Cape Cod

by William Martin

  “I’d say what the archaeologists say: if no hard evidence has been found, don’t assume it doesn’t exist.”

  iii.

  When they got to Rake’s house, they found George, sitting at the dining room table, holding a shotgun over the box and shaking like a frightened dog.

  The barricades of newspapers around the room had been pushed in front of the windows so that no one could see in. And two of Massy’s friends guarded the doors.

  George said, “We went out to the barn and heard noises.”

  There was the pop of a pistol, answered by the blast of a shotgun, and Jimmy and Geoff went rushing out the back door.

  “Son of a bitch!” Massy Ritter was shouting at the barn floor. “Son of a bitch shot me in the foot!”

  “He just took off the toe of your sneaker!” Ma Little was standing at the open door of the barn, holding a pump-action shotgun at her side.

  Pop!

  “Shoot again!” cried Ma.

  Boom! Massy’s shotgun sent another blast into the open trapdoor.

  The gunshots sounded like firecrackers going off or trucks backfiring. From a distance, at the sailing camp, that’s what they would sound like.

  As Geoff and Jimmy scrambled toward the barn, Ma whirled and leveled her Remington at them.

  “Easy, Ma!” cried Jimmy. “We’re not ducks.”

  “There’s two guys diggin’ around down there. Told ’em to come out but they—Who’s this?” Now Ma pointed the gun at the big black limousine rolling into the yard.

  Carolyn Hallissey climbed out first, hands up. “Sorry, Geoff. I forgot to warn you.” And she moved toward the barn.

  “Hey!” said Ma. “Don’t go in there. There’s two guys in the cellar, with guns.”

  Geoff followed Carolyn into the barn. It smelled of gun-smoke and chewing gum.

  “Did you bring the axe?” Geoff asked.

  “Nance, too.” Then she called into the hole. “Guys, you can come up now.”

  “Nance said to tear this cellar apart until we found it,” came a voice from below.

  “It’s been found. Come out.”

  “Tell them to put up their shotguns,” said the voice.

  “Tell them to throw out their pistols,” said Massy.

  “Tell him to go and fuck himself.”

  “Tell them to send up the guns or we’ll lock them down there and call the cops,” said Geoff.

  “Lambeth.” John M. Nance appeared in the doorway of the barn. He was wearing a blue blazer with red tie, white shirt, white ducks. New York Yacht Club–cool, about as far from his ancestry as he could get.

  Ma, just as cool, placed her shotgun against Nance’s neck. “We was plannin’ a big demonstration, but I thought maybe just a few shotguns, blow off a few heads.”

  As if it were no more than an annoying branch he had brushed against, Nance pushed the gun away from his neck. “Excuse me.”

  “Been excusin’ you since ’77,” answered Ma. “Just watch your step around here.”

  A hand appeared in the hole and a .22 came skittering across the floor.

  “And the other one,” said Carolyn calmly.

  After the second gun came her bodyguard, followed by the face that Geoff had seen at the auction, at the town meeting, on the stern of the boat—John Lambeth in his running suit. The new-look detective.

  “Never sail away from a bluefish blitz,” Geoff told him. “It makes people suspicious.”

  Lambeth ignored him and went over to Nance. “My contract is fulfilled.”

  “Not so fast,” said Geoff. “Trespassing, breaking and entering, and somebody beat up a friend of mine, tried to make it look like gay-bashing.”

  Nance turned toward his car. “The Conservation Commission is due at Douglas Bigelow’s house.”

  “It’s been canceled, but Bill Rains is inside—reading the log,” said Geoff.

  “It’s here?”

  “I’ve won, Nance.” Geoff shoved his hands into his back pockets and leaned against the doorjamb. Doing business in jeans and T-shirt while his opposition wore suit and tie—one of Geoff’s Cape Cod dreams fulfilled. “Now you have to talk to me.”

  iv.

  Janice drove the Voyager onto the island and pulled up at her brother’s house. She felt as if she had come on an outing with her father, her two kids, and her grandmother in the back.

  The kids piled out and went scampering toward the dunes. Dickerson went into the house muttering about an old bladder that made him so twitchy he couldn’t sit in a car for a few minutes without needing to take a leak. Janice and Agnes went up onto the veranda and watched the kids.

