“It only makes sense. What you say makes no sense. It takes nine days to go more than half the way, and then it takes six weeks to travel the rest? Do you take us for fools?”
The man sat back and shrugged. “You and your family must step over there.” He waved toward the forlorn, then called out, “Next.”
The guards stepped forward. They were large and smelled of animal fat. Johann felt Fritz’s hand on his arm. Walther began to cry, squirming in his mother’s arms. Johann looked back at Christiane. Still white-hot inside, he reached under his shirt for his leather pouch and counted out the coins on the table. Fritz paid too.
“Please,” Johann said after the man swept the coins into a large pile on the table, “show me in the book where you are recording our payment?”
“Next!” The man looked over Johann’s shoulder, and a guard herded them to the side of the pier, away from the redemptioners. The guard pointed to a small ship tied up at a separate pier. “The sailors’ll put the chests out on the pier over there. Carry yours onto the sloop after that.”
They walked unsteadily, unused to land. Something calmed Walther—dry land, or maybe it was America. Johann breathed easier to see their chest carried onshore. It held everything they still owned: hand tools, bedding, clothes, the prayer book and Bible that Christiane’s mother had pressed on them.
A gust blew Johann’s coat open. He suppressed a shudder. His anger slid into a fear of the omens around this landing. In his first minutes in America, he had been cheated like some ignorant peasant back in Hesse. Now they would have less money for settling the land. General Waldo had made promises, but what were promises worth? What did Johann know of this country? He could see how wild it was, how wild and immoral its people were.
When Christiane took his arm, he placed his hand on hers. At least, Johann thought, they would never set foot on the Mary Anne again. They would never descend again into that foul cabin, breathe air that had been breathed dozens of times, lose all dignity living on top of each other.
“Stop here,” she said. They let the Bauers walk ahead. She kissed their baby and fixed Johann with a smile that was far too lovely for his mood. “We are in America, Johann. You have brought us here for our new life. Let’s always remember this moment.”
She nudged him to look around. Under his feet, the land still felt odd, tilted yet solid in a way he hadn’t felt for so long. The sunshine glowed on the land. The sky sparkled with blue. Sigrid Bauer started running up the slope to the town, shrieking with joy, her mother trailing behind. “The leaves, Johann,” Christiane said. “What colors they are.” The trees shimmered with oranges and golds and reds, reflecting in the water from the opposite side of the harbor. She touched his cheek with the fingers of one hand. “Thank you, Johann.”
“Yes,” he said. He clenched his teeth against a surge of feeling. He had meant to do so much more for her and for Walther. And for Peter. He should have. And yet still she gave him this smile. “So. We are people of America now.”
His head was stuffed with all the things they must do. Get land. Clear it and plant it. Build a home and raise crops and cows and chickens. Christiane must learn English, and Walther must learn to make his way in this world. They will have children, many children. All of them people of America. They will stand on their own. He felt a rush of energy and hope, an eagerness for this testing to come. He looked over at Christiane, hungry for another smile. She gave it to him.
* * * * * *
The sloop was too small for the hundred remaining settlers. Johann and Fritz had planted their chests next to the starboard rail, their families following to sit on them. Sigrid jumped up and down when the sloop cast off in mid-afternoon. The next ground they walked on would be Broad Bay, their new home.
Christiane thought of the hardships already passed, of those buried at sea, of those who fell into indentures that morning. They had left familiar places and traditions, had gambled on a journey they could not expect to return from. She pushed those thoughts out of her mind. For Johann and Walther and her, the time was at hand. Anticipation pulsed through everyone jammed onto the sloop’s deck.
“Say,” Johann said to a crewmember who was shouldering through the press. “Where is General Waldo? Will he meet us in Broad Bay?”
The man grinned. “General Waldo? Meet the likes of you?” After he had gone a few more steps, the crewman called back, “If you see him, point him out to me, will you?”
