Cape Cod's Figure in Black

by Bill Russo

  It’s an attractive rural area with a thickly wooded hillside leading to a serene pond. Such a gentle place would seem to have no story to tell, but there is a mournful tale being related to me by a woman who has been dead for about 300 years!

  As soon as I entered the thick foliage that forms a living tunnel at the edge of the Old King’s Highway, I knew there was something unusual about the location. For perhaps 50 yards, the arboreal arch forms a dense canopy over a dirt path that points directly to a small forest of perfectly spaced Hemlock trees. There are two columns of the firs, about 15 feet apart from each other. They remind me of a group of soldiers standing permanently at attention.

  I had the feeling of being watched, but there was no one nearby. The stout Hemlocks seemed to be serving as silent guards of some deep secret hidden in the thicket.

  At the end of the line of ‘wooden soldiers’, is a steep ridge with a rarely traveled path winding down towards a kettle pond shaped exactly like a fish. I had a sense that the glade of Hemlocks and the kettle pond were carefully planned and coordinated like a massive amusement park of natural wonders.

  You’ll never see a kettle pond in Boston Emily, because they don’t exist in the city. Most of them in New England are found on Cape Cod. A kettle pond is a body of water that has no inlet and no outlet. It is said that the holes that became hosts to these ponds were gouged out during the last days of the ice age by the retreat of jagged mountains of frozen water and rocks.

  Many of the cavities dug out by the wandering glaciers became permanent lakes and ponds. Some were filled for a time but dried out when there was not enough rainfall to sustain them. Others turned into marshland and swamps.

  Those that were fed by underground springs remained fresh and pure. The pond that I saw in my mind fits what I have described except for a few important differences.

  Number one – it’s not round. While no kettle pond is perfectly round, they do appear generally circular to the eye. This pond looks like one of the fat trout that swim in it!

  Number two – the kettle ponds are usually found in flat areas or in places of gentle slopes. This pond has an 85 foot tall grassy hill next to it, as if the dirt were shoveled out of the hole and piled up right next to it. It’s the highest point in all of Middle Cape Cod.

  I’ve asked around at the coffee shop as well as on the beaches and very few people know much about the history of the pond. A few people told me that all of the land that is now the Dennis Villages once belonged to a tribe of long forgotten American Indians. I wondered about the village records, but as is so often the case, a fire in Town Hall destroyed historical documents that would have helped me learn more.

  As it turns out, and this is the part you will find hard to believe, I have a much better source of information – a person who actually witnessed the formation of the pond and the planting of the ancient Hemlock trees – more than 300 years ago!

  All the last week I camped near the ridge on the shoreline, eating berries as I found them and drinking the pure water of the lake. For the most part I’ve been free of pain and the effects that accompany my attacks.

  One early morning, however, just before dawn, while lying on my bed of pine needles, I was awakened by the nearly imperceptible moving of that poorly healed crack in my head above the eyebrow. For a moment as the bone pushed against brain matter, I heard a woman’s voice. She was speaking English, or at least I heard it in English.

  “Get up and we will talk,” she said to me.

  Suddenly the pressure of the bone ceased. It moved back to its customary position. I could hear nothing but the occasional hawk or owl along with the whisper of the rippling waves licking the sandy beach.

  For two more nights the same thing happened. Each time as the conversation deepened, the bone retreated and the connection was broken. The next night as she spoke, I took my metal canteen and pressed it against the moveable bone in my forehead as hard as I could. The pain was excruciating as I forced the bone up against the soft brain matter, but we were able to talk for several minutes until finally it hurt so much that I had to stop pushing the canteen into my head. When I released my grip, once again I lost the connection.

  But I learned much. I had part of the solution to the mystery of Fish Lake, as I had begun to call it. The woman from the past and I agreed that I should rest for a few days to rebuild my strength.

  After I mail this letter to you, I’ll return to the glade by the Hemlocks. Just before the morning twilight begins, I will talk again to the woman who has told me that she is the proper owner of all the land that is now occupied by the five Villages of the town of Dennis.

