Cape Cod

by William Martin

  CHAPTER 8

  April 1621

  Witawawmut’s Head

  April 5, 1621. Wind steady, WNW, sky clear. The Cape slips below the horizon. The seas rise. The ship takes life. The men go to their tasks with fresh spirit, well pleased to be shed at last of Plymouth and the Saints.

  Springtime comes and with it gentle winds to push us home. Gentle may they remain, for we are undermanned and topheavy, with half the crew dead and naught but ballast stones in the hold. I crowd no sail. I’ve not the sailors for it, nor confidence that even so sturdy a ship as this won’t pitchpole with an empty hull.

  I be more confident that them I leave will survive empty bellies and half-empty plantation. Fifty souls, sturdy in constitution and faith, have lived through the winter.

  And in these last weeks have they made a treaty with Massasoit. Though his stronghold is well SW of Plymouth, he is chief of all the tribes to the tip of Cape Cod. He sees in the white settlers, or more truthfully in their ordnance, an ally against the Narragansetts, his enemies to the west.

  This is to the good. But the grace of God must continue to pour down on them, so that they may grow their corn and fill their larders and unburden themselves of the debt they owe the London Adventurers. Their work in the wilderness is barely begun. But God will help them. Of that I doubt not….

  “God damn them,” boomed Thomas Weston.

  “I know now I be in London,” said Jones, “as if noise and stench weren’t reminder enough.”

  “God damn them, I say. And if you like it not, sir, God damn you, too.” Thomas Weston circled his desk like a bear in a pit, looking to lash out at one of the dogs.

  Christopher Jones sat calmly in a chair by the window.

  Neither Weston’s bulk nor his anger moved Jones, who understood as well as Weston the theatrical use of the temper. He studied Weston’s cheap finery—red hose, port-stained red waistcoat, plumed red cap hanging on the peg—and concluded that the Saints’ agreement with Massasoit was surely more honorable than the dealings they must have had with this man.

  “They sent nothin’? Nothin’ at all?” cried Weston. “Not a single bloody pelt? Nor yard of cedar? Nor even a few roots of sassafras? Nothin’?”

  “They be near half of ’em dead. And the rest of ’em be half dead. Thanks be to God you got plantation at all, weak as ’tis.”

  Weston dropped into his chair, hooked a leg over the arm, and swung it in annoyance.

  “ ’Tis their weakness,” continued Jones, “has kept ’em from answerin’ their agreement.”

  “More weakness of judgment than of hands, I’d aver.” Several pieces of pork were tangled in Weston’s beard, and the real food was garnished with a carbuncle that looked like a red cherry at the corner of his nose.

  As an apprentice blacksmith, Weston had learned that in the modern world, iron could do more than gold to better the lot of the common man. Now he did his ironmongering at a hall in Aldergate Ward while, in the barn behind, a dozen bellows fired furnaces in which smiths fashioned the ingots and the implements he sold.

  He had made good from humble beginnings and looked to do better. Into his circle he had drawn others of like mind, men of commerce who sought to become men of speculation and, perhaps, of wealth. They called themselves the London Adventurers, and they looked across the sea, to a land where the woods were endless and the beaver roamed by the millions. There would always be men like the Saints, who wished to cultivate such a place, and they would always need men like the Adventurers, who let their money do their cultivating for them.

  Weston pulled a quill from his inkwell and wrote out a letter of credit. “You’ll give over your sea journal and anything else you got in writin’ ’bout this voyage.”

  Jones laughed as he would at a sailor questioning an order. “Not only does the ale make your nose red, it clouds your brain, sirrah.”

  “Sirrah?” Weston stalked across the room and stood over Jones. “I be a man of business. You call me ‘sirrah’ once more, I’ll bake your head in one of me furnaces. Teach you some manners and a bit of sense.”

  Christopher Jones stood slowly. His clothes now hung upon his body, and circles had darkened under his eyes. Though he now felt the full weight of his fifty years, he was not yet one to threaten. “Me journal be me own business, me own and any barrister what calls for it in law court. That’s why I keep it. If you want to see it, that’s where you’ll see it… sirrah.”

