The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  From a distance the driver had seemed to be a man, but now they saw it to be a dumpy, leather-faced woman in the hat and deerskin coat of a fur-trapper. The light was poor, but even in the dark Ebenezer would have known her at once.

  “I’God, what chance is this?” He laughed incredulously and stepped close to convince himself. “Is’t Mary Mungummory I see?”

  “No other soul,” Mary answered cheerily. “Get up with ye now, and tell me whither thou’rt bound.”

  They climbed to the wagon-seat readily, glad to rest their legs, and McEvoy named their destination and intent.

  Mary shook her head. “Well, lads, ’tis your own affair where ye sleep, but take care; ’tis a cruel and cranky wight owns yonder barn. Thou’rt free to sleep back in the wagon, if ye wish to; I’ve no end o’ quilts and coverlets back there, and nobody to use ’em till we reach Church Creek. Giddap, Aphrodite!”

  She whipped up her white mare, and they proceeded up the road.

  “Mary Mungummory!” Ebenezer cried again. “ ’Tis a proper miracle! How is’t thou’rt here in this Avernus of a marsh?”

  “ ’Tis the fundament o’ Dorset, right enough,” the woman admitted, “but it’s on my regular route nonetheless. Just now I’m out o’ girls,” she explained to McEvoy, who plainly did not know what to make of her, “but there’s one in Church Creek I’ve heard is ripe for whoring.”

  “Ah Mary!” laughed Ebenezer, still astonished. “Thou’rt the person I’ve yearned all day to see, and you have forgot me! What news I have to tell you!”

  “There’s many a lad yearns to see this wagon down the lane,” Mary observed, but peered at her passenger more closely. “Why, praise God, now! Is’t Eben Cooke the poet? I declare it is, and your poor wife told me ye’d flown to England!”

  McEvoy frowned, and the poet blushed with shame. “You’ve seen Joan?”

  Mary clucked her tongue. “I saw her this very week, near dead o’ pox and opium—to say naught o’ her broken heart. Didn’t I tell her to come in the wagon with me and let me give her a cure? Not that there’s aught can save her now, but ’twould keep the salvages off her, at the least. Ah, Mister Cooke, ye did wrong by that girl, that asked such a trifle of ye. Are ye bound for Malden, to take your medicine like a man?”

  “I—I am,” Ebenezer said miserably, “just as soon as I’m free to. There’s much I must tell you, Mary, as we go along… But i’faith, I’ve lost my manners! John McEvoy, this is Mary Mungummory.”

  “The Traveling Whore o’ Dorset,” Mary added proudly, shaking hands in the masculine fashion with McEvoy.

  “So she calls herself,” Ebenezer declared, “but she is the most Christian lady in the Province, I swear.” He then introduced McEvoy as an old and dear friend from London, and though he could scarcely wait to tell Mary about the coming Indian uprising, her late lover Charley Mattassin’s brothers, and the urgent mission to which he was committed, his curiosity and bad conscience led him first to inquire further about the state of things at Malden.

  Mary cocked her head and clucked her tongue again. “There’s much hath changed since ye ran off: all manner o’ queer goings-on, that nor Joan Toast nor any soul else seems to know the sense of—myself included, that left my girls and bade Bill Smith adieu as soon as Tim Mitchell disappeared.”

  “Is my father there, do you know? Andrew Cooke? And what of the cooper?”

  “There’s a wight that calls himself Andrew Cooke, all right,” Mary said. “Whether he’s your father is past Joan’s proving, and mine, that ne’er laid eyes on him in England. He is a hard-hearted wretch in my case, I swear! Bill Smith’s there too, and still hath title to the place, albeit I hear there’s every sort o’ lawsuits on the fire. But i’Christ, I’ll say no more; there’s much afoot, that ye’ll learn of better for yourself.” She chuckled. “What a stir ’twill make when you walk in!”

  “One question more,” begged Ebenezer. “I must know whether my sister Anna is there with Father.”

  “Ye mean to say ye do have a sister?” Mary glanced at him thoughtfully and urged the mare on through the twilight.

  “You have news of her? Where is she?”

  “Nay,” Mary answered, “I’ve not heard aught of her. The truth is, this wight that calls himself your father told Bill Smith’s lawyer—ye recall that blaspheming thief Dick Sowter?—told Sowter ye was the only heir to Cooke’s Point: no brothers or sisters. Then when some fellow recollected ye was born twins, he changed his story and swore the other twin died o’ the Plague.”

