If the elders want him, let them have him After a month in the New World, they know full well that the dangers they face be far more pressing than a single accident, if accident it were. Every man, innocent or not, will be needed.
As for me, I’ve done my honor in this.
CHAPTER 5
July 5
Murder on the Mayflower
The next morning, Geoff rose early. He started the coffee, then went onto the deck that faced the rising sun. He loved the early morning on Tom’s Hill, the light that slanted in over the hillside, the gentle warmth before the heat of the day, the nearby quiet that let him hear the faroff sounds.
Down on the Little Pamet Marsh, a blue heron was poking its bill into the grass. Geoff watched its slow and careful movement and marveled that such a delicate creature could be related to the gulls squawking above Pamet Harbor. But then, he had often marveled that Janice could be related to Dickerson Bigelow.
Then the phone rang, frightening the bird into the air.
Geoff grabbed the phone, brought it outside, and picked up the receiver before the second ring.
“Geoff, did you know there was a Tom Hilyard painting called Murder on the Mayflower?”
“George?”
“The one and only.”
“The only one who calls before seven o’clock in the morning.”
“I’m so lagged I can’t sleep. From Tinseltown to Provincetown, seven hours on commercial airlines, a hundred years on the time machine.”
Janice came stumbling to the screen door. People did not normally call at this hour. Geoff put his hand over the receiver and whispered, “George.” That explained it. George was not normal people.
She went into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. It had begun. The gathering of the boys. There were three of them. Harvard had thrown them together as freshmen in 1969, and they had been friends ever since. Times changed, along with careers, addresses, wives and lovers, worldviews, values, and dreams, but the boys still gathered on the Cape each summer to renew their friendship. And quite often, “boys” was the operative word.
“Do you know about this painting?” George was saying.
“No, but he did so many—”
“You’re supposed to be the Tom Hilyard scholar.”
“I like the later stuff. He did Pilgrim paintings to pay his bills, like me designing tract houses or you writing sitcoms.”
“Then you’re not interested in an art auction?”
“I have to see Rake today. Real estate talk.”
“The Bigelows trying to screw the Hilyards again?”
Geoff watched the heron settle back onto the marsh, but he did not answer. George had a way of getting to the truth.
“Among the items up for bid,” George went on, “is Murder on the Mayflower.”
“I guess I could go up Cape to see that.” And he would take any excuse to avoid Uncle Rake.
It was one of the quirks of local geography that driving up Cape meant traveling south or west. Cape Cod, which Thoreau called “the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts,” ran forty miles from the shoulder to the elbow, forty more from the elbow to the fingertips. Chatham was at the elbow. From there to the canal was called the Upper Cape because it corresponded to the upper arm, although it was at the bottom of the map. From there to Provincetown was called the Lower Cape, although it was north of the Upper Cape.
This could confuse tourists, who called the Upper Cape the lower Cape and the Lower Cape the outer Cape. But the term “outer Cape” sounded so logical that even the natives would not pretend to misunderstand. Of course, they might confuse things a bit more by mentioning the mid-Cape, the bicep between Yarmouth and Brewster, or the outer Cape’s back shore. And if tourists asked where the front shore was, they found there wasn’t any, but there was a bay side.
Geoff and Janice were driving up Cape in Geoff’s ’84 Chevy Cavalier, which he kept in the garage at Truro. Geoff considered it the perfect New England car: too beat-up to be worth stealing, but nicely broken in at 64,000 miles.
George Flynn, who sat in the backseat, said he preferred their van, which he had nicknamed the Now Voyager, after the Bette Davis movie. “And we could call this shit box the Pocketful of Miracles. It’s a miracle the damn thing runs.”
“So walk.”
“Not until I know the dirt.” He leaned over the front seat. “The Cole sisters who owned the painting, weren’t they connected to the Bigelows somewhere along the line?”
“We’re all connected somewhere along the line,” said Janice, who rode shotgun. “My great-grandfather, Charles—”
“The congressman?”
“State senator was the best he ever did. His son married my grandmother’s sister, but he died and she married into the Coles and—”
“Somehow, somebody ended up with an undiscovered Tom Hilyard in their attic,” laughed Geoff. “Let’s leave it at that or we’ll need a diagram to figure it all out.”
“So why are they selling?” asked George.
“Have you lost weight?” asked Janice.
George slapped his belly proudly. “Ten pounds.”
Since college, he had always carried a little extra flab, and no one had ever noticed. The weight was part of the personality, along with a willingness to say whatever was on his mind and a boyish laugh that took the edge off whatever he said.
“Don’t lose any weight in the wallet today,” said Janice. “Either of you.”
Tom Hilyard paintings were not too pricey. Tom Hilyard had not been that good. But bidding could drive them up, and Geoff had been tempted more than once. Janice liked the paintings they had inherited—one of the stark House on Billingsgate series and one of the Pilgrim paintings—but until Geoff took her father’s deal, they could afford no extravagances.
“A painting no one’s heard of since it was painted,” mused George. “Seems a little mysterious.”
“Stop thinking like a writer,” said Janice.
