“I knew he’d be back,” Tessa said. “Deep in my soul, I knew he’d be back.”
“Me too. I knew he couldn’t stay away from my girls.”
“Is he there now?” Tessa asked.
“He was when I left.”
That was all Tessa needed. She dropped her brush in the whitewash bucket. Felix reached down a hand and hoisted her up on the horse.
Tessa suddenly remembered Betsy. “Do you want to come? Come with us and see this mighty horse.”
She smiled. “No. You go on without me. I think I’ll stay here and finish up.” She watched them canter off until they disappeared into the woods through the shortcut. Then she lifted her head and let her gaze roam lovingly over the farm: over the lofty barn built tall and square, the neat carpentry shop, the large stone house with Anna’s rose planted by the stoop. She smiled at Anna’s delight, earlier this morning, when she saw the bud of the first spring rose. Betsy looked toward the wooded hills behind the house, blurred by the haze of spring. Her heart felt full to the point of overflowing.
Somewhere out there, she knew Caleb was nearby. She could feel his nearness. She had known he would return, could sense it in her heart the way Tessa knew the stallion would return. When Caleb was ready—ready to be a part of them, ready to belong—then he would show himself. Until then, she knew he would be keeping watch. Until then, that would be enough.
1
8th day of the ninth month in the year 1767
Phoebe Starbuck flung back the worn quilt, leaped out of bed, and hurried to the window. She swung open the sash of the window and took in a deep breath of the brisk island air, tinged with a musky scent of the flats at low tide. It was how she started each morning, elbows on the windowsills, scanning the water to see which, if any, whaling ships might have returned to port in the night. It was how most every Nantucket woman greeted the day.
Drat! She couldn’t see the flags among the jumble of bobbing masts.
Phoebe grabbed the spyglass off the candle stand and peered through it, frantically focusing and refocusing at each mast that dotted the harbor, counting each one. And then her heart stopped when she saw its flag: The Fortuna, captained by Phineas Foulger, the foremost, most admired man on all the island, in her opinion. And the ship sat low in the water—signs of a greasy voyage, not a broken one.
Today Phoebe was eighteen years old, a woman by all rights. Would the captain notice the vast changes in her? She felt but a girl when he sailed away two years ago, though her heart had felt differently. What a day, what a day!
“Make haste, Phoebe dear,” her father called up the stairs. “Something special awaits thee.”
The morning light lit the room as Phoebe scooped up her clothes. She tugged on a brown homespun dress and combed her hair until it crackled. She wound her thick hair into a flattering topknot, pinned it against the back of her head, then covered it with a lace cap. She gave her bedroom a quick tidy-up, plumping a goose-feather pillow and smoothing the last wrinkle from the bed.
Downstairs, Phoebe smiled as she entered the warm keeping room, its fire crackling. Father, the old dear, a small and gentle man, sat at the head of the table with a wrapped bundle in his hands and a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look on his weathered face, seamed with lines.
“There she is, my daughter, my one and only. Happy birthday, Phoebe.” He rose and held the seat out for her. When he stood, she noticed the patches on his overcoat, the sheen at the elbows, the fraying threads at his sleeve cuffs. Not today, she thought to herself. Not on this day. I will not worry today.
Barnabas Starbuck was considered the black sheep of the Starbuck line—oddly enough, because of sheep. Her father had continued to raise sheep for profit, providing a very modest income at best, despite the fact that all his kinsmen were deeply enmeshed in the whaling industry and growing wealthy for it. The gap between Barnabas Starbuck and all other Starbucks had widened enormously in the last decade.
Phoebe loved her father, but she was not blind to his shortcomings. He was a kind and generous man but lacked the business acumen—shrewdness—common to his relations. Barnabas Starbuck always had a venture brewing. New enterprises, he called them, always, always, always with disastrous results. He would start an enterprise with a big dream, great enthusiasm, and when the idea failed or fizzled, he would move on to something else.