  “This is fantastic!” Ebenezer pressed the woman for a description of this Andrew Cooke; the detail of the withered right arm convinced him it was his father, but she could shed no light on the strange assertions.

  “Ye’ll see what’s what soon enough, I’ll wager,” she repeated. By this time their intended lodging was far behind them, and marshy ground began to appear once more not far from the road. A cold wind sprang up in the gathering darkness.

  “Marry, I’ve much to tell you!” the poet cried with new enthusiasm. “I scarce know where to commence!”

  “Why, then, think it out tonight and start fresh in the morning,” Mary replied. With her whip she pointed to a lighted window in the distance. “Vender’s where we’ll stop: ’tis an old friend o’ mine lives there.”

  “I’God, don’t put me off! If aught I said distressed you, prithee forgive me for’t; but what I have to say concerns you as well as me.”

  “Indeed, sir? How might that be?”

  Ebenezer hesitated. “Well—did you know Charley Mattassin had a brother?”

  She regarded him pensively. “Aye, a salvage down on Bloodsworth Island. What do ye know of him?”

  Ebenezer laughed distractedly. “There’s so much to tell! Stay, now—did you know he had two brothers, and Henry Burlingame—that is to say, Tim Mitchell, that I said had the same strange character as your Charley–-—I’m all entangled! Tell me this, Mary: when did you last see Tim Mitchell, and where is he now?”

  Full of wonder, Mary replied that she had not seen Tim Mitchell for weeks, even months; it was rumored, in fact, that he had not been Captain Mitchell’s son at all, but an impostor of some sort, the agent of certain powerful and unidentified interests hostile to the equally powerful and unidentified syndicate in which Captain Mitchell was a major figure. Tim’s disappearance had been the occasion for great alarm and mutual suspicion among Captain Mitchell, William Smith, and the other operatives in the organization, but for Mary herself, by her own admission, it had been a stroke of good fortune, for he had been a hard taskmaster for her girls at Malden.

  “Then you don’t know where he is?” Ebenezer interrupted. “I must find him within a fortnight, or I and three companions will die—nay, I’ll explain in time. Know, Mary, that the man you called Tim Mitchell is really Henry Burlingame the Third, son of the Tayac Chicamec of the Ahatchwhoops and brother to Charley Mattassin and Cohunkowprets, whom we must find also or perish! All we know of him is that he was sent on a mission by his father, as was Mattassin before him, and like Mattassin he was detained by some English Calypso—” He smiled in order to indicate to Mary that he had not betrayed her confidence to McEvoy. “This was some days or weeks ago, I gather, and the Tayac hath not seen him since. I hoped you might have heard rumors in the County of a half-breed salvage turned proper Englishman.”

  “Dear Heav’n!” Mary threw back her head and closed her eyes. “Did ye say he plays the Englishman, Mister Cooke?”

  “That is the story as Chicamec heard it. The man took an English name, an English wife, and an English house.”

  “What did ye say was his English name?” Mary’s voice was husky; her face quite white.

  “I’ve no idea. Cohunkowprets, so we’re told, means Bill-of-the-Goose. What ails you, Mary? Have you seen him, then?”

  Mary turned Aphrodite stiffly into the lane of the lighted cabin, and the occupant stepped outside with a lantern to meet them.

  “Nay, Mi
ster Cooke, I’ve not seen him, but I have heard tell of a half-breed named Rumbly: Billy Rumbly—”

  “You have? Marry come up, John, this sainted lady will save me once again!” He squeezed her plump arm, but instead of her usual meaty laugh she gave a groan and shrank from his cordiality.

  “What in the name of Heaven is wrong with you, Mary?” he demanded. Already their host for the night recognized the sailcloth-covered wagon and called his greetings down the lane.

  “No time to tell ye now,” the woman muttered. “I’ll spin the tale for ye tomorrow morning on our way to Church Creek—that’s where this Billy Rumbly’s said to live, and I was bound for his place ere ever I met ye yonder on the road.”

  “Bound for there—” Ebenezer’s laugh rang over the marsh. “D’you hear that, John? This woman’s an angel of God, I swear! Not only hath she heard of Lord Cohunkowprets; she means to pay him a call!”

  Mary shook her head slowly. “Go to, go to, Mister Cooke. Go to.” They were close enough to the lantern of their host for Ebenezer to see the consternation on her face, and though he could not imagine what so alarmed her, his heart turned cold.

