Caleb's Crossing

by Geraldine Brooks

  I believe Benjamin Eliot had not had much time to prepare his words, for he fell back on the stale and oft-rehearsed theme of salvation by grace, and although it was a competent oration, none would have called it brilliant or memorable. Of course, young Eliot did not have to use the occasion as others did, to catch the eye of those in the illustrious audience who might have a pulpit or a schoolroom on offer. His path was already set out for him; he would go to assist the work of his father. Later, I learned that a stern providence awaited him. At a young age, he became quite lunatic, unable to govern his tongue or his actions.

  Dudley rose next, to take the secondary honor of the Latin oration. This was wittily and prettily done, Dudley taking as his subject the Golden Mean and the desirability of moderation, and then, when he had the audience lulled into acceptance of the proposition, upending the argument by asserting that in truth God allowed of no moderation. Between good and evil, truth and falsehood, there lay no mean, and the least moderate fact of existence was the existence of God himself. When he had done, the approbation voiced in the hall was itself quite immoderate, thus furthering young Dudley’s case. I need not write of what became of him, his fame—or infamy—depending upon one’s faction, having set his name before us oft enough. But when I learned he had penned an account of his adventures in the Great Swamp campaign of King Philip’s War, I sent away for it. I read it with dismay, surprised that one who had known Caleb and Joel could gloat upon the murder of Indian women and children as he did.

  I felt rather for young Jabez Fox, having to follow on from Dudley with the Hebrew oration. He also resorted to a well-masticated topic: whether goodness manifested itself always in the beautiful. I found my mind drifting to other times when that issue had been probed, and thinking it was a missed chance indeed not to have had Caleb speak to this theme. His might have been a lively exegesis, drawing as it did on a very different experience of what was good and beautiful, and how beauty might be perceived quite differently by foreign souls in unalike times. Although in his work he had been the peer or better of Fox, Samuel had told me that Chauncy thought it unwise to have Caleb and Joel honored with two of the three orations. He said Chauncy had invited Caleb to speak, once the news of Joel’s death reached him, but Caleb had declined, saying he was not in heart for it.

  While I attempted to keep my concentration upon the speakers, my gaze kept drifting to Caleb, where he sat in the graduates’ place of honor upon the dais. He held himself, as ever, very erect. I tried to see him as others in the hall must—this great curiosity, the salvage plucked from the wilderness and tamed so thoroughly into a scholar. In truth, he looked almost indistinguishable from his fellow graduates. His dress mimicked theirs in every particular. If anything, his grooming was even more particular. He was taller, as I have said, but he had shed that breadth of chest and arm that had once marked him out as a different style of man. If his hair was a darker hue than the others’, it had lost some of its distinctive thickness and sheen. His skin, though olive tinged, was several shades lighter after the years of indoor life. Only the planes of his face—the high, broad cheekbones—had become more pronounced and foreign the leaner he had become. Caleb’s face was tilted towards the speaker’s podium, but his expression was very distant. I supposed that he thought of Joel; how could he not?

  As the dinner hour approached, Chauncy rose to open the feast, craving a blessing on the young men commencing their roles as leaders of educated society. The governor stood next, and sent around the grace cup, with a warm little speech about the college and the pride that he took in the fact that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge recognized our scholars’ first degree as equal with their own.

  The feast itself was ample, the beeves succulent, and as the cups were filled and filled again, the noise in the hall became such that folk could not hear the speech at their own tables without leaning in almost to their neighbors’ laps. In the end, the clamor and the stifling heat drove me out of the buttery and into the yard, where the air was cooler, if the revels no less raucous. By the time I had recovered sufficiently to go back inside, the disputations were already under way. Although I was keen to hear Caleb, I knew he would do admirably with the hoary old topics of theses philosophicae and philologicae. Indeed, nothing was said that afternoon that had not already been said a dozen times previous in the same place, the only difference being the occasional interjections from an audience whose spirits had been elevated by a bibulous luncheon. Caleb acquitted himself with distinction; I saw Chauncy beaming every time he spoke, his Latin eloquent and his allusions apt. Once or twice I caught Thomas Danforth, leaning across his fellows to garner agreement from some distinguished person or other as to Caleb’s ability.