For a brief time Barnabas fancied himself a trader of imports. There were the iron cook pots he had ordered from a smooth-talking Boston land shark, far more pots than there were island housewives, so many that the lean-to still had pots stacked floor to ceiling. Oversupply, he had discovered, was a pitfall. Thus the pots remained unsold and unwanted, rusting away in the moist island air.
And then Barnabas had an idea to start a salt works factory in an empty warehouse on Straight Wharf, but once again he neglected to take into account the high humidity of the island. The drying process needed for salt production was so greatly hindered by the summer’s humidity that the salt clumped and caused condensation on all the warehouse windows.
Her father was quite tolerant of his business failures. “Just taking soundings!” he would tell Phoebe with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Part and parcel of the road to success.”
What her father refused to accept was that all roads on Nantucket Island led to the harbor. Nearly every islander understood that truth and was involved, to some degree or another, in the making of tools necessary to outfit whaling and fishing vessels. Phoebe had tried to encourage her father to consider investing in sail making, blacksmithing, ironworks, rope manufacturing. Anything that would tie his enterprise to the sea. But he was convinced whaling was a short-term industry, soon to fizzle out.
Phoebe had a dread, and not an unfounded one, that her father would soon be declared Town Poor by the selectman. The Starbuck kin had made it abundantly clear that they had reached the end of their tether to bail Barnabas out of another financial failure.
And what would become of them then? The Town Poor were miserably provided for.
Not today, she reminded herself as she poured herself a cup of tea. I am not going to worry today. Today is a special day.
Leaning across the table, her father handed her a brown parcel, tied with twine.
“A gift? I thought we had agreed no gifts this year.” And here was another sweet but conflicting characteristic of her father—he was a generous gift giver, despite a steady shortage of disposable income.
“This is an inheritance,” he said, beaming from ear to ear. “It has been waiting for thee until the time was right.”
Carefully, Phoebe untied the knot and unfolded the paper, both items to use again. Inside the package was a weathered book, bound in tan sheepskin. When she opened it, she had to squint to read the faint ink. “What could it be?” She looked up at him curiously.
“What could it be? Why none other than the journal of Great Mary!”
Great Mary? She was Phoebe’s great-grandmother, her father’s grandmother. Great Mary’s father, Tristram Coffin, was one of the first proprietors to settle the island. Mary was his youngest daughter, regarded as a wise and noble woman, a Weighty Friend to all, oft likened to Deborah in the Old Testament. “I thought the existence of Great Mary’s journal was naught but rumor.”
“Nay! Nay, ’tis truly hers. Passed along to me from my father, William, and given to him by his father, Jethro. ’Tis meant to be passed from generation to generation, to whomever would most benefit from the wisdom of Great Mary. For some reason, my father felt I needed it the most.”
Reverently, Phoebe stroked the smooth brown sheepskin covering. “And thee has read it?”
He was silent for some time, staring into his teacup. “Truth be told, I always intended to but never found the time.” His smile disappeared and he looked uncharacteristically chagrined. “The script is faint, my eyes are weak . . . Ink is so vulnerable to humid conditions.” He put down his fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “And then . . . I have been
so busy with my enterprises.”
Phoebe had to bite on her lip to not point out the irony of this conversation. “I thank thee, Father. I will take good care of it, and when the time is right, I will take care to pass it on to the person who most needs Great Mary’s wisdom.”
It was only after breakfast, as Phoebe knotted the strings of her black bonnet under her chin, swift and taut, eager to hurry to the harbor and catch glimpse of the Fortuna’s captain, that she realized the sharp point of irony was jabbed not only at her father, but also at her. She was the one in this generation, amongst dozens and dozens of Starbuck cousins, to whom the journal of wisdom had been passed.
A fine, fair morning it was, with the air washed fresh by the rain. The countryside was soft, shades of green, hints of yellows and reds with the coming autumn. Matthew Macy tipped his hat to bid goodbye to the constable and left the gaol, tucked away on Vestal Street, heading toward the wharf where his cooperage was located. A second-generation cooper, Matthew was, with the knowledge of barrel making passed down from his late father. Late . . . but not forgotten. Never that.