  I’ll give you the details when we speak on the telephone next week. I expect at that time to be at least one village closer to Provincetown.

  With all my love, John

  Chapter Eleven:

  Meeting the 300 Year Old Princess

  Though it was the beginning of the final weeks of harvest season and the last of the pumpkins, tomatoes, cranberries, and such were being crated; early autumn had been summery.

  It was nearly 70 degrees in the late afternoon when John Deer started walking from the village store back to the living tunnel leading to Fish Lake. He had mailed his letter to Emily and had done some shopping. He carried a flour sack stuffed with a bit of food and a number of other purchases that had seemed very strange to Jim Duffy, the owner of the mercantile.

  “Are you sure you want to buy this stuff mister? I’ve had it for ages. There’s not a lot of call for it these days,” Duffy had said to his customer – an oddly dressed figure in black. His unusual garb marked him as some sort of a preacher maybe, or an undertaker.

  “Yes Mister Duffy. I need these items for something that I have to do. If you have more I will buy them also.”

  “Well, I just might have some others in the attic. But it’s so dang warm today I’d rather not go up there just now. Perhaps tonight when it cools off I’ll have a look.”

  “That’ll be fine. I expect to be back here in about a week. I’ll buy all that you have.”

  “That’s fine stranger. And since you’re doing me a favor, I’m going to let them go at half price. Whew! It sure is warm for autumn. You know mister, some people don’t like to say ‘autumn’. They will only use the word ‘fall’. They think that I’m snooty because I say like to say ‘autumn’. What do you think?”

  “I think some people like ‘autumn’ and some people like ‘fall’ - but as for me, I like summer best of all! “ John Deer smiled, picked up his bundle and walked toward the door leaving old Duffy doubled up with laughter.

  “That’s a good one mister. I’m going to use it! See you next week.”

  As he neared the dirt path shrouded by the dense foliage that formed the arboreal arch, John Deer noticed that there were almost as many automobiles on the Old King’s Highway as horses. He thought to himself, ‘you don’t have to be a psychic to see that rubber and steel are going to erase wood and saddles in America within a decade. Great fortunes will be made in those industries just as they will be lost in the dying endeavors. Change, transformation, progress, new, improved – those are the watch words of today. Change: for better or worse, it is the one and only constant in this unstable world’.

  Just beyond the sheltering hemlocks, he reached the quiet glade where he spread out his odd assortment of purchases. He ate a quick meal and then rested on his pine needle bed. Tilting his head upward and looking across Dennis Bay he saw the city of Provincetown, now only 30 miles away. The last slice of sun ducked behind the steeple of the distant Pilgrim Monument.

  He slept. There were no dreams. No headaches. No tremors or twitches. He slept soundly, until the darkness brightened into morning twilight.

  A slight vibration on the scar-line above his right eyebrow roused him. Something or someone was standing in front of the Hemlock nearest him. It was the woman, but he couldn’t see her clearly. Her arm
s were beckoning him and he could tell she was speaking, but he wasn’t able to understand the garbled words.

  For a moment the slight tremors along his old wound lessened and he nearly lost sight of the apparition. In desperation as she started to disappear, he smashed his fist into his forehead as hard as he could.

  The gap between the divide of the bones of his old wound widened after the crash of his fist. As the pressure and pain from the bone crushing into his brain increased, the vision morphed from some half seen flickering image like an Edison motion picture into a beautiful woman of flesh and blood.

  The image was fuzzy.

  Standing up, he walked towards the woman who was dressed in only a sack-cloth; but it seemed a more elegant garment than anything that might have been worn by anyone, even Mary, Queen of England, Canada, India, and all the British Dominions.

  As if reading his thoughts she said –

  “In life, I was not a queen Mr. Deer. But I was a princess. My domain was not massive and far-flung like that of the European monarchy. It consisted only of the land that is now called Dennis and Yarmouth. This beautiful area was sufficient for my people, who lived here for more than two thousand years.”

