Cape Cod

by William Martin

  And Simeon Bigelow now brings distressing news. The day after his wife’s burial, Jack Hilyard and his lad went hunting, promising return when they had a full sack of ducks. After four days, Simeon grew worried and went to Jack’s house, where he found missing Jack’s hand tools and other truck which would not have been taken hunting. Simeon reckons that Jack and his son are run off and asks me to fetch them back.

  Had Hilyard jumped ship, I would have punished him myself. But Simeon is made of kinder stuff. He says only a man who has lost a wife can know the pain of a man who loses one, and this colony cannot lose strong males like the Hilyards.

  These words do not move me, but Simeon believes Jack has gone to a place where whales strand. If I am to whale here next year, I must needs know where the beasts are to be found, ’specially stranders, which are good as gold sovereigns on the beach. So I send word ashore that I go on another seal hunt. In truth, ’twill be a manhunt.

  vi.

  It had been several days since Autumnsquam went into the woods, to a place of tall trees near a creek. He had chosen a pine with a wide girth and chopped it off as close to the ground as he could. He had stripped it of bark, which he could use as covering for his wetu, pushed the log into the creek, and floated it to the beach where he had fought the white men. There he had spread dry pine boughs and wood chips across the top of it and started his fire. Ever since, the fire had been smoldering into the log, slowly hollowing out the center, while he shaped the outside with a stone ax.

  He was sharpening one of the ends, so that it would go smoothly through the water, when Aspinet came out of the woods. Two others were with him, and Autumnsquam’s first thought was for his woman. Her time had nearly come. If they brought news of her, their faces said that it was not good.

  Instead, they told him that the Namskakets had seen a white man and boy building a wetu on Nauseiput, the place between two streams. A few days earlier, runners from the sachem Iyannough had brought word of a white man and boy walking east along the Great Salt Marsh. Iyannough knew they were not the whites who stole people from his village, and so he let them pass. The next day, the Nobscussets had seen them near Sesuit, and the Setuckets as well.

  “Iyannough could have killed them,” Autumnsquam grunted. “Or the others. But they wait for the Nausets.”

  “Iyannough saw no reason. He is young like you, but he may be wise.”

  “If Iyannough had been our sachem, white men would live here now, on our land. But we”—Autumnsquam thumped his hand on his chest—“taught them fear.”

  “Fear drove them no farther than the Patuxet land. And now they are back.”

  “So we kill them. We kill any who try to settle.”

  The old sachem shook his head. The sinews in his neck stood out like pieces of twine. The copper pendants glittered in his ears. “They may come to trade knives or metal or because other whites do not like them.”

  Autumnsquam poked at the smoldering coals in his canoe. “There are more of us, so we should kill them, or soon there will be more of them, and they will kill us.”

  “They have powerful weapons,” said one of the others.

  “Clumsy weapons,” said Autumnsquam. “A Nauset can shoot five arrows for every shot from the white man’s gun.”

  “But in the Patuxet land they have put up guns as long as canoes, guns like those les françaises shot from their boat. They say that with these guns, the white man can sit in the Patuxet land and shoot all the way across the bay.”

  Autumnsquam did not like the sound of this, so he chopped at the canoe. “You hear the counsel of cowards.”

  “The whites have powerful guns and powerful gods.”

  “A god more powerful than Kautantowit?”

  “Powerful enough to kill the Patuxets and give their land to the whites.”

  Autumnsquam spat on the sand. Since the fight, his fame had spread and his arrogance had grown. “Do not insult Kautantowit.”

  “Kautantowit will not be insulted if we show patience.”

  Then one of the others pointed to the bay. A sail had appeared. The white men’s canoe was coming.

  Autumnsquam looked at Aspinet. “If you do not kill them when there are few, many will follow… and quickly.”

  vii.

  February 16, 1621. Calm, clear, wind NW and steady. At dawn we left the harbor and did ride a booming wind south southeast ’cross the bay. Less than five hours passed, and we were approaching the coast.