He filled his lungs with crystalline air, happy to be outside on this lovely morning and out of the wretched gaol, at least for the next ten hours. After that, sadly, he was due to return.
As he strode down Milk Street, he could hear the sharp cracking of horses’ hooves on Main Street. When he turned the corner, he paused to stop and look down toward the harbor. It was a view that always affected him. How he loved this little island. Thirty miles away from the mainland, not too far but far enough. The rain last evening had chased away the usual lingering fog, and even cleansed the air of the pervasive stink of rendering whales. At the moment, the sea was calm, shimmering in the morning sun, but it could change in the blink of an eye, with nary much warning, into a deadly tempest. How well he knew.
Main Street was slick from last night’s rain. The markets were setting up for the day, and he had to move deftly to avoid the clusters of townspeople, horses and boxcarts, wheelbarrows and wagons. Every corner swarmed with people: seamen and merchants, black-cloaked Quaker matrons holding tightly to their children’s hands, somber men in their broad-brimmed hats, rat catchers, and peddlers, all going about their lives: bargaining, gossiping, laughing, shouting, teasing, jostling.
In front of him, he saw a bonneted Quaker maid step right into the path of a fast-moving horse. He veered around two old salts and leaped into the street to swiftly rescue the woman. As he yanked her toward him and away from imminent danger, he heard her gasp.
“Matthew Macy, take thy hands off me!”
Bother. Of all the Quaker girls on the island to rescue, this one had to be Phoebe Starbuck. He lifted his hands in the air to show her that he heard and obeyed. “’Tis you, Phoebe? Hard to discern who is under that enormous coal scuttle. But then, that is what the Friends prefers, ’tis not? To wear blinders to life going on around them.”
Ignoring him, Phoebe tugged at her bonnet and straightened her skirts and dusted herself off.
“Do I not deserve a thank-you for saving your life?”
She frowned. “Saving my life might be an overstatement.” Another horse and cart thundered by, its wheels splashing her skirts, and she thought to add, “But I am . . . grateful for thy quick thinking.”
“Had I known it was you—”
She glared at him. “Thee might have let the horse run me down, no doubt.”
“I was going to say . . . I might have let the Quaker brethren come to your rescue. But then, they all seem far more interested to hurry and greet the Fortuna than to notice a damsel in distress.”
As he looked around the street, he realized he had unwittingly spoken truth—a crowd was growing near the harbor— though he had meant only to sting Phoebe. Being around her brought out a streak of malice in Matthew that he could not restrain. He seldom left her company without cutting her, or the Friends, with some small criticisms.
As she recovered her composure, her dark brown eyes started snapping. She glanced up Main Street. “How did thee sleep last night? Was the stiff wooden plank comfortable enough for thee? And was a breakfast of gruel fully satisfying?”
“Happily, I am a man with simple needs. I can sleep anywhere and eat anything.”
“How delightful. The Nantucket gaol sounds like a suitable arrangement for thee.”
And then her attention was diverted by the sight of someone she spotted and Matthew used the opportunity to excuse himself. As he rounded the corner to Water Street, he turned his head and stopped abruptly. The sun was shining down on Phoebe, lighting her like a beam. Her bonnet brim was turned up and she was smiling as Phineas Foulger, captain of the newly arrived Fortuna whale ship, and his abominable daughter Sarah, approached her.
Why was Captain Foulger so soon off the ship? Most captains waited until the ship’s cargo was unloaded, anxious to overlook every barrel of precious oil and ensure it was accounted for in the warehouse.
Then he saw the look on Captain Foulger’s face as he caught sight of Phoebe.
A sick feeling lurched through Matthew. His mouth went dry, his palms damp.
Why should he let himself be bothered? Many a night in gaol he had reminded himself that apart from his brother and mother, he cared for no one and no thing.
Discussion Questions
Prior to reading this novel, how much did you know about colonial Pennsylvania prior to the American Revolution?
