Cape Cod

by William Martin

  There he found two dwellings built on the shore. Autumnsquam sat before one and chipped flint with a stone. Beside him were three large rush baskets, each overflowing with arrowheads.

  Christopher held up his hand. “Poo-ne-am.” Greetings.

  Autumnsquam was startled. His hand went to his tomahawk, but after a moment, he recognized the white man. “Hil-yud? Chris-to-pher?”

  “Autumnsquam, netomp.” My friend.

  “Appish, Chris-to-pher.” Sit.

  “I bring my father’s greetings… and his sorrow.”

  Autumnsquam looked up at the leaves of maple and beech. “My boy rides the southwest wind with Kautantowit.”

  “I will remember his smile always.”

  Autumnsquam turned his eyes back to his chipping, as though the memory filled him with too much sorrow to contemplate.

  “You make many arrowheads.”

  “We will need… We will not speak of arrowheads. You made my boy laugh. You are welcome here.”

  And they talked the afternoon through, of the growth of Plymouth and the shrinking of Nauset and the turning of the earth.

  Toward sunset, she came. He saw her from a distance, crossing the sandbar that separated the pond from the sea. She balanced a basket of clams upon her head and walked a respectful distance behind her husband.

  “They are together two years but have no children.”

  “They have time.”

  “I would give her a child myself, but she is my blood.”

  The husband, named Spoospotswa, was young but scrawny and sunken-chested. His cough echoed ahead of him like the call of a sick bird.

  Amapoo, however, had grown well into womanhood, not tall, but with good flesh on her shoulders and arms, a healthy round face, and the firm breasts of youth. Christopher could not see her legs, as she wore a skirt of marsh grass, but he thanked God that Wampanoags did not consider uncovered breasts a cause for lust.

  Before Autumnsquam said his name, she recognized him. She put down her basket and came to him, filling her face with a smile. He wished to take her hand, but feared that her husband might take offense. And if he accidentally touched her breasts, his breeches would betray his manhood.

  So he bestowed his gifts. Autumnsquam received a hatchet, Spoospotswa a knife that made him Christopher’s friend for life, and Amapoo a looking glass.

  That night Amapoo put on her best deerskins and hung copper pendants in her ears. Her husband did not notice. He sat by the fire and watched its reflection dance on the blade of his new knife. Nor did he notice that Christopher could not take his eyes off his woman.

  Christopher stayed three days. He slept in Autumnsquam’s wetu, though each night he was kept awake by Spoospotswa’s coughing. He fished, helped with the harvest of corn, and quietly yearned for Amapoo.

  When it came time for him to leave, Amapoo offered to go with him along the sandy paths as far as Nauseiput. Spoospotswa had little interest in a journey, but Autumnsquam said he would accompany them and visit his old friend Sepet. Christopher was happy for the companionship, though he would have been happier had Autumnsquam stayed behind.

  Old Sepet welcomed them all. And that night, the shell heap in the foundation grew higher. The women served, the men ate, and each time that Christopher glanced toward Amapoo, her eyes shone into his.

  It was past midnight when he rose from his pallet and went down to the beach. He looked out at the eelgrass where his father had once found an axe and wondered at his predicament. Why, when there were a dozen girls his own age in Plymouth, had this one never left his mind? How could he ever love her, when she had taken a man of her own?

  “It is a good moon.” She came out of the darkness and sat by his side.

  “A bright moon.” He felt his heart begin to race.

  “The last warm moon. The southwest wind still blows, like Kautantowit’s breath. But soon, the wind will be Chepi’s wind, from the northwest, the demon wind. Then the dying will start once more.”

  “I will pray that it does not.”

  “To your god or to Kautantowit?”

  “Both.”

  She smiled. Her teeth were strong and white. “You speak like a pauwau, a medicine man. You have great wisdom.”

  He put his arm around her and drew her body close to his. She smelled of wood smoke and deerskin. “Tomorrow I must go back to my people, and you to your man.”

  “But we will come to trade.”

  “I will be glad to see you.”

  She raised her hands to the sides of his face, and it was as if she had touched his manhood. When he kissed her, he tasted the sea.