  “Who are you and how may I help you?” asked John Deer, holding his throbbing head between his palms as if to keep it from exploding.

  She did not answer. Instead she walked towards him and pushed his hands away from his head, replacing them with her own, which had a touch as soft and delicate as the foam left on beach sand after it has been bathed by a white capped wave. His pain was washed away like the jetsam cast off by the outgoing tide.

  “It will be easier for us to speak now. I am Scargo, Princess of the Nobscusset, daughter of Chief Sagem, and grand-daughter of the noble Mashantampaine who saved our people, and who at the same time caused our extinction.”

  His mind clouded again momentarily and when it cleared the lake had disappeared. Gone also were the rows of majestic Hemlock trees, and even the great hill that is the dominant feature of the North Dennis landscape.

  All had been replaced by large fields cultivated with corn growing higher than the reach of a tall man. The land was flat with barely a hint of a hill or even an incline.

  “This is Cape Cod the way it was in the youth of Mashantampaine, chief of all the Nobscussets. For many years before the Europeans came, he was the leader of our prosperous, if small, tribe.

  “Under the wise chief, the lands gave bountiful harvests, the forests yielded more than enough game, and the fish jumped from the sea for the chance to be impaled upon the blades of our spears.

  “We knew no poverty, hunger, or sickness. We had all the riches of the earth laid before us and wanted for nothing. One evening at the tribal fire, the medicine man warned of the danger coming from the sea. He told of a race of people who had captured fire and put it in sticks that they held in their hands. One fire-stick could do the work of fifty arrows in bringing down a deer or even a grizzly bear.

  “The Medicine Man said that they could float across the sea in ‘Great Boats’. Just one of their ships is big enough to hold 200 canoes in its belly. He warned the tribe that the fire-stick people were coming soon.”

  Scargo said that the Europeans who sailed to what they called the ‘New World’, were completely unprepared for the conditions of it. The first settlers, she noted, would never have survived a single winter if it were not for the help of the Nobscusset’s distant relations to the west, the Wampanoag people. Led by Chief Massasoit, the Wampanoags gave the newcomers food and instructed them in farming and the making of clothing and footwear suited to the climate.

  “For as long as the mighty Massasoit lived, there was no trouble between the people and the European settlers. But when Massasoit left the land to be with the Great Spirit, the Europeans began claiming more and more of the people’s range.

  “The people were outnumbered fifty to one by the Europeans. By the time I was born, most of the tribes of our world had been squeezed into progressively smaller areas. After the Europeans came, life was turned upside down - disease became common and game grew scarce. The numbers of our people fell from more than 500 to less than 200 when I was an infant.”

  Scargo stopped talking. Her long hair, the color of night, was swaying in the gentle breeze. Her face was uncommonly radiant. John Deer thought that even the beauty of his own Emily Rapport could not equal that of the Native American Royal, Princess Scargo.

  Moisture formed at the corner of her eye, quickly followed by rivers of regret as she began sobbing from the re-telling of long ago sufferings that were as fresh to her as open wounds.

  “I will help you Princess. Just tell me what to do to ease your pain and I’ll do it. I cannot change the past. I can’t fix things that are broken but I’m sure…..”

  “Thank you John Deer. I do appreciate that you are sincere and I realize that neither you nor anyone of your time had anything to do with our misfortune. I’m not here to ask anything like that of you. I do have a favor to request, but I don’t wish to reveal it right at the moment. First I would like to take you back to the time and the place where our fate was sealed, so that you will see it as we saw it and you can tell your people about it. They should know what was done to us.”

  As she spoke, John’s head literally began to spin! Not from the outside but from within. His brain seemed to be revolving inside his skull. He had to close his eyes because the world around him was moving faster than the speediest train. When the dizziness finally stopped, he opened his eyes and he saw that he was standing by the ocean near the shoreline of a Dennis beach.