  Knowing of the flats here, I arrived as the tide took flood, following blue channels through the green shoal water to within a few rods of the beach, where we struck sand. My sailors wished to wade ashore, but I forbade it, knowing that many who did the likewise in November caught their death. And we were safer in the shallops, as the savages were watching. We could see some on a beach to the east, which Simeon recognized as the site of the First Encounter. Those we did not worry about, being far away. But others, we knew, watched from woods all around.

  So we kept our eyes sharp and rode in on the tide. The sand was scattered with bones, tail flukes, black-fish heads from a recent stranding, and cakes of ice what wash in as these flats freeze over.

  Leaving half the company at the shallop, we followed boot prints over the dune grass and into the woods, and soon our noses followed the smell of roast duck. In a small opening amongst the trees, we found an Indian house of bent saplings covered with bark. A duck was spitted on the fire in front of it. We raised our guns to the ready and called Jack’s name.

  A voice greeted us from behind and gave start enough that the speaker was near shot. ’Twas Jack. His gun was primed, and his boy held a cutlass.

  Simeon said we had come to take him back. But Jack bade us come into the dwelling he had fashioned and join in victuals. He would show us the richness of this place, offering us clams, the duck, which we ate of, and the bitter red berry that grows in the lowlands.

  ’Twas a most fine spot. Jack said he chose it because he had found here a square of stones, several paces on each side, over which he would build a true house. The stones were all of the same size, like ballast stones, and went down deep, which I found most puzzling, as it looked like the work of a civilized man.

  But Simeon’s only interest was in bringing Jack back. He said that otherwise, his brother Ezra would fetch the agreement with Jack’s name upon it. “He will force thee by law and keep this island from thee forever.”

  Jack said the island belonged to the Indians, and the Saints could have no authority over it. Simeon answered that the Indians might not let him live past that night, but if he would leave, Simeon would speak for him when settlement were allowed here.

  Then I spake. “Though God took thy wife, he left the lad in thy care. Do not betray God’s trust.” I had not known I would say these words. I have never used God’s name, save in vain, when bending men to my will. But this winter has shown me God in men like Simeon, and such words as these do come more easier.

  And coming from me, they touch a man like Jack. He now saw the true danger he had brung to his boy by venturing into Indian country and said that for the good of the lad, he would come back.

  Simeon cried thanks to God and took Jack in manly embrace. But there was another thing that bothered him—the axe Jack now carried.

  It was iron, covered in much rust, except where Jack had sanded and sharpened it. The blade was flared wide, more than the span of a man’s hand, and on the shaft was engraved a strange kind of writing, here shown:

  Simeon said it should be put back in the Indian grave from which it came, but Jack said he found it in the mud when digging for clams. Simeon disbelieved this, for what metal can survive seawater? But there was no time for disputation, as the tide was turning. I am a practical man and know the value of such things, so I told Jack to keep the axe, though it, too, puzzles me.

  When we were away, I saw smoke curling up above the trees. I asked what burned. Jack said he had fired his hut so Kate would not be confused.
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br />   “Kate is with God,” said Simeon gently.

  Jack’s eyes turned from Simeon to me to the smoke rising above the trees. “Aye. She’ll not be needin’ our little house.”

  Then he did put his arm ’round his son, who seemed much perplexed in his father’s changes, and watched the beach ’twixt the creeks. Then he watched the smoke mixing with the clouds.

  I know not what the Indians call that place. But on my chart, ’twill be called Jack’s Island.

  CHAPTER 7

  July 6

  Jack’s Island

  Geoff could make the run from Pamet Harbor to Jack’s Island in forty minutes. Why put up with Route 6 traffic when you could lean on the throttle, get your Grady White up on the water, and shoot south with the wind burning your face and the hull like a giant jet ski under your feet? Why watch the unspooling of Route 6 strip malls, motels, and gas stations when you could follow the route of the Pilgrim shallop from Truro, along Billingsgate Shoals, past First Encounter Beach, and into the Restricted Zone?