  Sarah’s long coltish legs sprayed sand down the path while Keith shouted, tripped, stumbled, and fell into the dune grass. They were squabbling, as always. But there was life in it, thought Janice, something pure and elemental in the morning sun… her kids.

  “Not a parent yet who ever looked at two kids on a beach but didn’t think of her own, no matter how old she’d gotten.” Agnes stood at the railing.

  Dickerson reappeared, zipping his fly. “Doug just got off the phone. The CC isn’t coming, considerin’ what happened last night.”

  Doug came out now, dressed all in black and his hair fresh-slicked. “Let’s get down to Rake’s house and see what Geoff has cooked up this time.”

  But Agnes kept talking, as though wherever her mind was going was a lot more important than wherever Doug wanted the rest of them to go. “You know, I never look at that path through the dunes, but I don’t think of the night Grampa Charlie tried to chase off the whales.”

  “Maybe we can get to this later.” Douglas looked at his watch. “And maybe you could stay here and watch the kids, Grandma? My wife’s gone shopping.”

  “What a surprise,” said Janice.

  “We ought to get this over with,” said Doug.

  “Wait a minute, son,” said Dickerson. “Listen to your grandma.”

  “Grampa Charlie was old then,” Agnes went on, “older than you, Dicker. He fired his shotgun and made you boys cry.”

  “I remember.” Dickerson leaned against the house. He looked big enough to hold it up all by himself, though it was holding him. “Sometimes, I wonder what I was so scared of, the shotgun or the darkness.”

  The children appeared on the crest of the dune again, then dropped from sight in a whirl of arms and legs.

  “It takes just that long,” said Agnes, “and they’re grown up and gone. Sometimes for good. I guess old Blue regrets all the names he called his son now.”

  “We struggle to screw each other, win and lose, destroy and build,” added Dickerson, “and all the while, we don’t see how fast time’s goin’ by. Then it’s over, just like that.”

  It seemed to Janice that her father could sense defeat. His lobster antennae were working. So she laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t go getting philosophical on us, Dad. We’re going to need you.”

  “No, you won’t. You’re the generation who gets to make the mistakes now.”

  “We’re just trying to survive.” Doug stepped off the veranda and headed for the van.

  “Whatever mistakes you’ve made, son, I’m behind you.” Dickerson turned to his daughter. “But maybe it’s the ones who ask the questions who survive the best.”

  “Maybe.” Janice told her grandmother to watch the kids.

  “I’ll watch them run on the beach. There’s no happier sight.”

  v.

  It was growing into a hot day, but the rocks in the root cellar were as cool as night. Geoff Hilyard and Bill Rains were bumping around down there while the shells crunched under their feet. The strange markings and the words “God bless the good Bigelows, God damn the bad, and God bless our baby” were barely visible on the floorboards of the barn above them. The yellow work light threw wild dancing shadows. And the eyes peered down.

  “Well?” said Geoff.

  Bill Rains measured several of the rocks with a small tape. �
�Uniform size, to stack neatly.”

  “What’s he saying?” called George.

  “It looks good.” Geoff glanced up and saw Nance, Carolyn, George, still clutching the metal box to his chest, and Jimmy Little and Massy Ritter holding shotguns.

  Ma was sitting under a tree outside the barn, having a smoke with Emily Burr. A fresh-made widow had taken her daily walk to soothe her grief and found a two-time widow to comfort her.

  “Looks good.” Nance shook his head. “That’s too bad.”

  “Or good,” said George.

  Then Janice’s face appeared, then Dickerson’s and Douglas’s. A drop of somebody’s perspiration hit Geoff on the cheek. He thought it came from Dickerson, but it was Douglas who was sweating, and shooting nervous glances at Nance.

  Geoff boosted himself up and sat so that his legs were swinging in the hole, like a kid perched on the edge of a pier. He didn’t even bother to say hello. “According to the log of the Mayflower, which some of you said did not exist, this root cellar was here when Jack Hilyard arrived in 1620.”