  “Very well, Master Jones.” Weston went back to his desk and picked up the letter. “Let us not forget our business be undone till I pay you the last part for your ship.”

  Then, outside the window, there was a great commotion of flutes and tambourines. A clown carried high a placard: At Two of the Clock this Day, The Taming of the Shrew, by the late Will. Shakespeare, Royal Globe. And behind came actors costumed as Italian nobles and harlequins, dancing and singing to the delight of the crowd that was as perpetual in these narrow streets as the waves at Cape Cod. It was May, and the spirits of London were near as high as its smell. Jones realized how seldom he had heard laughter the last ten hard months.

  Waiting for him at Rotherhithe was a woman who was anything but shrew. He longed to laugh with her and lie with her and feel her soothing hand upon his brow. And after a few days at her side, his cough would fade and his strength, which now he showed in sham, would come back to him in earnest. So he sat again, to conclude this business quickly.

  “I be but one man.” Weston’s voice lost all threat. He simply waved the letter in the air as if to dry it. “I must answer to others, who worry for their money.”

  “As do we all.”

  “Then you see me predicament. A glimpse of the journal can hurt no one, but only bring them sympathy.”

  “What beyond sympathy do you seek?”

  Weston stroked his beard, and a piece of the pork came away in his hand. He studied it for a moment, then popped it into his mouth. “A narrative of the winter. Aye, just that. So’s I know what they face and know better the way to help ’em.”

  Jones did not believe this scheming ironmonger for a moment. Weston would seek in the log some piece of knowledge to use against the settlers, something to make them redouble their efforts. But there was nothing he could bring to bear upon them that they would not bring upon themselves. It had been his good fortune to have made a covenant with honorable men. Even Ezra Bigelow had proven his constancy in the miserable first winter.

  Outside, the parade had gone past. Laughter and music had been swallowed by the din of the streets. Jones wished simply to go home, and he had some small sympathy for Weston. Just as Weston would face difficulty convincing his partners that the Plymouth settlers still deserved their support, Jones would face it from his should he fail to deliver final payment for the voyage.

  So he left for Rotherhithe that afternoon. He coughed much of the way home, but in his pouch he carried Weston’s letter. Weston, for his part, now had the log.

  ii.

  It was during the warmest days that Autumnsquam finally met one of the whites. It was his bad fortune that he met a boy, for he had sworn that he would kill any white who came within shot of his arrow, no matter the agreements that the far-off Massasoit had made.

  He was digging quahaugs near the place of the winter fight when he saw four runners far out on the flats. It seemed that they were floating above the sand, on a layer of water. But that was just some magic of Geesukquand, the sun spirit, who played this trick on everyone’s eyes in the warm months.

  When the runners came close, their feet touched the ground, and they looked like ordinary men—two Manomets, one of Iyannough’s Cummaquids, and a white boy who had been found wandering between the Scusset and Manomet rivers. The Manomets had brought him to Iyannough, who now sent him to Aspinet.

  Sweat poured from the boy’s face. The sun had reddened him so that he looked like a cooked fish belly beside the healthy-skinned Wampanoags. He had tied his heavy moccasins around his neck so t
hat he could run barefoot across the flats, and he wore also a string of shells.

  “We gave him a necklace because he ran well,” said one of the Manomets, “all day, without complaint.”

  Autumnsquam asked the boy his name. The boy did not understand. The Nauset thumped his chest and said, “Autumnsquam.” Then he pointed at the boy, who jumped back like a dog ducking the hand of a stranger.

  That was good, thought Autumnsquam. He pointed again, and the boy said, “Christopher… Hilyard.”

  “Chris-to-pher Hil-yud.” Autumnsquam tried the words.

  Then the boy pointed to himself, to the south, and pressed his hands to the side of his head in the sign of sleep.

  “He has done that three times,” offered one of the others.

  “Sleeps to the south?” Autumnsquam looked toward the land between the creeks. “Nauseiput?”

  The boy made the gestures again.

  “You sleep tonight with the Nausets.”

  At the village, there was great commotion. The women and children scurried from their wetus to see the white boy, and one ran off to fetch the men, who were fishing. Autumnsquam sat the boy on a log outside his own wetu, and the women and children gathered around in a great circle of curiosity.