  “Stop this.” Autumnsquam appeared on the dune grass above them. “She is not your woman.”

  Christopher jumped up, despite the stiffness between his legs. He tried to speak, but his knowledge of the language did not enable him to lie.

  “Her man may be sickly, but it is her duty to make Nauset children.”

  “I am sorry, but—”

  “She cannot go with another man or she will be banished. We need our healthy women. Leave now.” Autumnsquam threw Christopher his rucksack and hat.

  “I came to him,” said Amapoo.

  “Tell no one. You cannot be with this man. Go up to the women.”

  She took Christopher in her arms and pressed her lips to his. “Wunniish,” she said fiercely. Farewell.

  “Wunniish.” Christopher looked once more at Autumnsquam. “I am a Hilyard. You can trust us.”

  “I trust you in trade. Not with my niece.”

  viii.

  In the following months, many Indians put their trust in the Hilyards and were not disappointed. They would trade what they had from the Dutch or Plymouth, and if they had no barter, they would pay in wampum, one shilling for white shells, two shillings for black. Soon enough wampum could be exchanged for goods anywhere along the coast.

  Autumnsquam went with pelts and wolfskins. He was much impressed by the size of the white man’s house and great stone fireplace, and he was flattered that Jack Hilyard invited him to eat at their table and sleep by their fire. But when he returned to Nauset, he would tell Amapoo that such a house was a bother, big and clumsy, like the white man’s weapons.

  When Autumnsquam went to Aptucxet in the time of the herring moon, he found many Indians already there, filling the big room. In the center of them was Massasoit, sachem of all the Wampanoags, holding a baby boy.

  “What is his name?” asked Christopher.

  “Metacomet,” said Massasoit.

  Autumnsquam was drawn to the baby. “He has the eyes of a warrior.”

  Massasoit turned his broad face to the young pinse. “You are a Nauset?”

  “Aye.”

  “Send my greetings to George.”

  “George sends his greetings to you.” Autumnsquam traded a muskrat pelt for some of the sweet powder that the whites valued so highly. He touched his little finger and tasted, then offered some to Massasoit. In his heart, he blamed Massasoit for making peace when war would have been better. But to show disrespect to the sachem would show disrespect to all Wampanoags.

  He gave sugar to Massasoit’s baby, who cried for more.

  Massasoit laughed at this like a proud father, which filled Autumnsquam with sadness and envy. “My son likes English things. They even give him an English name.”

  “What?” asked Christopher.

  “Philip.”

  Autumnsquam felt the baby’s grip and remembered his own strong son. Let them call you Philip, he thought, but when Kautantowit calls to me, I will call to you by your Wampanoag name. Then he saw the wide blue eyes of Jack’s son Jonathan, gazing at the sugar. Had the pox not come, his son would be the age of this one, so pretty and innocent. He smiled and gave little Jonathan the rest of the sugar, which caused Metacomet to scream all the more. And the laughter of Wampanoag and English came near lifting off the roof.

  That night, Autumnsquam ate with the Hilyards, what they called a chowder, made
of quahaugs cooked in the juice from a cow. He liked their food and liked to look at Jack Hilyard’s yellow-haired woman. But he had come with news. He did not want to tell it, but Amapoo had insisted. Spoospotswa was dead of the coughing disease.

  ix.

  Soon Christopher was making monthly journeys to remind the Cape Indians of the good things that could be had at Aptucxet. And for him, there was a good thing at Nauseiput. At each new moon, he would smell wood smoke before he crossed the western creek, and Amapoo would be waiting in the clearing. Old Setep was dead, and his little band had moved off to join a larger village, so Nauseiput belonged to Christopher and Amapoo.

  And Christopher gave himself completely to Amapoo’s ways. By day, he wore a breechclout and dug clams on the flats. By night, he took off the breechclout and she her deerskin and they locked their loins together. They loved each other in the woods, on the beach, sometimes in the warm bay water itself. Then, as if they knew that neither God nor Kautantowit would let it go on, they went back to their people.

