Cape Cod

by William Martin

  Ezra watched the Indian amble off. Then he went into the barn. “Thou hast always had a fondness for renegades, from Thomas Weston to that Indian—”

  “To the Quakers,” said Brewster.

  “Thou knowest of Marshal Barlow?” Ezra took off his hat and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

  “The one what ferret out Quakers up Sandwich way?” Jack began to sharpen a lance, feigning indifference.

  “He’s been given jurisdiction over the whole of Cape Cod,” said Jonathan.

  Jack noticed Brewster Bigelow poking through the line tubs and hay bales at the back of the barn. “What be you lookin’ for?”

  “These,” he said triumphantly and lifted a long bench from out of the hay. He placed it in the middle of the floor, then pulled out a second and placed it at a right angle to the first. “There are two more, enough to form a meeting square. The fine for allowing a Quaker meeting, sir, is five pounds or twenty lashes, and a freeman can be disenfranchised as well.”

  “And the fine for bein’ a Quaker?” demanded the man who now appeared in the sunlight outside the barn.

  “Well, Chris,” said Jack with a false grin. “Thy brother Jonathan come to see thee.”

  Brewster Bigelow looked at Jack. “Never seen a Quaker? Lying to a governor’s assistant is yet another fining offense.”

  Jack pressed his blade to the grindstone. “What about dartin’ a lance into a assistant’s son?”

  Christopher strode up to Jonathan. “Thou comest as a representative of the colony. Well, here I be, brother.”

  “We come to warn thee, Chris. Do not break up services and curse preachers, like some of your breed. And take the oath of fidelity to the colony.”

  “ ’Tain’t my way to break up another man’s worship, but Quakers takes no oaths.”

  “Then you’ll be flogged and fined forty shillings in every town you enter,” said Brewster Bigelow.

  “I’ve had worse.” Christopher pushed back his hair to reveal the little curls of reddened flesh on either side of his head.

  “Boston does not dally with heretics,” Ezra said approvingly. “If ’twere my choice, we’d follow their lead… cut off some ears, hang the leaders instead of warnin’ them out. Plymouth tolerates too much.”

  “Why can thee not tolerate men of conscience? ’Twas conscience drove thee and thy kind to come here forty year ago.”

  “We damned bishops and pomp. You damn magistrates and ministers, too.”

  “We seek only to strengthen our personal bond with God, to make it as simple as the meeting of sea and sky at the horizon.”

  “And in the doing, you would destroy all that we have builded here, the whole house of God.” Then Ezra saw the woman standing in the sunshine outside the barn. “Even unto fornicating with heathens.”

  Jack Hilyard stopped the grindstone. He could not feign indifference at this. If Chris attacked the governor’s assistant, he would pay with all the flesh on his back.

  The anger stiffened his shoulders, but Christopher remained motionless. His new faith had changed him. “She be a Christian now. And she be me wife.”

  “She is not thy wife lest thou appear afore a magistrate,” said Bigelow. “A gatherin’ of Quakers cannot legalize marriage ’twixt whites, much less savages.”

  “Were thy son Robinson a Quaker, Master Bigelow, he’d be with us this day.”

  These words seemed to strike Ezra Bigelow with more force than a blow. His head dropped to his chest, and his shoulders shook with a sob.

  Brewster Bigelow snatched the lance from the grindstone, nearly slicing off Jack’s fingers. He spun, and pressed the point against Christopher’s chest. “Out of respect for thy brother, we come here to warn thee, and thou dost foul my brother’s memory.”

  “Thy brother died in me arms.”

  “He did not die so that Quakers might challenge his faith and his government.”

  “He died for foolish men and foolish principles.”

  Jonathan jumped between them and pushed the lance away. Though Brewster seemed close to killing him, Christopher did not move an inch. He was as stubborn as Jonathan was earnest, and they were both of them braver than bull whales. Jack had long ago given up trying to understand what drove them. But his pride in them was great. Were he to lose one, he would be as likely to crumble as Ezra Bigelow seemed now.

  “Get out, the lot of you,” Jack cried. “Get out and let two fathers talk.”