  But Autumnsquam wanted no welcome. Let this boy be frightened. Let all whites be frightened, for all time. To keep them frightened, Autumnsquam glowered. And as he was a pinse, a trusted brave and counselor, the rest of the Nausets did as he did… but for one.

  This one had been born in winter and was now old enough to crawl. Like a crab he scuttled from his wetu. He stopped at his father’s feet and looked up, then he saw the new face. He had not yet learned to fear strangers, so he smiled.

  The white boy smiled back. The baby sat on his fat behind and smiled even wider. The children at the edge of the group smiled, too. And Autumnsquam chewed on the inside of his cheek to keep his own face from warming.

  Then the white boy took off his beads and gently placed them around the baby’s neck. And the laughter of the Nausets could be heard on both shores of the Narrow Land.

  Christopher stayed three days with the Nausets, exploring, fishing, and playing with Autumnsquam’s little boy. Then his people came for him. They grounded their boat on the flats but would not go up to the village, fearing another fight. Autumnsquam thought that was good, though the Nausets wore no paint and had no plans for war. He sent word to the village, but he and the others stayed on the beach and kept their bows in their hands.

  The wind that day was a warm wind, from the southwest, and it carried the stink of the sweated white bodies straight into Autumnsquam’s face. The boy Hil-yud did not smell bad, but the smell from the whites’ canoe was like a great heap of dried seaweed and dog dung drying in the sun.

  He could not go closer than the length of three canoes, but there was one amongst them that he sent forward—he whose corn had been taken in the Pamet land seven moons before. And the whites, for all their bad smell, did better than Autumnsquam could have dreamed. They gave a knife as gift and by sign and word, promised to make good for the corn. And they did not smell so bad.

  Then, toward sunset, the whole tribe brought the boy through the woods. This was good, thought Autumnsquam, because it showed how many there were of the Nausets, and even if the whites had made a treaty with Massasoit, the Nausets were still to be feared. Sachem Aspinet stopped on the shore and made a sign of peace, then brought forth the boy, bedecked in beads and shells.

  Autumnsquam was glad he had met Chris-to-pher Hil-yud. If the whites were to live there, it was better to know that some whites were good. Then Autumnsquam recognized the man running toward the boy. It was the one he had tried to kill in the winter fight, the one who had tried to kill him.

  The father embraced his son. He said soft words, then angry words. The boy pointed again toward Nauseiput, and the father embraced him once more. This was good, thought Autumnsquam. Men who could be mad at their sons and glad for them at the same time could not be all bad.

  With one arm around the boy, the father went to Aspinet and took out his knife. This made Autumnsquam reach for his tomahawk. But the white man had planned no deceit. He made a gift of the knife to Aspinet, and the Nausets cheered.

  Then the boy drew his father toward Autumnsquam. If the white man recognized him, he did not show it. Instead, he offered his hand. Autumnsquam would not embarrass the sachem and so touched his hand to the white’s and gave a smile to the boy. Then the white man, who grew much hair on his face and looked like a scrawny dog, gave Autumnsquam a knife.

  In the flashing of the blade, even Autumnsquam forgot the flash of this man’s gun. But to the white man’s smile, he simply nodded. They now owed each other nothing.

  The boy, however, owed something to a little Nauset girl, or she to him. She pushed through the crowd and called his name, “Chris-to-pher,” as if he had taught it to her.

  Her name was Amapoo, Autumnsquam’s niece. She still carried much in the way of little girl plumpness, but her womanly parts had begun to bud and would soon blossom. She ran forward and put a necklace of moon snails around Christopher’s neck, causing his face to turn a bright berry red.

  Autumnsquam had never seen such a thing in one of his own, but he knew what it meant. And it would not be good, if it came to pass.

  iii.

  “The prodigal son returns!” cried Simeon Bigelow as the shallop took the breeze.

  Jack threw his arms around his son. “Thanks be to God.”

  “Prayin’ again, are we?” grunted Ezra Bigelow.

  Jack scowled at the figure hunkered in the bow. “This time, God answered.”