Johann felt his ears warm. He was glad the other settlers didn’t know enough English to understand the sailor’s words, though they couldn’t miss the mocking tone. “So?” Fritz asked. “Will the general be there?”
“Maybe not,” Johann said.
About an hour from Portsmouth, the wind died. Through the night, the sloop barely moved. The passengers fell silent. As the hours crept by, their discomfort grew. Those with physical needs pushed to the rail and relieved themselves in a range of contorted postures. As one man struggled through the crowd, another called out, “Take a piss for me, would you?” There was laughter. Another said, “Shall we swim there, lads?” The laughter was less.
In the morning light, the crew brought out a keg of fresh water, but it soon ran out. There was no food. Christiane swayed on her feet. Johann made her sit on the deck, her back against their chest. A few hours later, a breeze nudged the ship to life. The ropes and wooden joints creaked. A few hours later, the words ran through the ship. Broad Bay was near.
Clouds almost filled the sky when the sloop shifted toward an opening between two shores. Christiane stood, then rose on her toes. Johann turned Walther’s face to the land and pointed, saying in English, “This is your new home.” The smudges along the shore, Christiane thought, must be cabins. Four crewmen strained to drop the heavy anchor in what had to be Broad Bay. They shivered to a stop. Christiane barely noticed the cold wind coming off the water.
After lowering a dinghy from the stern, the crew ferried settlers to shore. Another dinghy came out from the land to speed the process. The Oberstrasses were among the last to reach the short pier. The settlers gathered in a clearing near the water. They gazed around in wonder. Some wept. Some embraced. Some fell to their knees.
From her knees, Christiane set Walther on the ground, her hands hovering on either side of him. He crouched and slapped the ground. Johann joined them. He took off his hat. In a voice only she could hear, he said, “Thank you, Lord, for bringing us here safely. We will care for this land as You would wish. And may You care for our Peter.”
Nungesser walked in front of the settlers and removed his hat. He held his Bible in his other hand. He smiled and spread his arms. “There is a passage in the Book that we may hear now as never before. It is in Exodus, where Moses speaks when the Israelites reach the Promised Land.” He turned to a page:
And the Lord said, “Before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of the Lord; for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee.”
Many “amens” rose up. To Christiane, they sounded heartfelt.
CHAPTER FIVE
†
Walther had rotated in his sleep, placing his feet in his father’s chest and his head against his mother’s arm. Johann covered him with the blanket and stood quietly in the dark, his boots in one hand and his coat in the other. Their first morning in America, yet still they slept with the others.
The shelter building was no more fit for humans than Mary Anne had been. It had once been a garrison. It had clay floors, no windows, and holes in the roof to release woodsmoke. Johann and his family slept in a room with the Bauers and another family, each with its chest of belongings. The room opened to a passage that led to a central opening. The suggestion of light was enough for Johann to sneak past sleeping forms. He stopped at the fire that smoldered outside the entrance. He pulled on his boots, hopping when his foot snagged halfway into the second one, then shrugge
d into his coat. The diffidence of the pale half-moon matched the chill of the morning. A few settlers had slept outside, but close to the fire. They didn’t stir. America’s disappointments, Johann suspected, were only beginning.
Broad Bay settlement had no road, nothing wide enough for a wagon to pass along. There was only the clearing, the pier on the river. Off to the right a dozen cabins, mostly occupied by English settlers, crouched along the river. Johann took the narrow track, slightly muddy and wide enough for only one, that led from one cabin to the next.
Next to each cabin a small boat or canoe rested on the shore. The river, called the Medomak in General Waldo’s brochure, was plainly the main thoroughfare, with boats the best way to get around. The brochure had not said there was no road. Johann would have to learn about boats.
A few cabins had cows tied next to them. Some cabins huddled next to the charred remains of earlier shelters. The settlement had been burned by Indians five years before, Johann had learned the night before. The brochure hadn’t mentioned that either.