  “What may you say to my father that—”

  Jonathan grabbed Brewster by the collar and Christopher by the sleeve and dragged them out. Then he kicked shut the door, leaving the two old men in the shadows.

  The light now came through the cracks and windows in dusty yellow shafts, causing the lines in Jack’s face to deepen, the tears to glisten in Ezra’s eyes. There were few of them left, these Old Comers, and for all their enmity, they felt an ancient bond, like half brothers born of the same womb.

  “We loves our sons,” said Jack, “whether they be good Reformists or—”

  “Deluded Quakers.”

  “Thou understand me, then.”

  “Fathers do understand each other where sons are concerned.”

  “One of me boys embraced your way and the other turned elsewhere. I tell thee honest I don’t much care, so long’s they honor their old dad.”

  “A high hope,” said Ezra softly.

  Jack pointed a finger at Ezra Bigelow. “But if Chris be banished or get his back stripped for what he believe—”

  “I cannot stop the colony from keeping to its laws.”

  Jack tried to set his jaw, though he no longer had back teeth enough to shape an aggressive face. “I did keep me word to thee. In exchange for this island, I did keep the master’s journal secret. But I still has it, Ezra, and it say things ’bout thee and Dorothy Bradford—”

  “Her death was an accident.”

  “Yet did thou bargain with me.”

  “To protect the names of those who stood by my side.” Ezra pulled himself out of his slouch as if he could pull himself out of his grief. “No man chooses scandal.”

  “The very reason I’ll break me word if ever I see Fat Barlow comin’ after me boy.” Jack’s front teeth were no more than a few yellowed snags, but still he could smile, especially if he meant to show malice. “When a bunch of rantin’ Quakers challenge what the Old Comers built, a tale of funny doin’s on the first ship might give ’em somethin’ juicy to rant over, whether it be true or not.”

  “Thou art an unprincipled man, Jack Hilyard.”

  “A simple man wif simple needs. I wants to keep this piece of land, and I wants to protect me sons.”

  Ezra folded his hands behind his back and raised his chin, so that his beard pointed straight at Hilyard’s nose. “All right. Give over the journal, and I’ll do what I can to turn the colony away from thy boy, no matter what he believes or who he lays with.”

  “Thou still strike a fine pose, but I ain’t so stupid as that.” Jack tugged at Bigelow’s white whiskers.

  Ezra slapped the hand away. “Then save him thyself.”

  The friendship of fathers and the half brother bond were never so strong as enmity between a man who made rules for others and one who lived only by his own, between a man who had buried the past and one who would dig it up.

  Ezra turned and stalked to the door, but stopped there as if struck by a sudden pain. He brought his hand to his breast and pressed like a man trying to keep from bursting open.

  “Ezra? What ails thee?”

  Ezra raised his hand as if to say this would pass. Presently, he stood more upright, wiped away the beads of sweat from his forehead, and seemed to regain himself. “ ’Tis all for the best, Jack, that we make no bargain on the book. My conscience on the matter is clear.”

  “Mine, also.”

  “I would leave this life with my head high, knowing that I took no hand in permitting a Quaker pestilence to thrive in the colony.”

 
; Jack stepped close to Ezra and looked for the shroud of death that it was said could sometimes be seen upon living faces. “Thy time grows short, then?”

  “So my heart would tell me.”

  Jack thought a bit on this, then brought his face even closer, as if to kiss his old nemesis farewell, and he whispered, “I’ll not miss thee.”

  Ezra pulled open the barn door and cast his eyes on Jack for what would be a final time. “Watch for the sheriff on the next Sabbath, and if thou holds more Quaker meetin’s in this barn, watch that thou don’t lose this island.”

  ii.

  Four times the following week, Jack went through the woods to the house on Skaket Creek to beg Christopher and Patience to move their meeting to some patch of off-island woods. But they refused.

  It had been the marshes, more than whales or white cedar, that drew settlers to Cape Cod. Most colonists were farmers before anything else, and the marshes that spread for miles behind the beaches and around the creek mouths yielded fodder for all the cattle from Sandwich to Eastham. It was true that cattle fed on salt hay needed more fresh water, but on Cape Cod, there was an abundance of that as well.