  Next to him was Princess Scargo. A hundred yards or so distant, standing on the wide path that would become known as The King’s Highway, were two separate groups of people.

  One party was small - perhaps fifty men banded together, each carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows and a short hunting knife.

  Opposing them was a much larger group of mounted men, armed with muskets and long knives (swords). At the head of the group, atop a sturdy black stallion, was a uniformed man who was carrying upright, a lengthy wooden pole topped by a round object about the size of a pumpkin.

  “The men on horseback are part of the army that wiped out our brothers and sisters who lived two days north of this place. They forced the chief, Metacomet, who they called “King Phillip”, into war. They kept squeezing the Wampanoag people into less and less land and taking away their liberties, until finally the tribe rebelled. The invaders called it a war - but it was 50,000 well armed Europeans against only 5000 Wampanoag people. It was not a war but a premeditated extermination.”

  “What happened to Metacomet?” asked John Deer.

  “Look closely at the pike being carried by the murderer on the black stallion. That’s Metacomet’s severed head on top of that stick!”

  “They cut off his head?”

  “Worse than that they did, John Deer. Even worse than that.”

  “The small group? They are your people?”

  “Yes John. The very old man at the front is Mashantampaine himself. My father, Sagem is directly behind. The rest of the group is all that was left of our braves – fewer than 50 warriors. Even that small number was greater than the remaining Wampanoags. Almost all of the men and many of the women and children were slaughtered. The ones they didn’t butcher were sold into slavery John. This is what the Europeans did to the people who welcomed them, fed them, and taught them how to survive in the ‘new’ world.”

  The Princess told him to listen to the demands that the leader of the mounted troops was making of the Nobscussett people.

  “Attention savages of Cape Cod. I am Captain Franklin of the fifth mounted regiment of the combined Colonial and British forces. I bring you good news. As you can see, I have “King Phillip’s head on my pike. He can cause you no more trouble. The war that he started which threatened your security, is over! His warriors
have all been defeated and his lands have been returned to the Colony where they belong.

  “More good news,” he said in a booming voice, “I am here today to give you money. Gold! Solid gold which you can use any way you like. You will be issued four ounces of high grade dust in return for your agreement to sign over to His Majesty the King, all lands currently occupied by you.

  “In return you will get not only the gold but a vast amount of safe and secure land for your tribe. The minister of agriculture has determined that a savage needs about six acres of land for optimum survival. He has drafted a plan that will provide each and every one of you with a parcel of land far in excess of the six you need. The minister is generously allotting each one of you a full ten acres!

  ”Since your tribe numbers around 100, you will be entitled to 1000 sections of the finest soil on Cape Cod. This will be your land and it cannot ever be taken from you. You must simply agree to a few formalities, which include a proviso that you can never leave your area, which for legal purposes we call a reservation. I repeat, you must stay on the reservation and cannot depart from it. Anyone caught leaving the boundaries of the thousand acres will be subject to being shot. That person’s head shall then be put on a pike and displayed at the gates of the reservation as a fair warning to others.”

  “After my troops and I leave here today, we shall hoist King Phillip’s head on a pole above the town of Plymouth and we shall leave it at the city gates as a perpetual reminder to all savages to obey the rules of the Colony.”

  Mashantampaine, bent low from many decades as Chief and from countless problems with the invaders, left his small band of braves and walked to within a foot of the enemy captain, sitting high on his black stallion.

  “You say you have brought us good news? You have brought us nothing but slow death by strangulation instead of a quick bullet from your fire-stick! I don’t like strangulation. You take away our hunting grounds, our fields of corn, and the sites where for two thousand of your years we have built our wig-wams.

  “You want to steal our land that stretches east and west for hundreds of arrow shoots. Then you say you will give us back barely enough land for ten arrow shoots? There are one hundred people left in my nation and you offer us a tiny patch of land that cannot support 20 braves, let alone a herd of deer, fields of grain, bogs of berries, chickens for eggs, and cows for milk.