  Restricted because of the James Longstreet, a Liberty ship grounded on the Eastham flats in 1944 and known ever since as the Target Ship. For thirty years, military fliers had bombed, rocketed, and sandbagged the old hulk, but she never sank, because in twelve feet of water, she had no place to sink to.

  Geoff liked the Longstreet. Any shipwreck could inspire images of romance and high tragedy. But the Longstreet also showed just how hard it could be to get rid of your trash. After all those bombs and all those winters, the damn thing still sat there, in two rusted pieces, dominating the bay from Brewster to Wellfleet.

  And like a lot of trash, she was still dangerous. Small-charge target ordnance and misfired rockets lay unexploded on the bottom. And there was always the possibility that something, from the vibration of an outboard to a direct hit by an eight-ounce sinker, might set off an old bomb and send some family and their Chris-Craft to meet the Pilgrim Fathers.

  People generally ignored the warnings. Fishermen claimed the hulk attracted baitfish, which in turn attracted big fish, which of course attracted fishermen. Day sailers were always cruising close, just to gawk. And Geoff had once watched a board sailer go through the break in the middle of the ship, which was maybe the stupidest thing he’d ever seen.

  After speeding through the Restricted Zone, Geoff watched for the dead trees that marked the channel into Rock Harbor. To the right of that was Skaket Creek, then the mouth of Nauseiput Creek, eastern boundary of Jack’s Island. A small flotilla of Sunfish was pouring out of Nauseiput, white sails and yellow sails and a few bright red ones, booming and jibing across one another’s paths like butterflies. A bit farther west were the main house and the sailing camp barracks. Geoff aimed west of those, east of Jack’s Creek, toward the trees in the center of the island.

  The boat stopped with a whoosh of sand about twenty feet from the beach, accepted practice on the tideflats. Two hours before, the flats had been a mile-wide strip of seaside desert. Two hours later, they would be covered in ten feet of water. A small wonder of nature, which could also be a big pain in the ass if you got stranded a mile from shore.

  Geoff left his anchor in the mud, then followed a path over the dune and into the pines that thickened to form a typical Cape Cod woodland—carpeted with brambles, draped with wild grapevines, more intimate than majestic.

  Up ahead, Rake’s barn appeared. Three lobster buoys hung in the back window like props from a tourist’s photograph. Beyond the barn stood the house, a classic story-and-a-half Cape: shingles weathered silver in the salt air, blue trim peeling from windows and gutters, central chimney, symmetrical windows, foursquare, solid—

  “Coffee, son?”

  The words came from behind and startled him. Rake was standing in the barn, filling two mugs from his new coffeemaker. “Emily and Arnie give it to me. Figured should use it.”

  That was how Rake greeted people—in mid-conversation—even if he hadn’t seen them for months. He said a man his age didn’t have time for howdy-do’s… or too many pronouns.

  Geoff stepped into the barn that felt more like a time capsule. A Haig & Haig pinch bottle, the spoils of rumrunning, rested on a brace between two studs. A clam rake hung from a rafter. One of Tom Hilyard’s old easels was leaning in the corner, next to a sign: Right Fork for Hilyard House Hotel. A 1960 Kennedy bumper sticker was pasted above a window.

  The trapdoor was open and a work light was shining in the cellar below. “Come to help clean out the root cellar, or did Dickerson Bigelow send you?”

  “You know what he wants?”

  “Same thing he’s always wanted.”

  “What if I told you I thought it was a good idea?”

  “Give this island over to a bunch of condoms?”

  “It’s condos. But Bigelow wants to build houses. Emily and Arnie think it’s a good idea.” Geoff knew that sounded lame.

  “Don’t listen to them,” said Rake. “They got my sister Clara sittin’ in a room, starin’ out the window like she was in some… nursin’ home. Owns the whole sailing camp and—”

  “Times are changin’, Rake.”

  “Times are always changin’. Date changes every midnight. Week changes every seven days. Seasons, too. Got to make the change for the good.”

  “I agree.”

  “So why do Dicker’s biddin’?”

  Like a kid trying to escape a grilling, Geoff looked for a distraction. He peered into the hole. There was a dustpan and brush down there. It seemed that Rake had been cleaning off the old stones that formed the foundation.