  Autumnsquam told his niece she needed a man who could hunt and fish and build her a wetu. She could not make a half-white child by a white trader. Jack told his son that if the colony learned of his fornication with an Indian woman, they would punish him and his family both. But neither Jack nor Autumnsquam could deny nature. And the young people were drawn to each other on every moon.

  Then Elizabeth Hilyard came to deliver the child that she and Jack had worked so long to make.

  Her pains began on an afternoon in early July. As Christopher was at Nauseiput, five-year-old Jonathan was sent to fetch the Manomet medicine woman.

  Jack held his wife’s hand, feeling as frightened as she and more helpless by far. They prayed together, as she was still a godly woman, and she endured six hours, her eyes moving constantly from Jack to the Indian woman who, by signs and sounds, tried to put her at ease.

  Jack would never forget Elizabeth’s bravery, nor how hard she pushed when the old woman made the sign, nor the fear that came into her eyes when the old woman patted the top of her head and shook it, then patted her behind: the baby was not coming head first but breeched.

  Then the old woman pointed to her own chest as if to say that she would save the child. Elizabeth smiled through her pain, and Jack felt better, though he did not speak of the blood now soaking the bed beneath his wife.

  The old woman slicked her hands with animal fat and tried to slip them into the womb. After great effort and great pain, which Elizabeth endured with great strength, the baby was delivered. It was a little girl.

  And it was dead.

  Whatever heartache Elizabeth felt was short-lived, for she bled to death that night. There was nothing the midwife nor the Manomet pauwau nor the prayers of Jack Hilyard could do to save her. The life just ebbed out of her, like a river of red.

  Two days later, the Plymouth men arrived. Ezra and Simeon found Christopher digging a grave, while off at the edge of the woods, a squat, fat Indian girl was picking berries with Jonathan.

  Ezra glared at the girl but spoke to Christopher. “Thou showest great arrogance to bring her here.”

  Christopher threw a shovelful of sand at Ezra’s feet.

  Simeon said, “Where is thy father?”

  “Follow the smell.”

  They found Jack in the great room. Elizabeth lay on the table, uncovered. The baby was wrapped in a sheet beside her. And the stench was like thick phlegm in the air.

  Jack turned a blunderbuss onto the Bigelows. “Come no closer.”

  “They must be buried, Jack,” said Simeon gently, as though he noticed no smell.

  “Send them on their”—Ezra held his sleeve across his mouth—“send them on their way to God.”

  “Get out.”

  Simeon pulled out a chair and sat.

  Ezra, for once, did as Jack asked. He went stumbling out the door and gulped down a breath of fresh air. Then he turned his eye to the gravedigger, whose transgression had been the true reason for his journey. “The Manomets say thou were not here when thy stepmother’s time drew nigh.”

  “ ’Twas nothin’ I could’ve done to save her.”

  “And thou brought the Nauset girl back with thee?”

  “She would not let me return alone.”

  “Then thou dost not deny that thou wert with her?”

  “Would it serve purpose?”

  Ezra looked toward the berry patch. The laughter of Amapoo and the boy mingled with the birdsong.

  “He grows without faith.”

  “His mother taught him well.”

  “Who shall teach him now?”

  Then the trading post door swung open and Simeon stumbled out. He breathed in fresh air, then called for sailcloth, a heavy needle, and thread. Soon after, he emerged with Jack.

  “Thou hearest good sense, Jack,” said Ezra softly.

  “The Lord work in strange ways… or so Simeon say.” Jack looked down at the open grave.

  “Thy friends work for thee.”

  “Be thou my friend?”

  “I shall give thee a chance to start over… away from the sad memory of this place.”

  Simeon shook his head, as if to tell his brother that this was neither the time nor the place, but Ezra had never been known for subtle dealings. He waited long enough for the sailcloth containing Elizabeth and the baby to be placed in the ground. Then he took Jack inside and presented his plan.

  “We need thee at our trading house on the Kennebec, Jack,” he began. “We need experienced hands there, and thou may count on a good Plymouth family to keep little Jonathan growing strong in the faith whilst thou do our biddin’.”