  On Saturday Christopher and Patience went onto the marsh to cut hay. Jack knew they were doing it not to feed their forty head of cattle, but for a better view of Marshal Barlow, should he come riding over the marsh. At the end of the day, they brought a cart of hay up to the barn and loaded it into the loft. Then they took out the benches and arranged them in a square. In a Quaker way, they were preparing for war.

  From a perch atop his woodpile, Jack watched them go arm in arm down the path. It was good that they had each other and their faith, he thought, because they seemed intent upon losing everything else.

  He was not one for musing, but the strangeness of these Quaker ways lay heavy on his mind. Though his hair had long since whitened and his skin had been boiled red by sun and incessant wind, he had reached threescore and ten without feeling old. Wisdom, a grandchild, and the gaining of Nauseiput had kept him vibrant. Now age was descending as quickly as night.

  With the russet oaks fading into shadow, Autumnsquam brought Jack a bucket of beer, the great leveler of men.

  “I do need a draft,” Jack said. “Sometimes methinks I’ve nothin’ else left.”

  “Thee got good land,” said Autumnsquam. “Thee got two son.”

  “I may have to fight for the land ’cause of the sons.”

  “Once this land belong to Indian. Once I have son. Now Nausets is children who pray at white man’s feet, and land…” Autumnsquam dipped the tankard into his bucket and drank. “Thee got what me dream of.”

  Jack looked out onto the darkening ocean. Not a light shone anywhere on the water or along the north-running coast. It was the time of day when Jack felt most alone, yet most surely in the presence of God. For who, other than God, could turn the great blue bay to blackness so easily? What more devotion did men need make than to do their work each day and watch God darken the world each night, to see in the coming of the night what came at last to all men? There was simplicity beyond anything his sons now sought.

  “Autie,” he said, “thou hast friends. Friends be better’n sons sometimes. Thou fights all thy life to get thy sons together in a good place, and one decides to raise his childrens in Plymouth, while the other goes about challengin’ the law…”

  High above them, a gull squawked and dropped a long white stream that splattered onto the roof of the barn and trickled down the shingles. Jack sipped his beer and studied the stain. “Autie, that barn be good for nothin’ but catchin’ gull shit and Quakers. What say we burn it down?”

  “I say you stupid Jack Bloody Christian Hilyard.” Autumnsquam drained his beer and got up. “Go to bed.”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Sick of stupid bloody Christians. Go to Portanimicut. See some Indian.”

  “They’re all Christian Indians there. Simeon Bigelow’s done a fine job in his prayin’ town.”

  Autumnsquam grinned. “Some still make fuck with free Nauset.”

  “Thou old cock. I’d like a bit o’ that meself.”

  “Thee too old.” Autumnsquam shouldered his harpoon. He always carried it in the woods because there were wolves in the woods and wolf heads brought bounty from the colony. “Thee no burn barn, I find ugly squaw make fuck with thee.”

  By the time Autumnsquam reached the King’s Road, the moon was up full, a big yellow hunter’s moon that blotted up the stars and warmed the black ground. But even in the moonlight Autumnsquam saw the orange glow in the sky above the island.

  “Jack Stupid Bloody Christian Hilyard,” he muttered. Then he made for Portanimicut and the best bloody Christian he knew.

  iii.

  Marshal George Barlow of Sandwich relished his work. No man doubted that. He gave out punishment with a smile and sought out Quakers as though charged by God himself. But there were some in the colony, and not all of them Quakers, who gave the devil more credit for George Barlow.

  He was a glutton and carried a glutton’s bulk about on the back of his horse. He was a drunkard and wore a monstrous red nose as a badge of dishonor. But worst of all, he was an abuser of the office given him by the magistrates.

  While collecting fines for the colony, he collected tribute for himself—a bolt of good cloth from this Quaker, a bolster tick from another, a copper kettle from a Quaker woman who had nothing else in which to cook. And around the pommel of his saddle he carried a whip of three knotted leather strands that he was more than happy to use on the backs of Quaker men or women.