The Pennsylvania frontier was a clash of swelling numbers of immigrants and dislocated, disenfranchised natives. Influential leaders, like “fighting parson” John Elder (a true figure in history!), fed a culture of terror by promoting fear and hatred of the native Americans. Separate groups like German Lutherans and Presbyterian Scots-Irish (who normally despised each other) galvanized together to try to force the Quaker-influenced provincial government to subdue and contain all Indians. Can you think of other times in history when the same dynamics were at work? The Jews in Nazi Germany comes to mind. What about in our modern era?
There is more than one theme running through The Return—the dark side of our humanity with prejudice and racism, with jealousy, greed, and selfishness. How many threads of prejudice did you notice? One subtle example: Tessa’s description of rumpled Martin as a Mennonite. A Mennonite, she said, as if it were an unpleasant word.
Describe one event in the story that shocked or upset you. Here’s one instance: when the warrior toyed with the scalp of Betsy’s mother right in front of her.
The Return also includes the triumph of the human spirit, the ability to endure hardship, and the sovereignty of God in all things. What memorable moment spoke to you in this book?
After suffering great harm by the warriors, Betsy Zook encounters other Indians who extend kindness to her—Caleb and the two sisters, Nijlon and Numees. What influence do they have on Betsy? Is it a lasting effect?
What did you think of the character Caleb, whose name, in the Shawnee’s Algonquin language, means “Keeps watch over”?
Caleb was alone, but he was not lonely. What did his sense of security rest on?
Bairn gave Felix a piece of wise advice: “What life does to you depends on what life finds in you.” When have you seen that insight, good and bad, to be true in your life?
There’s an old saying that seems to fit Handsome Hans: “He’s good from far but far from good.” To be fair, his frustration and anger about Betsy’s captivity was understandable. In fact, his feelings seemed reasonable. But Anna noted that Betsy’s captivity seemed to do more harm to Hans than to Betsy. How could that be?
Hans saw the scar on Betsy’s face as disfiguring. Anna hardly noticed it. Who was right? How did you envision her scar to look? What did the scar represent to Betsy? To Hans?
Tessa was very critical of Betsy, yet she never mentioned the scar. Why was that?
Hans allowed himself to be carried away by revenge. Tessa allowed herself to be carried away by jealousy. What makes these particular emoti
ons so dangerous?
“Evil will not have the last word,” Bairn said, after the Conestoga Indians had been slaughtered. “It will not.” Was he referring to using the wagon to bring the innocent back to Indiantown for burial? Or did he mean something more?
In the very last chapter, the stallion returns to Stoney Ridge and to Felix’s broodmare pasture. Do you think Caleb had set the stallion free? Why or why not?
Did this story alter your perception of human history? It seems as if mankind gets snagged in the “same song, different verse” story over and over again; we don’t learn from our past mistakes, nor from our ancestors’ failings. Thankfully, God’s mercies are new every morning. He is sovereign over all things. All things.
Author’s Note
What is true in this story? Quite a lot, actually.
The facts of the Conestoga Massacre are true and verifiable. There was a leader of the Conestoga whose name was spelled phonetically, different in every account. He was referred to as Captain John, because the Conestoga Indians took on English names and named their children English names. He was a wise old man, an honest man, considered a friend to the English. He was said to be kind, with a benevolent temper, and he had assisted William Penn with the original treaty in the early 1700s. Will Sock was also a true character, also called Billy Sock, or Will Soc. His mother Betty Sock was mentioned in historical documents. Christy was a little boy who played with English children. If you’re interested in learning more about the Paxton Boys and the Conestoga Indian massacre, some excellent books are listed in the reference section.
The details of the Conestoga wagon are true, though its ship-like design was created by German Mennonites who lived in Lancaster County, not by our Amish Bairn Bauer. These wagons were the trucks of early America; they transported all kinds of goods and products—coal, tools, mail, flour, eggs, on and on—from one end of Pennsylvania to the other. Some days as many as three thousand Conestoga wagons traveled between Philadelphia and Lancaster, as well as to other Pennsylvania cities to the west: Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. Today, US Route 30 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike follow these old wagon trails, which in colonial times were more like bone-jarring, teeth-rattling rocky paths.
The Return Page 26
