Billington lifted Newcomen’s right leg. Heavy. Damn it, he’d done it. Think, Billington. Bradford won’t want news of a murder. He’ll have no choice but to pardon him, otherwise word would spread to England. Word of a murder would equal fewer colonists and therefore less money for Bradford.
Billington dragged the body of Newcomen by the arms. John Billington was fifty, newly aware of the limits of his body, and weaker than he thought he would ever be. Newcomen caught on a log and then on a root. His cloak caught, then his boot. It was no use. Billington let go of Newcomen’s heft. His head was as floppy as a newborn’s, but significantly heavier. It dropped against a fallen tree.
The day had been beautiful until he saw Newcomen. This place would have been bountiful if he were a free man. He should have been free seven years earlier, when the Mayflower went off course. Had the hypocrites been fair-minded, this would have never happened. The King’s Charter was invalid. They weren’t in Virginia, as the charter granted, so he should never have been an indentured man to them.
He would not say this man’s death was an accident. He honored himself to never descend to lies, like the hypocrites and Captain Shrimp. No, he’d say he shot him. That’s what he’d done and he would say it.
Billington picked up the body, again, and continued to drag him. But what would he do once he got to the palisade? Carry a dead man through it? Even if he wanted to, he was no longer strong enough.
Newcomen was not due the acre next to his field. That land was Billington’s land. Standish had put him there to threaten Billington. He’d given another man his land to provoke. Standish thought he was above the law he set. He did whatever he pleased because he was the Captain.
Billington propped the body against his oak tree and walked toward his house.
At the palisade, he tipped his hat to the guard, a Miller boy. It would not be long before that Miller boy would be coming for him.
When Billington arrived at the gate of his house, he called to his wife.
Eleanor yelled back from inside, What ye want!
How soon their lives would change. He hesitated.
The goats brayed. Inside the fence, a young goat cried and cried and cried.
Billington looked out to see the goat’s mother, hurtling herself down the hill toward them.
She’s coming, he whispered.
The female goat propelled herself forward across the colony with the reckless speed of a new mother. She pushed the gate open with her long nose, and placed her body and her udders near the infant. The baby goat banged his head against his mother’s udder, until he found her teat, and gulped for milk.
Billington’s wife stepped onto the threshold.
What did ye do? she said.
She had her hands on her hips and blew the curl that fell into her face, a gesture he loved. Oh, how he hated what he would have to tell her.
Alice Bradford
It was God’s blessing that we were not followed, nor were caught, as I thought it then. When we reached the meetinghouse, the dinner was nearing its decline. Bones and crusts littered the plates. Men and women were loud, leaning into one another—loosened by beer and wine. I saw the room differently upon my return. Teeth gnashed. A dozen seamen were playing cards. One had his head down on the table, already drunk. Candles cried their wax tears.
We often do not know what things mean to us until they are broken.
No one, it seemed, had heard the gunshot. I went swiftly to my husband and relayed the news in a loud whisper.
Where is Joseph? I asked him.
Right here, he said, and extended his hand beneath the table. But under the table were only muddy boots on hairy legs.
Where? I asked, no longer quiet or patient or calm or a governor’s wife. Only a mother.
I pushed betwixt the men’s chairs, betwixt the men’s legs.
Hello there, Thomas Weston said.
Susanna touched my elbow.
Good Wife, she said, and urged me to her table.
There, in the braided basket, was Joseph, asleep. The fear had made me think all would fall away, that I would lose everything in this earthly world and I newly understood how much I cared for the earthly, how much I wanted more than what God intended, if what He intended involved the death of those I loved.
There was a rumbling as Standish started for the exit. The party pressed forward to the doors of the meetinghouse, to see what was the commotion.
Come in, come in, Myles Standish called, standing at the door, ushering forward three servants who had been running toward him. They said they had heard gunfire. Captain Standish had his gun ready and it was the only time I had been thankful to see it.
Just kill it, I thought. Just kill it and don’t get killed yourself, I urged Standish, in my thoughts.
Myles Standish gathered the militia, every able-bodied man in the colony, each of whom took a musket that was leaning against the far wall of the meetinghouse. My husband stepped forward. So did John.
No, I said, for Dorothy as much as for myself, holding on to both of their arms. But William and John both broke free of me.
John picked up the gun. I could see this was his first time holding a weapon such as this and I could see how much he wished to be a pleasing son to his father. And out the doors they went, to defend us, to see what was causing God’s displeasure.
Eleanor Billington
Good Wife! my husband called from the yard, in a tone too serious to be a welcoming sign.
What trouble do I have to get ye out of now, Good Husband?
I knew this was not going to be pleasant, but I wasn’t ready to give up our way. I thought my humor might help.
I’m afraid you won’t be able to help this time.
He appeared in the doorway, blood on his cheek.
What’s all this? I asked.
That newcomer.
I watched him. He’d gone and finally done what I feared he always might.
Where is he? I said.