To explore farther, Johann had to enter the forest. Fingering the bayonet in the belt of his coat, Johann set off. Some chickens ignored him as he passed.
Upriver, the path disappeared into woods. Rocks and tree roots reached up for his feet while branches poked at his face. He paused every few hundred feet to listen. When he first stopped, the silence seemed complete but for his own breathing. If he stood long enough and steadied himself, sounds emerged. Light watery tones from the river. Owl hoots. Birds waking up, their calls unfamiliar. A breeze brushed leaves against each other.
He slowed at a meadow that stretched up from the riverfront. He paused and stared at the land. This was what he had come for. It was right on the river, and it wouldn’t take months to clear off the trees that otherwise darkened every vista. He would want Fritz to look at the soil. Johann was no judge of soil. Was the land too steep for good farming? Also for Fritz.
This meadow was probably taken. General Waldo surely had snapped up the best for himself. But Johann might find something as good, maybe farther from the settlement.
He started again, the sky brightening on his right. He entered another patch of bush and scrub trees that cut off his view. A scream tore through the air. He froze. He gripped the bayonet and tried to slow the hammering pulse in his ears.
It wasn’t a human scream, he decided. A wild animal, not one he knew. Outside Kettenheim, the forest held boar who grunted and snuffled. He once saw a chained bear who could be goaded into a roar of annoyance and rage. This scream was different, higher-pitched, more ragged. He decided to turn back. He moved quietly at first, wary of disturbing a wild creature, then began to relax and pick up speed. When he reached the first cabin and the beginning of the path, he released his grip on the bayonet. Now, with more light, he could see where the path veered into the woods, then vanished.
He slowed to examine the cabins. They were rough affairs. Their doors faced the river and had no windows on their inland sides. Hewn wood piled high next to each. The forest offered wood in abundance. Smoke rose from several cabins, which had chimney arrangements of varying designs. At one cabin entrance, a dark shape hunched before a fire that was just beginning to catch. The figure fed small sticks into the flickering pile. Johann made enough noise to warn of his approach. A cow tied to a small tree eyed him but said nothing.
“You’re either a giant bear,” a deep voice called out, “or one of those ignorant Germans that swam ashore yesterday.”
Johann stopped. “Just an ignorant German.”
The man stood and turned. He was tall and ruddy. “Not that ignorant,” he said, plainly embarrassed. “I thought you—”
Johann held out his hand. “Johann Oberstrasse. The very ignorant Johann Oberstrasse.”
“Truly, sir, I meant no offense. It’s just, most of you people don’t know English.” He took Johann’s hand and pulled him toward the fire, then reached for more branches.
“I know English from the army,” Johann said. “I fought for your king at Dettingen.”
The man smiled. “Not for Robert McDonnell’s king you didn’t. That’s where you got them soldier’s boots, did you?”
The lilt in his words told Johann that the man was a Scot. They were violent soldiers, he knew, as ready to fight their friends as their enemies. The two men watched the fire. Saws and woodworking tools were laid out under a lean-to. A rack of animal pelts stood away from the cabin. Young voices came from inside. The McDonnell family. “How long have you been here, at Broad Bay?” Johann asked.
“But a few months. Came up from Boston. General Waldo’s so desperate for settlers that he’ll take Germans and Scots.” He pointed at the remains of a cabin. “The settlement got a poor reputation when the savages from St. Francis burned it. They scalped a bunch and hauled off another bunch. Some survived, but most lost their taste for the neighborhood.”
Johann had heard about scalping. Some settlers spoke of little else. Though he had made war his profession, scalping seemed barbaric. McDonnell was at the pile of wood and logs. He lifted logs and pushed others aside, searching for the right one.
“I wonder,” Johann said, “if I might ask about the land.”
