolf. Miller tutored them on the skinning of the animals and how to separate the thin layer of fat from the hides without ruining the coat and how to mix the combination of wood ash and animal lard that cured the pelt.
Michael Sharpe said, “Did you see much of the Reds in there?”
Taylor shook his head. “No, not the winter. I didn’t get my first look till the spring. Miller had us build a new weir on a salmon run beyond Charles Brook.”
As soon as the thaw was well underway Richmond and Taylor began constructing a log-and-rock dam at a narrow, shallow bend in the river. For two weeks they worked waist-deep in frigid water, weighting a frame of spruce logs with stones to construct a wooden weir across the river. Each afternoon when he stripped out of his soaked clothing Taylor’s feet were white and numb, the shrivelled skin of the soles embossed with patterns like frost on glass. His scrotum was as tight as a shell, the testicles drawn up into his torso, and he had to force them back into the sac with his fingers.