“How can I think like anything else when Cape Cod vibrates with history, drama, the spectacle of brave men and women carving a new world from the wilderness?”
“You should be on the chamber of commerce.”
George laughed and pointed to a road sign rolling past. “ ‘First Encounter Beach.’ How many hot little adolescent asses will squirm this very day in the sand where the battle for North America was joined between the forces of Christian enlightenment and the Manichean aborigines?”
“You’re still thinking like a writer,” said Janice.
“And you’re thinking like a curbstone. I’ll bet you don’t even care that Dorothy Bradford’s death is the first murder mystery in the recorded history of America.”
Geoff glanced at the rearview mirror. “Mystery?”
“Why would her husband write a book that chronicled everything the Pilgrims did until 1647 and say absolutely nothing about her death? Some say she fell overboard. Some say she jumped because she knew she didn’t have the guts to face the wilderness. Some—”
“Some say she was pushed?” offered Geoff.
“Well, I wonder about it.”
“This isn’t exactly a big deal,” said Janice.
“Maybe not. But if we can learn how other people face their worst times, maybe it can help us.”
“Isn’t that why you write sitcoms?” she asked.
“ ‘Legal Eagles’ has great social significance.” George pretended to get uppity. “And Dorothy must have been awful unhappy… a husband who couldn’t figure out where to settle and the wilderness staring her in the face.”
“That I can identify with,” said Janice.
ii.
“Five thousand dollars, ladies and gentlemen. We won’t entertain anything less for this beautiful and historically important work by Thomas Hilyard.”
“He’s right about the historically important part,” whispered George. “Make a bid.”
“Make one yourself,” said Janice. “We can’t afford it.�
�
“We can,” said Geoff.
Janice shook her head. A breeze came up from Pleasant Bay, and the awning puffed like a sail. A hundred people had come to buy armoires, settees, Oriental rugs, laquered tables brought by sea captains from China, and paintings.
There were auctions on Cape Cod almost every week. Some were little more than garage sales with carnival barkers, but some purveyed the treasures of the past. And an estate auction like this, where the provenance of each item was well established simply because it came straight from the house, was prized by the public and dealers alike.
A young woman in the third row took the bid for five thousand. The auctioneer called for five thousand five hundred.
The painting, displayed on an easel at the front of the tent, was twenty-four by thirty-seven inches. It was not a great work. It did not vibrate with life or light. In fact, it was so dark that the gilt frame nearly overwhelmed the image. But the subject gave it mystery.
The rail of the Mayflower ran diagonally across the image, from bow to stern. A lantern in the cabin at the stern provided the only source of light. In the foreground, a woman shrouded in a cape looked out at the blackness. And from the shadows a shadowed man moved toward her.
“Tom Hilyard thinks old Dotty was pushed,” said George excitedly. “Let’s make a run at this.”
Five thousand five hundred was taken by a balding man at the back of the tent. The woman in the third row countered with six.
Janice sensed they were right about the historical importance, especially because the plate identifying the characters had been removed. Tom Hilyard had actually named the man who killed Dorothy Bradford, and somebody, sometime, had not been too happy about it. A solution to America’s first murder mystery. But when the auctioneer called for six thousand five and Geoff’s hand started up, Janice grabbed his forearm, historical importance be damned.
She knew he could have lifted her off the floor. He had taken to working out regularly and was stronger now than at twenty-five. That was fine with Janice. And she liked the way his features gained character with line. Once he had looked gentle and introspective. Now “experienced” was the word for the way he looked, if not the way he acted. And when she saw the I-want-it stare that made him look like nothing more than a thirty-nine-year-old kid trying to embrace another fantasy before he was forty, she wanted to strangle him, or at least break the arm she was squeezing.
But that might have caused a scene. So she held his arm until the man at the back of the tent took the bid.
“Six thousand five hundred. Do I hear seven?”
George leaned around Geoff and looked at Janice.
“You’re on your own,” she whispered. Up went his hand.
“Seven thousand to the gentleman in row eight. Do I hear seven five?”
George whispered to Geoff, “Put up half and I’ll take the other half. Let’s start the summer off right.”
“We don’t have the money,” Janice whispered in Geoff’s other ear. “Don’t do it.”
“Eight!” called the woman in the third row, and a little williwaw of excitement spun through the crowd.
“Eight five,” came the voice from the back of the tent.
“Nine!” cried George.
“The gentleman says nine. Do I hear nine five?”
There was a slight pause before the man at the back raised his hand.
“And ten?”
For a moment the words hung in the air. The bidding had slowed. Perhaps ten would take it. Geoff looked at George, then at Janice. She squeezed harder.
“I’ll make the decision,” he whispered and began to peel her hand away.
Then the woman in the front called, “Ten.” And before Geoff could get his hand up, the bid bounced to ten-five, then eleven.
Geoff’s hand relaxed, as though it had gone beyond him. Janice said, “Thank God for her.”
“Are we out of it?” George whispered.
Janice squeezed Geoff’s arm again.
“Lighten up,” Geoff said to his wife. “I think so,” he whispered to his friend.