  Well, I thought. You have done it, my friend. It has cost you your home, and your health, and estrangement from your closest kinsman. But after today, no man may say the Indian mind is primitive and ineducable. Here, in this hall, you stand, the incontestible argument, the negat respondens.

  Finally, Chauncy stood and signaled for quiet. The hall hushed. He adressed himself, in Latin, to the Overseers: “Honorable gentlemen and reverend ministers, I present to you these youths, whom I know to be sufficent in learning and in manners to be raised to the First Degree in Arts according to the custom of the Universities in England. Doth it please you?”

  The voices rang out: “Placet!”

  One by one, the graduates rose up and stood before Chauncy to be handed the book that signified their degree. As Caleb took his from Chauncy’s hand, I thought that the old man’s voice shook with emotion as he said the rote words, “I hand thee this book, together with the power to lecture on any one of the arts which thou has studied, wheresoever thou shalt have been called to that office.”

  Later, when all the formal business had been concluded, the graduates stepped down from the dais and into the embrace of their families. The women—mothers, sisters—joined the press now, entering the hall all smiles for their graduates. I moved forward, trying to reach Caleb, to offer him the congratulations the day deserved. But the crowd was so dense and unyielding I could hardly make my way. It parted for him, however, as he made his way directly for the door. I called out, trying to attract his attention. He did not turn, but kept walking. I looked back over my shoulder to where Samuel was similarly encumbered by knots of revelers. He raised his shoulders, to imply that he was pinned, for the moment, in his corner of the hall. I pushed my way through, elbowing honorables and reverends with no regard for mannerliness, and finally attained the door. I looked in all directions, trying to descry Caleb in the crowd.

  Finally, I made him out. He was halfway across the yard, leaning heavily against a tree. His back was to me, but I could see that his shoulders shook. For a moment, I considered whether or not to go to him. If he was in grief, he would not want me, perhaps. But then feeling overwhelmed prudence and I hurried on. As I drew near, I realized that it was not grief that wracked him, but a violent coughing spasm. He had a linen hankin I had sewn for him pressed to his mouth. When he drew it away, I saw that it was speckled with blood.

  VIII

  I expect that every person alive today has sat with someone dear to them through the rigors of the consumption. So I will not recount the long days and nights, except to say that my friend suffered, and through all of it evinced the stoicism that befit both a sonquem’s son and a convinced Christian. Which part of himself he called upon for patience and courage, I do not know.

  Thomas Danforth was solicitous. Caleb did not lack for the best food, but it came late to replenish what town and college life had robbed from him. The Charlestown physician attended upon him almost daily and Samuel bled and cupped him as often as he thought good to do it. At first, these ministrations and the chance for gentle walks in Danforth’s hayfields seemed to make an improvement in his condition. But as the weather hardened he fell once more into a decline. The day came when he could not rise from his bed.

  We were in Cambridge at the Cu
tters’ house through this time, Samuel assisting betimes the new schoolmaster and betimes visiting his chirurgical patients. I went out to Charlestown as often as I could, to sit with Caleb and read to him and encourage him in every way possible. We all of us hoped for an improvement in his condition with the coming of spring, but the gentler air seemed insufficient to arrest his decline. As his state grew grave, Danforth asked me if I would stay at his home and nurse Caleb. Samuel consented, so readily indeed I feared what he did not say; that his experience told him Caleb’s end was close. Ephriam Cutter’s young wife agreed to take charge of Ammi Ruhama. So I stayed in Charlestown and spent my every waking hour at Caleb’s bedside. There, I heard his fevered ravings as his illness worsened and he slipped in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he would murmur passages of scripture, other times, Latin aphorisms and epigrams would tumble forth from his lips. But at night he would ramble in Wampanaontoaonk. Always, at those times, it seemed that he addressed himself to Tequamuck. The rambling took the form of a conversation, or an argument, and often he would become agitated and thrash in his bed, although by day his failing body left him too weak to raise a hand.