  Then he extended his hand to Nance, who offered his axe, as though surrendering to whatever fate the island held. Geoff was glad that the only shotguns in sight were on his side, because he didn’t trust Nance, no matter how docile he seemed.

  “The log also says that Jack Hilyard found this axe in the marsh mud near the mouth of Nauseiput Creek.” Geoff de livered every word as though squeezing off a bullet at Janice.

  He had the right, she supposed. He had gotten what he went after.

  “Metal, wood, and leather don’t last in the acidic New England soil,” he went on. “But in a bog in England, the remains of a whole society were found.”

  “They called them the Bog People,” offered George, who now perched on the edge of a sawhorse.

  Rains popped up from the hole. “The artifacts of the Bog People survived because they were buried in anaerobic marsh mud. No oxidation.” Then he dropped back like a bearded animal protecting its burrow.

  Geoff admired the axe. “Bill thinks that if something of great weight buried this axe—”

  “What? A steamroller?” demanded Dickerson.

  “Who knows? Something, and sank it into the mud at just the right moment, it might have survived since, say, the time of the Vikings.”

  Janice shook her head. This was too much for anyone to believe, but then, so was the story of the log.

  Rains popped up again. “Those are ballast stones. Somebody used them to build that cellar. That’s all I can say. But this”—he wiped his hands on the front of his shirt, then took the axe reverently by the handle—“this is the key. If these letters are the same as those on the Bourne Stone, which apparently came from this foundation, I’m going to recommend that the whole island be surveyed for Viking artifacts.”

  Janice watched the color drain from her brother’s face.

  “You can’t do that,” said Douglas, “except within a hundred feet of wetlands.”

  “Don’t tell me the law.” Rains lifted himself out of the hole and stood toe to toe with Douglas. He might have been an amateur archaeologist and ecologist, but it was the strength of some small towns that amateurs ran for the commissions, learned the laws, took them seriously, and gave a damn.

  “We can’t stop you from developing,” Rains continued, “much as we’d like to. You’ve got your rights. But we’ll find out what’s here before you start.”

  “A survey might take nine or ten months,” mused Nance, looking up at the ceiling.

  Why did this make him so happy? Geoff wondered.

  Rains mopped his brow. “The chances of finding anything can’t be very good. When we’re done, we’ll probably all laugh that we ever thought it was Viking. But we have to look.”

  “Hey,” said George, “maybe we’ll be able to open a theme park.”

  “Welcome to Viking World,” said Nance.

  Carolyn Hallissey laughed. “No competition with Old Comers, please.”

  Janice wanted to smack her, lay her right out in her denim skirt and cowboy shirt and fancy silver jewelry.

  Then Nance asked for his axe back. His demeanor seemed to be changing. He was doing what he did naturally—taking over.

  “If you should need it, call.” He looked into the hole. “Amazing, isn’t it? My own great-grandmother was down there. ‘God bless the good Bigelows, God damn the bad, and God bless our baby.’ ”

  “God damn you,” growled Doug.

  “Easy, Doug.” Nance looked at Geoff again. “Does Miss Hallissey get the log now, or must we come back for it?”

  He couldn’t have done a better job of shocking everyone, if he had dropped a cherry bomb into the root cellar.

  George clutched so hard at the box, he almost fell off the sawhorse. Jimmy and Massy both raised their guns and pointed them at Nance.

  He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket, hooked the thumb over the outside, and struck a pose. “You boys are too damn jumpy.”

  “Besides, we have details to iron out,” Carolyn explained.

  “We can’t just sell the log to them,” said George.

  Geoff kept his eyes on his wife. He knew her suspicions were spinning so fast inside her head they were making her dizzy. “Carolyn and I made a deal. We’ll stick by it.”

  “I’ll bet you drove a hard bargain,” said Janice.

  Nance reached across the hole and offered Geoff his hand.

  Geoff looked at it as though it might have fangs. But he was still winning. So he shook it.

  “A pleasure doing business with you.” Nance’s capped teeth seemed to grow in the middle of his tan. “And it will be a pleasure to be your neighbor.”

  Geoff felt the fangs sink in and hold. With Nance still clamped to his hand, Geoff looked at Douglas. “You put up your half of the island as collateral, didn’t you?”