I made a start to bolt out into the colony, and beyond it into the fields. He held up his hand, the world’s sign for stop, as if urging me and the world to halt. He had done the irrevocable.
He’s dead, Eleanor.
What did he do?
Took down my tree.
I raised my eyebrows.
I warned him.
I pursed my lips.
Ah, hell. Newcomen wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t right, but I’ve gone and done it.
I thought for a minute.
Your musket misfired.
It didn’t.
They won’t—I couldn’t say it. They’ll pardon you. Bradford won’t want blood on his hands.
Hard to market a colony with murderers.
You aren’t a murderer, John. It was a crime of passion, say. Your humors were temporarily unbalanced. The drink.
He just looked at the dirt.
No one knows it was you.
I can’t leave him there. It’s not right for a man to be left like that.
I tried to persuade him, I did, to pretend as if it never happened. But gentleman that he was, he would not leave that body.
We walked fast—but slowed our pace as we passed the meetinghouse—to where he’d laid Newcomen near the oak tree, his head resting on a fallen log.
I heard a guttural sound, and we both inched closer to Newcomen. The man lurched upright, opened his mouth wide, and gasped.
He lives! I said.
But no sooner had I said it then he slammed back down on the log.
My husband just stood there shaking his head.
Say it was an accident. It’s Standish’s fault, leaving us to fend for ourselves while he enjoys the fat of a roasted duck.
No, he said. I’ve done it, Eleanor. I’m not a man to lie about what I’ve done. I have to accept my fate. Hanging, no doubt.
I turned away from him. I stared at the vacant field that had never bothered me. Now it did. I almost said John the younger, almost told him to speak
of our son’s death as why he did what he did. But I did not. I took the sleeve of my dress and wiped away the blood on my husband’s face. The mark of a stranger’s blood smeared on my newly washed dress. It didn’t matter.
We heard a crowd rumbling.
Here come the Savages, I said.
A dozen hypocrites and a handful of fight-eager, drunken seamen—guns raised, some still with stew-smattered napkins on their shoulders, a few in the back carrying their cups—yelled Huzzah! and charged toward us.
Newcomen’s body lay there, his dead eyes wide open. I went to him and with my fingers shut his lids.
Standish charged my way, his rifle high, the men behind him, with Edward Winslow in the back next to that coward who sends everyone else to do his work, Governor Bradford.
Ten paces from the body, they stopped short.
I steadied a smile.
Gentlemen, I said, and gave a curtsy, my best curtsy.
I stood above Newcomen.
My husband was behind the tree, slender enough to not be seen. Only a few more minutes of freedom. I understood why he lingered there. That night I’d learn—but it shan’t have been surprising—that his parting gift to me was drinking all the liquor Morton had given us.
Standish took one look at Newcomen, one look at me, and yelled, Billington!
What have ye done? said Bradford, running forward.
The militia boys, those paid hands, those traitors, called, Murder!
Not even knowing what had happened.
The blood was through Newcomen’s tunic and his cloak.
My husband stepped from behind the tree, slowly, like a bear awoken at the end of winter. You would not know he was afraid, unless you saw his thumb tapping against his left leg. As a boy … Why speak it? No one cares of us.
I’ll tell it anyway. As a boy, he watched his mother have her head chopped off with a dull blade in the town square, when he was not even tall enough to reach the barstool. It took ten chops, he said. The crowd laughed at her, called, Again, again. The blood splattered on his face. That’s how close he stayed to her.
She’d have died soon anyway. Her body was covered with white paint to make herself look paler, as was the fashion, but also to disguise the sores on her arms. The great pox, syphilis. Sad, common women like me dying that way in London, my own mother dying that way before the law could get her. One of the bishop’s hens of Winchester.
Standish picked up Newcomen’s arm. Dead.
He said, What did ye do?
I looked at my husband, willing him to say it was an accident. His word against a dead man’s.
You sold him land that was mine.
That man never listened to me when he needed to.
Arrest him, Bradford said to Standish.
Standish motioned to Hopkins and Samuel, two newly freed servants. Barely men. The age John the younger would have been.
They took my husband by the arms.
A seaman hoisted Newcomen over his shoulder. Once they got near the meetinghouse, Bradford and Winslow took the body, to appear as if they had carried it all along.
I followed alongside. I yelled what Standish needed to hear, You think him guilty before you know the story, though he dothn’t have ears, hearing only what he wanted to.
I’ve been calling the dead man Newcomen, but there’s something else.
What is this man’s name? Bradford asked.
And no one knew.
Alice Bradford
The new colonists pressed forward.
Outside the meetinghouse, Captain Standish walked closely behind Master Billington. His wife, Eleanor, ran beside Standish, calling obscenities. At the back of the procession, my husband and Susanna’s husband carried the dead body of the man who looked like Johannes. John was his name, and his surname I never knew, so here I have called him Newcomen.
Inside the meetinghouse, women set down their drinks, picked up their children, moved toward the windows and thresholds, spread out onto the dirt, and watched. Pregnant women held on tightly to their stomachs, afraid of what feeling alarmed could do to their growing infants.