  After several nights of this, I conceived a plan—call it a fool’s errand, or a desperate kind of madness—plucked up my courage and, with Samuel’s blessing, bespoke me a passage to the island.

  Makepeace and Dorcas were pleased to see me, though I did not give them an honest accounting of the grounds for my visit. That, I confided only to Iacoomis. He waxed wroth, as I had feared he might, and tried every argument to turn me from my purpose. In the end, and sadly, he refused to help me. I cannot say that I was entirely surprised.

  This left me with but one place to turn. It took a vast amount of talking on my part to win Makepeace’s agreement, but in the end he let me travel to visit the Merrys all alone. My pretext was supplied by the fact that Anne, still in deep mourning for Joel, had returned thence, having decided to honor his memory by walking the path he had planned to walk. She intended to start a school for the Takemmy children, and thereby fertilize the soil for the seeds of Christ’s gospel.

  I will own it: as heavyhearted as I was, setting out on my errand, the ride out of Great Harbor lifted my spirits. Speckle, as ever, was happy to bear me, and pranced along like a phaeton pony whenever the terrain allowed. When I came over the rise that led to the Merrys’ farm, I reined her in and gathered my breath. I had not had an occasion to visit the Merrys when last I was on the island, since they had been all too happy to call upon us in Great Harbor. But now I saw that the industrious family had not wasted a day of the six years since I had last set eyes on their property. They had acquired a pair of calves and trained them up, so that the team of young oxen had cleared the dead trees. The orchard, skillfully pruned and carefully watered, ran in serried rows. I could hear sounds of factory coming from the mill, much enlarged, its great stones turning as the water tumbled brightly through the flume.

  There were three fine homes, instead of only one, Jacob and Noah each having built a cottage to shelter their growing broods. It was Noah’s littlest girl, Sarah, who saw me first, and ran to tell her mother. Tobia greeted me kindly and sent Sarah to fetch in Noah from the fields. I watched her go, blonde curls bobbing—the very image of her father.

  Noah came in, smiling, yet clearly perplexed by my sudden appearance. “I was with your brother, market day last, yet he did not say ought of expecting a visit from you.”

  “I returned hence unlooked for,” I said. Tobia had set out beer and oatcakes, so it was necessary to sit and make inconsequential chatter for some little while. Then Anne came in. She had been giving lessons at her school. She looked well, though without the bloom and gaiety she had worn a year earlier, before her great loss. We spoke of how she went on with the children, and her looks became more animated as she talked of this child and that one, and how they did.

  I could see that Noah regarded me throughout, and when he perceived that I was not about to disclose, before the others, my business in appearing at his door so strangely, he made some excuse about needing to take a message to the mill, and asked if I would like to walk over with him and see the improvements there. I caught the hint of a playful smile about his lips as he said this last; he knew very well I had no interest in grist making.

  As soon as we were clear of the dooryard, I spoke. “Once, years since, you proved yourself a friend to me, and took a great risk in behalf of someone I held dear, who was in dire trouble. Noah, I have no right to ask it, but I have come here in the hope that you will come to my aid, as a great friend, once again, for such another in extremis.” I told him then of Caleb’s grave illness, and made my strange request. “It may be a fool’s errand,” I concluded, “but our best medicine and most ardent prayers have done nothing for him. If there is anything to be done, perhaps it yet lies in the hands of this other.”

  Noah looked grave. “I do not know why you should think it, so complete a crossing as Caleb has made into English ways, these many years.”

  “I have my reasons,” I said softly.

