Barkskins

by Annie Proulx

But Nicolaus, who spent much time with the company’s contract tree cutters, saw Outger had some similarity with the half-unbalanced men who came in from the isolation of the woods. The forest had made them strange—“woods-queer”—as some called it. They leapt with fright at any loud noise, they took their pay and then stormed back into the office an hour later demanding to be compensated—and were flustered when Henk Steen showed them their Xs or signatures on the receipts. But Nicolaus understood. The moment of payment had been too matter-of-fact; there had been no ceremony, no release from the tensions of solitude and dangerous work. He invited the overwrought barkskins to a nearby tavern for a drink. He urged them to tell him of the perils of the recent job—the catface growth that caused a tree to twist and fall badly, illnesses and other afflictions, unseen tree limbs that hurtled down, food shortages, troublesome men. An hour or so of putting the past into the past restored their hearts. It was the same, he thought, with Outger. He would take the man aside and urge him to talk of his invention and the difficulties he had suffered in creating it—whatever it was.