  “D’ye not recall who I am, and what business I have in Church Creek? I am the Traveling Whore o’ Dorset, Mister Cooke, and the trollop I lately got wind of, that may wish to join my traveling company—Whoa, Aphrodite! Whoa, girl!—I have a notion—just a notion, mind ye now—this tart may be your sister…”

  10

  The Englishing of Billy Rumbly Is Related,Purely from Hearsay, by the Traveling Whore o’ Dorset

  SUPPLICATE, CAJOLE, AND THREATEN as he might, Ebenezer could not prevail upon Mary Mungummory to speak farther on the subject of Anna’s whereabouts and circumstances. She saluted their host, a buck-skinned, thin-grinned, begrizzled old hermit of a fur-trapper, and would not hear the poet’s desperate expostulations.

  The old fellow held up his lantern and was clearly pleased at what its light disclosed, for he sprang about like a frog, croaking for joy.

  “Mary Mungummory! I swear ’tis old Mary at that!”

  Mary grunted. “Did ye look to see Helen o’ Troy in the Dorset marsh this time of the night?” She talked over-loudly, as one would to a man partially deaf. Her voice was rough with affection, and whether he grasped the allusion or not, the old man hopped and snorted appreciatively. He climbed up onto the side of the wagon and peeked inside as Mary drove Aphrodite up to his cabin.

  “Don’t strain your eyes, ye old lecher,” she shouted. “The cupboard’s bare till I reach Church Creek.” She changed the subject quickly. “These here are friends o’ mine, Harvey, down on their luck. If ye’ll stand dinner and lodging for the three of us, I’ll make it up to ye next time around.”

  “What fiddle is this?” Harvey cried. “D’ye think I’d not ha’ took after ye, had ye not turned in my lane? I looked at the moon three nights ago, and I thought: ’tis time Mary’s wagon came by.” He sprang off the wagon the instant it stopped at his cabin. “Come inside and thaw, now; there’s partridge and duck a-plenty, and cider to drown the lot o’ ye!”

  “We thank ye,” McEvoy said loudly. Ebenezer was too distraught to acknowledge the man’s charity with more than a nod; when their host ran ahead to open the cabin door, the poet whispered a final fierce entreaty to Mary to relieve his tortured fancy with explanation.

  “There’s no more Christian man in Dorset than Harvey Russecks,” she declared, ignoring him. “And few with less cause to feel kindness for his fellow creatures. He’s a brother to Sir Harry Russecks in Church Creek.”

  Her tone implied that this last assertion was intended to be revealing, but to Ebenezer, yawning and shivering with frustration as they entered the rude log cabin, it meant nothing at all.

  “I’ll just spit us a brace o’ partridge on the fire,” Harvey declared. “Haply ye’ll pass the cider-jug round, Mary; old Harvey’s got no cups to offer ye gentlemen.” He fussed about like a new bride, and soon two birds were roasting over the pine logs in the fireplace. There was only one chair in the cabin, but the wood floor boasted two black-bear pelts, as warm and easy a seat as one could ask.

  “If ye don’t know the miller Harry Russecks,” Mary went on, “thou’rt among the blest.” She addressed herself to Ebenezer; when the poet looked away, wincing at the irrelevancy of her discourse, she flared her nostrils and turned to McEvoy instead. “This Harry Russecks is the lyingest, cheatingest, braggingest bully ye’ll e’er mischance upon; thinks he’s a London peer, doth the wretch, and browbeats his neighbors to call him ‘Sir Harry’ all the while he gives ’em short weight on their flour and meal. Truth is, he’s no more a nobleman than his brother Harvey here, that’s the son of a common house-servant and not ashamed to own it. Tis Mrs. Russecks is an orphan child o’ the peerage—the miller’s wife, and as fine a woman as her husband is the contrary. The bitter part is, her father was the gentleman that the miller’s father served, but fortune used her so ill their positions turned arsy-turvy: she was a starving orphan and Harry a prosperous miller, and he married her a-purpose to tickle his vanity.”

  “Ye don’t say!” McEvoy shook his head in polite wonder and glanced uncomfortably from Ebenezer to their host, who pottered about, oblivious to the narrative.

  “He can’t hear me, never fear,” Mary assured him. “Poor devil had both his ears boxed till the drums cracked, as I hear, and ye can lightly guess who boxed ’em.”