This was not the welcome we wanted for the newcomers.
Let go of me! Billington cried.
For reasons I still do not understand, Captain Standish loosened his hold.
John Billington yanked his own arm back.
What say ye, Master Billington? my husband asked.
You gave my very land away.
What say ye of this man, shot dead?
You gave my land away, provoked me, disrespected me. I who have outlasted fifty, outlasted a hundred of you hypocrites, with God’s good grace.
The parishioners gasped.
Where is God’s just hand, you hypocrites? I ask ye thus! And now, provoked, given no choice, you poked me like a bear in the pits. On a chain I was and like the hungry dogs you are, you made me do this.
So you confess? asked Standish.
Billington shook his head like a man just released from the drunk tank.
Did you shoot this man? asked William.
My husband and Susanna’s husband had set the body down. The flies were circling around John Newcomen’s head. One landed on his bluing lips. It is not right to care for the dead this way. I hoped this argument would end soon and we could give this stranger a proper burial.
If word gets out you have a murderer in this colony, how will that be for your profit, Governor Bradford?
My husband stepped closer to Billington. So close his spittle could flash across Billington’s face.
What if, Governor Bradford, word gets out that a settler has been killed, and another settler murdered? How many new settlers would that yield you, Governor Bradford? You will not kill me.
This is the first and it will be the last. We will not tolerate murderers.
A voice in the crowd said, It isn’t the first.
Eleanor Billington stepped forward.
What of your own wife? she said sweetly.
Within me was a scream. A scream that had waited a decade to escape. All the newcomers turned.
William did not charge as I thought he might. Instead, he clenched his jaw and turned toward her husband.
Did you, or did you not, kill this man?
Billington did not speak for a very long few moments. And when he did, when my husband held his stare and his scorn, Billington said, I’ve said all I will say.
Take him away, Bradford called to Captain Standish, who motioned for two indentured servants. Each took one arm and led Billington to the room beneath the meetinghouse.
Joseph cried, his bottom was wet, and I was thankful for the excuse to go home. I called for Mercy and William the younger to come with me and outstretched my hand. I wanted to hold everything I loved. They both ran over.
I’m a bear, Mercy said, growling, and bears do not live in houses. Even as a child she chose to be too close to danger. William the younger stood by me.
One must outwardly and inwardly be what one is. The only sumptuary law we had was of disguises. I would again teach Mercy about the importance of being what one was.
You are a girl, Mercy, who fears God. It is time to go home and change your brother.
Children are born chosen by God—or not—but still, they must be taught.
Susanna lumbered over to me and we hooked arms. She was not herself, as one would expect. When pregnant, one did not stare at the moon, so the children would not be sleepwalkers or lunatics. Women crossed no paths with rabbits, so their children would not grow a harelip. And if a pregnant woman was startled it could cause the child to grow a sixth finger.
She told me she had been scared and had not felt the baby since.
The child will be healthy, you’ll see. Let’s get you home.
But one never knew what it would please God to do.
Eleanor Billington
So my husband had changed his mind about confession. He did not say he did it. That was one of the wiser things he had done in hi
s lifetime. There was a chance.
I came home to the goats and our son, Francis, sleeping by the fireplace. I went for the shelf where we kept the wine, intending to split it with Francis, the first offering to our son of our good liquor, when he’d lived before on watery beer. I opened the bottle and tilted it. There was nary a drop.
I looked for the flask. Gone. Getting himself killed and drinking all our liquor.
Sure, they had not said yet what his punishment would be, but I knew. We all did. This was Standish’s chance. This was Bradford’s opportunity to kill the truth forever. Punishing my husband for shooting a man on his own property, who would not leave, was a disguise for what they really wanted to punish him for: speaking out against them.
How could I get my husband out of this? I needed to think, which was harder to do without an evening drink and without dinner. He’d returned with a dead man instead of a deer. There was pie, but I hadn’t an appetite for it.
I took a walk. Out into the field, crying despite myself, angry at everything. Sassafras scratching against my arms, which I hated, hooting owls high in the trees, which I despised, and the distant howl of wolves.
There was no one left to help me fight against them, except Francis.
I walked for an hour, maybe longer, until I knew not the way.
Go home, a voice said unto me.
I felt the prickling of my skin, the kind that comes when someone says something true, too true, and unexpected.
Go home and care for your son.
A breeze came from behind and pushed me toward the home my husband and I had built. Approaching it again, by full moon’s light, I saw it with the eyes of one who could lose everything. I’d split the wood for the beams. He’d hammered and hoisted and roofed it. Our eldest son was buried behind back. I did not wish to be far away from him, to be banished and to never return to my boy. I could not leave him and I could not leave this. This was my home.
Our land was here, our house was here, our son was here. They’d give me nothing for it, pence, I’m sure, and where else could I go? Not back to London, where I had nothing and no longer knew a soul. Tom Morton could be a help. He had written about my husband as a fine man, a greater man than the people who ran Plymouth. Beloved by many, he called my husband.
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