  “It is not without risk, you know. He is vengeful, so they say who know of him, and filled with spite. He keeps himself alone, these days, since no Christian Indians will suffer his presence among them. He is the last; the only pawaaw who has not renounced Satan and his familiars.”

  “I know it. But I have to try.”

  And so we took a mishoon to the Takemmy settlement to seek advice from the sonquem there. He was a prudent man. He made it his business to know where Tequamuck encamped at any given time. Better to give the wizard a wide berth, he reasoned, since he had been rumored to send his demon imps after any who took game that he deemed was his rightful portion.

  When the sonquem learned that Noah and I sought conference with Tequamuck, he crossed himself and called on God’s protection against the evil one. (He had become a Christian two years since, after long study of the matter.) We set out that same afternoon for the place he named, which was by great good fortune not three miles distant.

  I do not know how, but he must have sensed our coming. He was waiting for us, standing, arms folded, behind the blaze of a fire. In its smoke I smelled the sharp tang of burning sage. He was dressed for ceremony. He wore his turkey feather cape and his face was painted in bands of red and yellow ochre.

  We reined in Speckle some rods distant from his camp, and dismounted. I was quaking, I own it. My knees buckled when my feet touched the earth. Noah gave me his arm, and I took it right willingly, although when I laid my hand on it I felt that he too was all a-tremble. We willed ourselves forward.

  Tequamuck must have cast some charm upon the fire, for as we approached it f lared up for an instant. I winced in the sudden blast of heat. His form seemed to waver in the fiery air between us.

  “Why does the child of the dead English pawaaw seek Tequamuck?”

  That he spoke in English took me aback. I could not think how he might have acquired it, since keeping aloof from us had ever been his way.

  “I … I come to ask your help.” My voice was quavering.

  “My help?” He gave a mirthless laugh. “My help? What’s this? What of the power of your one god and his tortured son? Have they deserted you at last?”

  I switched to Wampanaontoaonk. It had been years since I had spoken it, but the graceful shapes of the long words fell easily into my mouth. “Please, harken to me. Your nephew is sick. He lies close to death. He calls to you in his fit. I have heard him, night following night. I come to you to seek help for my friend in his illness.”

  “My nephew is sick? You think this comes as news to me? My nephew has been sick—indeed, he has been marked for death—from the day he commenced to walk with you, Storm Eyes.”

  I felt my breath go out of me. My knees really did buckle then, and Noah had to put out a hand against my fall. Tequamuck smiled. He was, as I supposed, used to having such an effect on people. I tried to fill my mind with prayers—rote words and psalms that were
as natural as breath to me. But the fear this man engendered was like a black curtain and I could not summon a single verse. Tequamuck’s voice took on the cadence he used in ceremony.

  “I have heard Cheeshahteaumauk’s cries. I have met his spirit. It is a weak spirit, pulled between two worlds. That is your doing, Storm Eyes. You call him friend. You have called him brother. Your friend and brother is lost now, wandering. He searches. Do you know why?”

  I swallowed and I closed my eyes. Perhaps I did know. Or perhaps Tequamuck was bewitching me, putting thoughts into my mind. My mouth was dry as ash and I could not gather breath to speak.

  “He searches for the son of Iacoomis. He does not find him, and he grieves. He fears he will never find him. That one never learned the way to the spirit world. He has no familiars to guide him. Cheeshahteaumauk’s heart knows this. He knows that if he seeks his friend, he risks abandoning the spirit world of his ancestors, and all his kinfolk there. He will have to go to the house of the English dead.”

  I let go of Noah’s supporting hand then and sank down on my knees. Great sobs rose up out of my chest. Tequamuck looked down at me with disgust. I knew that such a display was a disgraceful show of weakness in his eyes. He turned and began to walk towards his wetu. In his mind, the conference was clearly at a close. But I could not let it end there. I had to know how to help Caleb. I gathered my frayed shred of will, rubbed the tears from my face and forced myself to my feet.