  “The miller?” McEvoy asked.

  Mary pressed her lips and nodded. “Both brothers grew up with the lady I mentioned, and the story hath it they both were in love with her from the first, but Harvey was too shy and respectful o’ place to do aught but wet-dream of her, e’en when she was a-beggaring, while Harry’s lust was public as the moon. ’Twas when Harry wed her that Harvey took to living here in the marsh, and some years after, when he scolded Sir Harry for abusing the girl and putting on airs, the bully boxed his ears and well-nigh ground him into corn-meal.”

  The Irishman clucked his tongue.

  “How she came to be orphaned is a story in itself,” Mary went on doggedly. “She’s a lady o’ spirit, is Roxie Russecks, and don’t think she comes fawning at the great lout’s beck and call! Why, I could tell ye one or two things she had contrived—”

  “No more!” Ebenezer cried, clutching his ears. Even the hard-of-hearing trapper turned round. “I thank you humbly for your hospitality!” Ebenezer shouted to him. “And I’ve no wish to appear ungracious or ungrateful for’t! But Miss Mungummory here hath news of my long-lost sister, and I shall perish of anxiety if she keeps it from me any longer.”

  Harvey looked questioningly at Mary. “What is’t ails the wight?”

  “He’s not the only poor wretch on tenterhooks,” Mary snapped. “He hath news of his own close to my heart, but the tales are long and mazy, and here’s no place to spin ’em out. Let him wait till we’re on the road.”

  But the trapper joined his protests to Ebenezer’s.

  “No pleasure pleasures me as doth a well-spun tale, be’t sad or merry, shallow or deep! If the subject’s privy business, or unpleasant, who cares a fig? The road to Heaven’s beset with thistles, and methinks there’s many a cow-pat on’t. As for length, fie, fie!” He raised a horny finger. “A bad tale’s long though it want but an eyeblink for the telling, and a good tale short though it take from St. Swithin’s to Michaelmas to have done with’t. Ha! And the plot is tangled, d’ye say? Is’t more knotful or bewildered than the skein o’ life, that a good tale tangles the better to unsnarl? Nay, out with your story, now, and yours as well, sir, and shame on both o’ ye thou’rt not commenced already! Spin and tangle till the Dogstar sets i’ the Bay; a tale well wrought is the gossip o’ the gods, that see the heart and point o’ life on earth; the web o’ the world; the Warp and the Woof… I’Christ, I do love a story, sirs!”

  Even Mary was plainly impressed by her old friend’s eloquence, and though her scowl only darkened as he concluded, it was the scowl no
longer of recalcitrance but of grudging assent, and she agreed that tales would be told when the partridge was finished.

  “The fact of’t is,” she said loudly to Harvey, “you may have as much to say as any of us. ’Tis the half-breed Rumbly we’re interested in, amongst other matters. Master Cooke here can start us off, that hath some mysterious business with the wight, and then we’ll each add what we can. But not till the birds are done.”

  Harvey Russecks’s face brightened at the name Billy Rumbly, and squinted a bit at the mention of Ebenezer’s surname. “Thou’rt the poet chap that gave away his property?”

  “The same,” Ebenezer replied, no longer embarrassed by this identification. “You all may wait for your dinners if you wish; since I’m to start, I’ll start right now, listen who will, and tell you why not only my life but the life of every white-skinned person in the Province may depend on my finding a salvage called Cohunkowprets, within the month, and persuading him to listen to humane reasoning.” He proceeded to tell them about the capture of his party on Bloodsworth Island: the grand conspiracy of fugitive Negroes and disaffected Maryland Indians; his relationship with Drepacca and Quassapelagh, and the peculiar status of the Tayac Chicamec in the triumvirate. As briefly as the complexity of the subject permitted he described the history of Chicamec’s antagonism towards the English, the ironic fates of his three sons, and the consequent insecurity of his present position in the conspiracy. Mary Mungummory and Harvey Russecks hung astonished on the tale; had not McEvoy been already familiar with the greater portion of it and thus able to devote his attention at times to other matters, the two partridges would have burned untended on the spit.

  “Marry sir, do I have’t aright?” he asked incredulously. “Ye must deliver Cohunkowprets or the other wight to Bloodsworth Island within the month, or else the salvages will burn the two hostages?”

  “They’ll burn the three of us,” Ebenezer affirmed. “ ’Tis my fault they’re on Bloodsworth Island.”