  Douglas stepped back into the shadows.

  “Well, what else would the Bigelows have that I would want?” Nance released his grip.

  “The company,” grunted Dickerson, eyes on the floor.

  Nance was getting downright cheerful. He slapped Dickerson on the back. “It takes a son of a bitch to know how one thinks. That’s right. The company.”

  “My son gave you a second mortgage on all our properties, didn’t he?” Dickerson rolled his eyes toward Douglas, who sank to the floor and drew his knees up against his chest.

  “I was the only investor ready to save another overextended real estate company from Chapter Eleven.” Nance walked over and stood beside Douglas. “So Doug did what he had to. But if the Jack’s Island subdivision isn’t approved, he has nothing here but raw land. Without permits, it isn’t worth anywhere near enough to liquidate my loan.”

  “Written on a one-year note, I assume?” asked Jimmy.

  “I can’t afford to have six million tied up for longer than that. Debt service costs money.”

  “Why do you think I’ve been pushin’ so hard?” Doug’s voice sounded distant and disembodied, coming from the dark corner.

  “Doug believed that the 1904 plot plan guaranteed success,” Nance said. “I didn’t. So he secured my loan with the rest of the company—appraised at twenty million dollars’ worth of assets, mostly in unsold real estate, my favorite medium of exchange. It’s worth less today. But the wheel will turn, like it did in the eighties. And I can wait.”

  “You wanted this development to fail all along,” said Janice softly.

  “Smart girl.” Nance slipped the rose from his lapel and offered it to her. “Maybe you should have gotten power of attorney, instead of Douglas.”

  “Now I know who tried to bribe me,” said Bill Rains. “Just to turn me against this project.”

  “And who spray-painted George’s shack so I’d turn against the Bigelows completely.” Geoff felt as if he was about to be dropped into the hole. For eternity. He looked at Rains and tried to backpedal. “You know, this Viking stuff could be exaggerated. Maybe there’s no need to surv
ey the whole island.”

  “Once this news breaks in the paper,” said Nance, “you’ll have no choice. I’ll see to it personally.” He took Carolyn by the arm and led her toward the limousine. “You’ve got eight months to meet the note, and you’ve got nothing else to mortgage, Dickerson. You’re done.”

  Janice whirled so angrily on Geoff she nearly fell into the hole. “You and your questions. If you hadn’t pushed for this, and done your pushing with Ralph Lauren’s sister, here—”

  “Congratulations, Geoff,” said Nance.

  Dickerson brought his hand to his chest, as if to hold down the pain. He turned and staggered out into the yard.

  “Dicker?” Emily rose from her lawn chair. “Are you all right?”

  “Dad, do you want me to call the doctor?” Janice came after him.

  “Screw the doctors.” He lumbered across the yard like an old bull whale looking for a place to die. He stopped and leaned on the lawn table, knocking Emily’s cigarettes to the ground. Then his eyes fell upon Ma Little’s pump-action Remington.

  She picked it up and slapped it into his hand. “Shoot him, Dicker. None of us’ll tell.”

  “Dad, be careful with that thing.” Douglas came out of the barn.

  Dickerson pointed the gun at the sky, as if to chase away the darkness. But the blue must have been too bleak, because after a moment, he lowered it.

  And Nance moved calmly across the clearing, sidestepping Dickerson and offering his condolences to Emily.

  Like he owned the whole place already, thought Geoff.

  “I’ll call on you when your mourning is over, Mrs. Burr,” said Nance. “And we can discuss the sale of the camp.”

  Emily sucked on her cigarette and blew the smoke in his face.

  Nicely done, thought Geoff.

  But Nance didn’t miss a beat. He turned to Dickerson one last time. “Payback, Pilgrim, thirty years later. I learned the American way from a real American. The Pilgrim Portagee learned from the original Pilgrim himself. Now I’m the original American. I come from the Pilgrims, from the bastard of a slave owner and his slave mistress, from a Portagee fisherman—old blood, mixed blood, immigrant blood—and now, I want my piece of the future.” He jabbed his finger into Dickerson’s big, broad chest. “Deal with it.”