  They were the perfect fugitives. When chased, they did not run, and when captured, they did not resist. He could not be certain that the other inhabitants of Jack’s Island would be as docile. That cantankerous old rodent Jack Hilyard was better with a lance than most men were with a musket. And living with him was the Indian harpooneer in the whales’-teeth ornaments. Barlow unfurled his whip, then urged his horse ahead.

  But before he went far, he heard… singing.

  Quakers did not sing. At some of their meetings, they barely spoke. And these voices were behind him, sounding loud and off-key, in no way pleasing to a Christian ear. No more than half the singers seemed to know the words to the hymn they sang, because the singers were Indians. A procession of perhaps fifty was marching down the path from the King’s Road, and leading them, like Moses, was Simeon Bigelow.

  “Good mornin’, Marshal Barlow.” Simeon cradled the holy book in his right arm, while in his left hand he swung a walking staff. His wild beard and mighty girth were known to praying Indians from Portanimicut to Sandwich. For his work among them, he was near as revered in this colony as Moses had been in his.

  “Reverend Bigelow—”

  “Not Reverend. Never been ordained. Just a Christian spreadin’ the good news.”

  Simeon Bigelow stopped beside Barlow’s horse, while the Indians paraded onto the marsh, led by one in a blue coat who wordlessly bellowed out the tune to the Fifteenth Psalm. As he went by, this Indian gave Barlow a smile and a broad wave, and the bracelet of whales’ teeth jangled at his wrist.

  “Who is that?” Barlow demanded.

  “One from my Portanimicut Plantation. A fine prayin’ Reformist.”

  The Indian took to the planks that led across the marsh, spun back to the others, and swung his arms as though directing a chorus. He sang and shouted and jumped from one foot to the other, like some long-legged bird.

  “A lively old Christian,” said Simeon.

  “Aye,” answered Barlow suspiciously. “Does he know there’s a Quaker meetin’ goin’ on over there this very minute?”

  “Quakers?” Simeon threw back his head and gave a laugh. “We been invited for an orthodox service.”

  Barlow leaned down, bringing his veined red nose close to Bigelow’s beard. “I got this knowledge from your own nephew Brewster.”

  “A lad of strong imagination. But look you at my Indians. For every one in lea
ther breeches or deerskin dress, there be another in a cloak or woolen skirt. I spent twenty years teachin’ ’em to be good Christians. Wouldst I be so dumb as to expose them now to”—he nearly spat—“Quakers?”

  In the middle of the island, Jack Hilyard was watching the smoke rise from the foundation hole into which his barn had collapsed. His head throbbed, less from beer than from shame, and he struggled to compose words that would explain what he had done.

  “Thee son love thee much.” Amapoo came up behind him.

  Jack turned. “And I love him. That’s why I done this, Amapoo… Patience.”

  “I think he know, but he still mad.”

  “I don’t want to lose this island.”

  “Him neither. But he no want lose his soul.”

  “Do you Quakers… do you forgive folks?”

  “Christ forgive his killers.”

  Then Jack heard a strange sound… singing. He took Patience by the arm and went toward the marsh.

  First he saw his son and the Quakers, clustered at the top of the path. Then he saw a long line of Indians winding across the marsh. He could not believe that it was Autumnsquam who was leading them, cutting antic capers in the mud and acting as though he were plainly out of his head. Nor could he believe that Marshal Barlow, after a last look across the marsh, was going back the way he had come.

  “Friend Bigelow!” Christopher shouted, his voice echoing joyously through the woods. “Thou art friend indeed.”

  “The Lord’s house has many mansions.” Simeon came up the path behind his Praying Indians. “I see no reason for the Quakers not to live in one. Any more than I would deny my flock their holy songs.”

  “Nor do I,” shouted Jack Hilyard, pushing his way through the Indians and Quakers now gathered at the top of the path. “The Portanimicut Prayin’ Injuns be invited to feast with us this afternoon, and the Quaker families be invited to meet in me house if they can find nowheres else.”

  “The marshal may come back,” warned Simeon.

  “Let him come.”

  “You’ll not burn your house if he approaches?”

  “ ’Twas not me what burned the barn, Simeon. ’Twas fear.” Jack looked at Christopher. “This island be a free place, free for any faith me son wants to follow. Free for as long as I can keep it so.”