  “Aye,” said Simeon Bigelow, securing the halyard to a cleat. “ ’Tis God’s gift.”

  “ ’Tis God’s gift we were not massacred lookin’ for the young wastrel.” Ezra Bigelow’s face was shadowed, his eyes barely visible beneath the broad-brimmed felt hat.

  “ ’Tis the gift of good Indians,” said the boy defiantly. “They treated me like a cousin.”

  Ezra raised his head. “Another blasphemer we have, come aboard in savage ornaments.”

  “A boy,” said Simeon gently.

  “Tell me lad,” growled Myles Standish from the stern. “What made thee run off?”

  “I wanted to meet Indians and see if they used our island in summer.”

  “What island?” said Standish.

  The boy glanced at his father, who gave a slight shake of the head.

  “An island thou may have seen in winter?” said Ezra, “whilst ’twas said thou wert… hunting duck?”

  “Dammit lad!” Jack Hilyard leaped to his feet so suddenly that the shallop listed. He pulled off his hat and struck his son across the face. “Never run off again. Never!”

  The boy’s cheeks reddened again, but he cowered only a bit. Had his father been truly angry, he would have struck with a bare hand.

  “Thou worries us into our graves,” Jack Hilyard swung the hat again.

  “Sit, Jack,” cried Simeon, “before we turn over.”

  “Aye,” said Ezra, “add no lies to thy blasphemy.”

  “Lies?”

  “The boy run off, for he sees the world through the father’s eyes and sees this… island as a place to ’scape the law and the Word.” Ezra stood and propped himself in the bow, like a preacher in a pulpit. “For breaking our laws, for running away and causing able-bodied men to venture into Indian country, I pledge to the son, and to the father who raised him, that never will they have what they seek here.”

  Now the boy saw true anger in his father’s eyes, anger shot first at Bigelow, then at the boy himself. His father called him a bloody moron, then tore the necklaces from off his neck and flung them into the sea.

  iv.

  In the life of the bay, nothing was wasted. The men of Plymouth learned that lesson well the first summer. Massasoit’s Indians taught them to use herring from the bay to richen the soil: plant one herring in every hill of seed, a
nd plant corn, beans, and squash together. The cornstalks grew tall from the herring, the beans twined around the corn, and the prickles on the squash vines grew out to protect them all from the rabbits.

  Come autumn, when the oak leaves turned red and the salt marshes gold, they got in a harvest worthy of a great feast. For three days, they partook of the abundance God had given them, whilst offering hospitality to Massasoit and his men. They ate turkey and venison and looked to the second winter with a confidence as great as their faith.

  Yet in a few days more, another ship arrived, the Fortune, carrying thirty-five more souls, thirty-five more mouths to feed. The ship also carried a new patent, making this settlement legal in the eyes of the Crown. And it carried a letter, more like a cannon shot fired from London four months before.

  In it Thomas Weston berated them for keeping the Mayflower so long and sending her back empty. He warned that unless they delivered something, they could not count on the support of the Adventurers. William Bradford, now governor of the plantation, shot back his own angry letter and, to prove their constancy, had the Fortune loaded with cedar planks and pelts.

  They survived the second winter. Warm shelters and full bellies went far toward fighting off disease. And in June of 1622 hopes rose with the arrival of the Charity and the Swan. But those ships brought both bad news and bad seeds.

  The French had stopped the Fortune on her voyage to England and stripped both her passengers and her cargo. Their good friend Christopher Jones had died of consumption in March. And Thomas Weston had quit the Adventurers.

  This meant also that Weston had quit his support of the Plymouth Plantation. But he wrote that he looked to friendly dealings with Plymouth: witness the sixty men he had sent on the Swan, charged with building a plantation that he intended himself to join. Weston had given no thought to feeding these sixty, or to their character. Those problems he left for Plymouth.

  By fall Weston’s men had moved north about twenty miles to a place called Wessagusset to make a settlement, but they were lazy and improvident and soon needed food. They asked Plymouth for help, so Bradford traveled to the Nausets, who traded corn for English hoes. But by February, Weston’s men had once more sailed themselves into hard straits.