  “Heard of something’ll make whatever Dickerson’s offerin’ look like an old shell heap,” said Rake.

  “An art auction to sell Tom Hilyards?”

  “Talkin’ millions. Not a few grand put up by some museum gal.”

  “The oral historian?”

  “Plannin’ to talk to her?”

  “She’s just some snoop with a tape recorder.”

  “That’s what I thought, till she started askin’ things that told me more than I could tell her. Things to keep this island from Dicker Bigelow forever.”

  “What things?”

  The old man glanced beyond the house, toward the road. “What’s goin’ on out there?”

  “What was she telling you about?”

  “That.” Rake kicked an old doorstop and went out.

  The doorstop was a piece of fireplace wood, stripped of bark, heavily varnished, and screwed to a little mahogany pedestal. The plaque said, “Mayflower log, July 31, 1958.”

  What the hell was this? Why couldn’t he say anything straight? What did this have to do with anything?

  “Rake!” he shouted, but the old man was striding down his driveway, and something had caused him to drop into what he called his fuck-’em-let’s-fight-about-it stride.

  On Jack’s Island, the only road crossed the causeway, made a loop, and left. Normally, Bigelows used the west side of the road, Hilyards the east. When a car passed Rake’s house from the west, it got his attention. When it stopped across from his house, it got his inspection. When it was a van like this one, from which two men unloaded plumb lines, plot plans, and transits, it got him mad.

  “Hey! What the hell are you doin’?” Rake stomped across the road.

  “None of your damn business,” said Humpback Bigelow, whose name had nothing to do with his posture. His father was called Blue because at six feet six, two hundred sixty pounds, he was the biggest thing that grew native on the Cape. Humpback was an inch shorter, fifteen pounds lighter, and so was nicknamed after a smaller whale. He didn’t mind. He much preferred the name Humpback—or better yet, the Humpster—to Clarence.

  “What the hell are you doin’?” repeated Rake.

  “None of your damn business.” In twenty-seven years, the Humpster had learned almost no manners and didn’t know that a civil engineer wore something more civil than khaki trousers and a T-shirt with a pack of smokes rolled in the sleeve.

&nb
sp; “Take it easy, Rake,” said Arnie Burr. “We’re here to shoot the boundaries of Geoff’s property.”

  Geoff loped down the driveway after Rake. “Wearing the surveying hat today, Arnie?”

  Arnie’s family had been on the Cape since the Revolution, breeding a long line of receding chins, prominent noses, and skinny chests. To these Arnie added the personality of a sculpin and a hairline that looked like the prime meridian going over the pole.

  Arnie knew how to do a little of everything, a Cape Cod trait. He was a licensed civil engineer. He could pound nails, dig post holes, and in the warm months, he ran a sportfishing charter, though repeat business wasn’t his strong point. The business of running the sailing camp he left to his wife, Emily, because Arnie didn’t like kids.

  Geoff had learned that firsthand after his parents died in a 1966 auto accident. Rake and his sister Clara wanted Geoff to attend school in Brewster, but Clara’s daughter Emily was named guardian, and she said the kid was smart enough to go to private school. Arnie added that his parents’ double indemnity made the kid rich enough, too.

  So Geoff spent his adolescence at Phillips Exeter and always thought he had been cheated out of life at Jack’s Island. He never wondered if Arnie might have been right. He just knew Arnie didn’t want another kid around. Of course, Arnie sent his own daughters off to school when the time came. Now they lived in California, as far from him as they could get.

  “What are we surveyin’ today, Arnie?” asked Geoff.

  “Nothin’!” The back of Rake’s neck burned mad red. “They’re gettin’ out of here.”

  The Humpster laughed the way someone does when he feeds a chicken bone to a dog. Then he spread the legs of the transit and stood it in the middle of the road. “Nobody keeps me from my work. Not even some screwy old man.”

  “Screwy, am I?” Rake took a poke at the Humpster, who wound up his right hand as if he might send the old man into the bay.