Quickly the bidding ran to fifteen thousand, and the murmur grew as steady as the breeze off Pleasant Bay.
“Fifteen five.”
“Sixteen.”
Those in the back watched the man. The rest stretched their necks for a look at the young woman, who seemed to most of them no more than a pile of strawberry blond hair and the padded shoulders of a tan business suit. George shook his head in amazement. Geoff squinted at the painting. Janice folded her arms and gazed over Barleyneck to Pleasant Bay.
Finally, at eighteen thousand dollars, the woman became the owner of a Thomas Hilyard. When the gavel fell, the applause burst, as if everyone knew they had seen the best duel of the season. The woman stood now and gave a small, gracious bow to the gentleman in the back.
“Good taste in paintings. Pretty, too,” said George.
iii.
Geoff agreed. He agreed so completely that he followed the young woman, her two male companions, and the painting out to the road. George followed Geoff, while Janice stopped to chat with a friend.
The young woman was nearly six feet tall and as brusque as bleach. When she saw Geoff, she gave him the mildly annoyed and momentary glance that every woman perfects to ward off unwelcome males. But when he introduced himself, his name got her undivided attention.
“You’re related to Rake Hilyard, then?”
“You know him?”
“Everyone who knows Cape history knows him.”
“A student of Cape history?” George squinted in the sun. “Is that why you bought the painting?”
She gave George the kind of neutral smile that said she gave away nothing she didn’t have to. “One buys a work of art for many reasons. This has been purchased for the Old Corners Plantation. I’m the director of collections.”
George looked her up and down. “You must have a pretty good… er… endowment. To spend eighteen grand on a painting, I mean.”
“We have an excellent genealogy collection as well, although your family may not be represented.”
George smiled. He admired a good insult, even at his own expense. “Hilyard thinks somebody pushed Dorothy Bradford?”
“A lot of people have thought that for the last three centuries or so. Tom Hilyard is just one more. My real interest is as much in his technique as his narrative.”
“Why the interest in my uncle?” asked Geoff.
The larger of her two companions, who were apparently bodyguards, reminded her of their schedule.
She kept her eyes on Geoff, tuning out everything else. “Not only has your uncle seen the whole century here, but he also knew Tom Hilyard. That makes him doubly interesting. I did an oral history with him.”
“Rake can talk a cat off a fish wagon,” said Geoff. “As owner of three Hilyard paintings, he’ll be glad to know someone’s just paid the highest price ever for one.”
“Do you own any?”
“Two. I was hoping for three.”
“I’d love to see them sometime.” She took a business card from her jacket pocket and handed it to Geoff: Carolyn Hallissey, Old Corners Plantation, Orleans, Massachusetts. “You should do an oral history with us, too. The Cape’s changed more in your lifetime than in the previous three centuries.”
George was still laughing when her car went down Barley neck.
“What’s so funny?”
“When a woman asks you to do something oral, you’re supposed to say, “ ‘When and where?’ ”
“I was going to show her mine if she’d showed me hers.”
“Her what?”
“Her Hilyard Pilgrim painting.”
“Which one do you have?”
“The Gravediggers.”
CHAPTER 6
February 1621
The Gravediggers
Christopher Jones wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and opened his log. He looked forward to his writing. It had become a w
ay to drive off the winter phlegm and make springtime come sooner.
February 7, 1621. Bitter cold, steady NW wind, sky as clear and thoughtless as a dead man’s eye… and of those have I seen too many. There is death on the ship and death on the land. Of the ship’s company, I have lost eight, and more are laid low. Were I of a mind to challenge the winter sea, I would have but ten able bodies to man the rigging. And whilst the passengers do labor to build their houses, their chief activity is burying their dead.
To the six dead of December and the eight of January have been added five more this month. Some lie sick in the tween-decks, on the same foul pallets they have used since we sailed. More lie in the common house, which has in truth become a charnel house. Most have congestion of the lungs. Some show also the bleeding gums and swole joints of the scurvy.
Samuel Fuller, their chirurgeon, has bled many to drain the ill humours, so that the sweet smell of congealing clots sickens the air. Giles Heale, ship’s doctor, has physicked them in hope of cleansing the illness through the bowels, but many are so weakened that they cannot move and must lie in their own filth till tended by the few who are healthy.
William Brewster and Myles Standish have not faltered, though Standish has lost his wife. Kate Hilyard washes vile linens in the brook. Simeon Bigelow aids her in the dressing and feeding of the sick. Ezra Bigelow tends to sick spirits, going from pallet to pallet, asking for favorite Bible passages, which then he does read. In this does he show a constancy that makes me question my earlier suspicions.
And at dusk, when they have finished work on their own house, Jack Hilyard and his son go to the common house to learn how many have died that day. Then they climb the hill to a place by the ordnance platform, hack through the crust, and dig what graves are needed. Then the bodies are brought up. The procession is small, for there are few who can walk, and quiet, for the Indians must not know how many have died. The dead are put into the ground without ceremony, as is their custom, the graves then being covered with pine boughs and brush to hide them.
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