  Jack looked out at the berry patch, where Jonathan was again picking berries with the Indian girl. “I cannot go without me boy… Elizabeth’s boy.”

  “ ’Twould only be for a little while,” said Simeon. “Elizabeth would want this.”

  “God will profit the boy in Plymouth and thee at Kennebec,” added Ezra.

  Christopher’s face appeared in the window. “Do not do this, Father.”

  “Thou may go to the Kennebec, too,” said Ezra. “Indeed, thou shouldst. ’Tis wide country for a profane young man.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “Go where thou wilt, but know that some in the colony would make carnal knowledge between white and Indian a capital crime.”

  And Jack understood. Ezra was forcing him to choose between sons. He could take Christopher two days’ sail away, while leaving Jonathan to be raised a good Saint and taught a good trade. Or he could go to Plymouth with the boy and leave his firstborn to wander the wilderness alone.

  He studied the dead coals in the fireplace, then looked at Simeon. “Be this the verdict of all the governor’s council?”

  “Some fear that to mingle the white and the Indian bring danger. Nauset men cannot take kindly to this… use of their women.”

  “ ’Tis more than mere use!” shouted Christopher.

  Ezra’s body uncoiled like a whip from the chair and snapped his voice toward the window. “Some fear that thou endanger thy soul by lying with a heathen, and the soul of the colony by thine example.”

  “I will find my way.”

  “See that thou dost not block the way of the colony.” Ezra softened his voice, as though attempting to speak with reason. “This is yet a small Christian outpost, boy. But others will follow us, and they will put up a great house upon our foundation. We must build it hard and pure.”

  Were his son not the object of these words and Ezra Bigelow not the speaker, Jack might have cheered. He did not look much beyond what he could see in each day’s light. But he could see no future for a son with an Indian wife.

  Now Simeon Bigelow went over to the window and took Christopher’s hand. “Thy compliance will set well for the day when thou hope to purchase land.”

  Where Ezra built great houses for the future, thought Jack, Simeon made small huts for the modest hopes of his brethren.

  �
�Nauseiput?” Christopher asked.

  “Never there,” answered Ezra. “But land on the bay, from which thou may chase whales.”

  “Let us go to the bay now,” said Christopher.

  “Prove thy constancy, first,” said Ezra. “Make atonement for your… dalliance. Go to the Kennebec.”

  “If I take him there,” asked Jack, “can I buy the place named Billin’sgate, when the time come?”

  To this, Ezra Bigelow offered his hand.

  Free of grief, Jack would never have taken it. As it was, he thought to threaten Ezra Bigelow with the book and see what came of it, but he had neither stomach nor strength for such scheming.

  He looked out at little Jonathan, who sat cross-legged beside Amapoo and picked through the bucket of blueberries. The boy’s cheeks were stained with juice, hers also. These Indians were like children, thought Jack. He could not leave either son among them longer, for the world was changing quickly. Only those with hard heads, or hard hearts, would survive. So he would harden his heart and go to the Kennebec, and he would make Christopher go with him. And someday, they would hunt whales in the bay….

  Then he heard the voice of an Indian. He looked out and saw Autumnsquam raise…

  CHAPTER 11

  July 7

  Indian at Aptucxet

  … his hand and wave. He wore his best finery—leather and deerskin, beaded headband and wampumpeag, but in place of moccasins were a new pair of Converse 100s.

  “Why aren’t you out chasin’ ambulances?” Massasoit called to Jimmy.

  “He chases ambulance companies,” said the Indian woman stepping out of the Aptucxet trading post.

  “That’s why they call him a corporate lawyer,” said Geoff Hilyard.

  Ma Little cackled at the expense of her big-deal son and threw her arms around Geoff’s neck. Everyone had called her Ma since she took in her first foster child at age nineteen, and she’d borne two of her own, Jimmy and Massasoit.

  Massy Ritter did not resemble his half brother. He would not have looked out of place in a lithograph of slave life. This was not unusual among the Mashpee Wampanoags. Nor was his German surname, because the town of Mashpee, where Massy and Jimmy grew up, had begun as Cape Cod’s Indian reservation and over its history had welcomed a lot of people the wider world rejected.