“Only if you can work and talk at the same time. Grab the end there.” Johann sprang to the log and helped pull it from the pile. McDonnell dropped one end on a tree stump and reached for a measure that he laid against the log, then marked with a knife the spot where he would cut. When he picked up his saw, he nodded to Johann. “Steady it, eh?”
As McDonnell’s blade bit into the wood, releasing the sweet sawdust smell, Johann said, “We came for the land, but they say we can’t mark off our lands until spring. We are here. We came for the land. But they say we must wait.”
McDonnell sawed steadily, pulling the teeth through young wood with a powerful pressure. Then the blade jammed. “See here. Reach under and brace the log so it don’t close up on me.” Johann did as he was told. McDonnell picked up his rhythm. “You’ll have no trouble from us who are already here,” McDonnell said. “We have our land, all we can manage. Your business is with Waldo and his man.”
“Yes, but the talk yesterday was that no land will be assigned now. Not until spring. And they had no money for us. There was supposed to be money for each family.” After the extortion at Portsmouth Harbor, after paying for ship’s rations for much of the journey, Johann had fewer coins left than he had expected to have.
McDonnell’s saw broke through the log. “Roll that one over there,” he said. McDonnell pointed to the side of the fire, then turned back to the wood pile to find another. “There’s little enough use for money here,” he said over his shoulder. “Nowhere to spend it. Here, it’s labor that matters. You can trade your hands and your back. Now, for instance, I need to build another room here. We’ve got four little ones, and that’s a lot of squirming and squealing in the one room. You help me with that, and I’ll show you how we do things, give you a hand with your work.”
When Johann didn’t say anything, McDonnell looked up. “I’ll pay you, man, and I’ll show you how to live here, which is worth a hell of a lot more than anything I pay you.”
Johann stepped over to help with the next log that McDonnell had selected. “I’ll bring my friend Fritz, he’s a farmer, smart about such things. With him, we’ll finish your work even faster. He’s to teach me about farming, and you will teach me about America.”
They rested the new log on the stump. McDonnell measured, then marked the place for cutting. “If you’re really a soldier”—the man waved at Johann’s midsection, where the bayonet handle showed—”that could come in handy.”
Johann reached down to steady the log, then remembered to support it from underneath. “I have no gun. Only the bayonet. I came to America for peace. To beat my sword into plowshares. To become a farmer.”
Making his first stroke carefully, pulling the saw through the mark he’d made, McDonnell grunted. “The savages’ll dec
ide how much peace you’ll be having, but you might want to think over being a farmer. The growing season’s short. The soil’s not as good as it looks. Nice crops of stones. The treasure”—the man pointed to the forest with his free hand—”is out there.”
“What is in the forest but wild animals and Indians? They are treasures?”
McDonnell smiled as he pumped the saw. “The forest, man. All that wood. Now we just use it for firewood, ship it down to Boston to heat the houses of rich men who sit on their fat arses all day. But it’s the treasure of this land, and not for burning. Wood for building houses and ships; tall trees for masts; fine wood for furniture.”
Johann nodded, thinking. But he had more urgent questions. “What’s he like,” he said, “this General Waldo? Have you met him?”
“Wouldn’t know him from Adam,” McDonnell said. He placed his saw down and stepped away to add some larger branches to the fire. “I bought this place—and the farm connected to it—from a man whose family had been here when the Indians came through. Sold out cheap, he did.”
“What do you hear of him, the general?”
McDonnell grinned. “They say he’s a slippery character. How else does a man grow that rich? Is he already cheating you?”
“Is he a general in the army?”
“Aye, not that it’s a proper army, of course. Things around here, you see,” McDonnell grinned again, “the rules aren’t always the same as on the other side of the sea.”
“And his agent, Herr Leichter, what’s he like?”
“Is he the one with the fine waistcoat?”
“I haven’t seen him yet, but he sounds like the only man in Broad Bay to have authority.”
“Well, I haven’t dealt with him either. I reckon he can’t be any straighter than the man he’s working for.”
The New Land Page 4