Excerpt from Barkskins by Annie Proulx, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It was not light when Monsieur Trépagny wrenched open the door and shouted in a hard voice, "Allons-y!" Behind the partition came the sound of jets of milk hitting the bottom of a wooden bucket. He tossed them pieces of smoked sturgeon and took his steel-bladed ax from the wall, gave them each a short-hafted dulled ax. René's had a great chip missing from the cutting edge. In the dripping dawn Trépagny led them past a maize garden and into a small clearing. He swung his arm in an arc and in an ironic voice called the cramped space his big clearing—"le grand défrichement"—then began to chop at a tree with skillful strokes. He commanded them to do the same. He said today they would cut logs to build their quarters, an enlargement of his domus, so that they might vacate his storehouse as quickly as possible. René swung the short-handled trade tool, felt the jolt of the tree's resistance, swung again, embarking on his life's work of clearing the forest of New France. Duquet nibbled at a tree with his hatchet, a yellow discharge leaking from his bitten eyes. They limbed the fallen trees, rolled and dragged them to the edge of the clearing. The branches went aside to be chopped later into cordwood.

The ax was dull. In the time it took René to fell one smallish tree, the master brought down three larger and was at work on a fourth. There must be a way to sharpen an ax with a quarter of the cutting edge gone, he thought. He would refresh its sharpness; with doubts he chose a river cobble and began to grind with circular motions. There was no visible progress and he soon began chopping again. Monsieur Trépagny picked up the useless cobble and threw it into the forest, took the ax from René and flourished it. "To sharpen," he said, "we use sandstone—grès." He pantomimed the sharpening. René wanted to ask where Monsieur Trépagny kept his sharpening stones but the man's glaring expression kept him quiet.

Monsieur Trépagny twisted his lips at Duquet's whittle marks. He regarded Duquet's lopsided face. "Open your mouth," he said, tapped the rotten tooth with the blade of his knife and muttered that he would pull it at the end of the day. Duquet made a negative sound.

At the height of the sun the sauvage woman brought a pot of steaming maize. René had rarely eaten food at midday. With a wood chip Monsieur Trépagny scooped out a glob. In the center of the maize melted a creamy substance. René took some on his wood chip, was overcome by the richness. "Ah!" he said and took more. Monsieur Trépagny said tersely that it was cacamos, moose bone marrow. Duquet barely ate even this and leaned against a tree breathing noisily.

At twilight they left the clearing. Monsieur Trépagny clattered through his smithy tools until he found a pair of ironmonger's pliers. Duquet sat openmouthed on a stump and Monsieur Trépagny seized the tooth with the tool and wrenched. He dropped the yellow fang on the ground. Duquet spat blood and pus, his lower lip split from the weight of the pliers. "Yet this moneyless weakling burned with lust for wealth," said Monsieur Trépagny, moving toward his house. René saw him pick up Duquet's tooth and put it in his pocket.

The men entered the single room and their masculine stench blended into the human funk of the north woods. The pockmarked, Mari, noticed René's nostrils flare at the smell of the house and threw an aromatic juniper branch on the fire. In the hubhub of brats they heard some names—Elphège, Theotiste, Jean-Baptiste, but they all looked the same and so like their Mi'kmaw mother that René forgot them immediately. Mari spoke a patois of mixed Mi'kmaq and terse French with a few Portuguese phrases in a curious rhythm. The children had French names.

Excerpted from Barskins: A Novel by Annie Proulx. Copyright © 2016 by Dead Line, Ltd. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.