by Doug Burgess
“You’re all fools,” Aunt Constance sighs.
“Maybe so, but you’ll look a pretty big fool yourself if one of us comes back with the treasure. And what about New England Wrecking and Salvage then, huh?”
“It might not be such a bad idea, Connie,” Irene offers. Another chorus of agreement.
“All right, all right,” Constance says resignedly. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. Divide the bay into zones, and each person cover their square. That way we don’t miss anything or go over the same ground twice.”
“How do we know you won’t just take the gold yourself?” Mrs. Wally demands querulously.
The bar goes quiet. “You calling me a thief, Alice?” Constance’s voice is barely above a whisper.
Mrs. Wally’s eyes flutter around the room, refusing to meet hers. “I’m just saying we need to be fair,” she answers, rather shakily.
“Okay, then. We’ll all rendezvous back at the pier and inspect each other’s boats. That do for you?”
“Yes. Yes, Constance. Sorry, didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Of course you didn’t.” But Aunt Constance’s gaze still rests on her thoughtfully.
* * *
The next morning dawns bright and clear. Cirrus clouds chase one another across an azure sky. The armada is scheduled to depart after breakfast.
Aunt Irene’s blue pickup and Constance’s ancient Oldsmobile are both parked at New England Wrecking and Salvage, but the office door is locked. Sometimes they’re out back in the boatshed, stripping down an old trawler. But no, the barn doors are wide open, the interior cavernous and empty. No business will be done today. The rest of the town is the same: Dykstra’s General Store is shuttered; the Sunoco station’s pumps are unmanned; the Clamdigger’s presses are silent. Even the post office has run the risk of felony by posting a small note on the door: “CLOSED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER.”
I find Constance down at the docks, surrounded by a large crowd. Her iron-gray hair is even more frizzled than usual, and she is holding a clipboard. “Okay, Perkinses. You get Square Eleven, from Horseneck Beach to the Hilda Garston wreck site. Mulligans? Are you here? Yes, okay. You’re Square Fifteen, from Corvan to Cuttyhunk Island. What do you mean, where is it? Didn’t you bring a map with you?”
Aunt Irene is nearby, serenely handing out sandwiches. She gives me a cheerful wave. “Great day for it, huh?”
“Christ, Irene. The whole town is here.”
“Well, I guess everybody wants a piece of that stolen treasure.” She winks.
“You don’t actually believe Marcus is out there, do you?”
“Of course not. Connie’s right, he’s long gone. But it’s fine weather and the swell is slight, so what’s wrong with a little boating holiday?”
She’s got a point. Little Compton is not a large town, and once the tourists leave, there are few distractions. The scene at the pier has a distinctly carnival air. Parents bring their children and pack coolers. A few of the boats sport Jolly Rogers from their mainmasts. Mrs. Wally shows up wearing her interpretation of a yachting costume: navy blue spandex, white rabbit cape, and a sailor hat. “Ahoy there!” she calls gaily, weaving unsteadily down the dock. “Woot, woot!” It is only seven thirty in the morning.
As the boats start revving up their engines, Pastor Paige appears. He is in a black cassock and blue velvet stole. A silver cross thumps on his chest. He climbs up onto a bollard and spreads his arms, embracing us all. “Oh, Lord!” he cries, like Father Mapple, “bless this day and these boats, who go out into your mighty waters in search for lost souls! Guide their prows, Dear Father, and let that which is lost be again found! As it was written in the book of Jonah, when the Lord Jehovah said to Amittai…”
“Does anybody want these last two sandwiches?” Irene calls over him. “They’re liverwurst, but they’re still pretty good.”
And so it begins. By the time Paige has regained his thoughts, the little fleet is already nosing out into the bay. “May God go with you!” he shouts hurriedly and clambers down from the bollard.
I always thought Aunt Constance odd for recognizing people by their boats, but now I realize she might be on to something. You can tell a lot about people by the kind of boat they own. Joya, the Karibandis’ forty-foot Matthews inboard, is seventy years old and looks like it could have been built yesterday. The teak rails are freshly varnished, the brass glitters, even the ropes are coiled and clean. Nearly the entire cabin is converted to a galley, with two stoves and a big refrigerator; Mr. Karibandi has a hibachi on the stern. The boat feels happy and loved. Dr. Renzi and his wife arrive in the Bigtime, a giant Sea Ray with white leather cushions, drink holders, airhorns, a shortwave radio, loran, a television set, and a Bimini top with fishing poles arcing out like a lobster’s antennae. It looks like it has never seen water. In contrast, Wally the Postman’s My-T-Fine is something of a legend, the ugliest boat on the sound. It began life as an O’Day Day Sailer with a stubby little cabin at the bow, to which Wally affixed an ungainly plywood deck for his wife’s topless sunbathing. The brass is tarnished, the brightwork flaked. Beer cans roll from port to starboard. A mold-speckled American flag droops at the stern.
Then, of course, there’s the Eula May, Aunt Constance’s baby. She’s a decommissioned minesweeper, seventy-two feet long with twin diesels, a central pilothouse, and a long, narrow mahogany hull. The Eula May is smart, fierce, and very fast. Constance painted her battleship gray and hung a red duster off the jack staff. She’s never actually fired the anti-aircraft gun, but the rumor is she keeps it loaded, just in case. Truth be told, if men sometimes look like their dogs, the Eula May looks a great deal like Aunt Constance.
“Are you guys going out, too?” I ask Irene.
“Sure. Connie’s got the Eula May all fired up. This many boats in the water, somebody’s bound to make a mistake. A tow would pay the light bill. A proper wreck keeps us till December.”
That’s a jolly thought. But of course Irene is only planning ahead. Still, looking out over the ragtag fleet, I cannot help but think of Aunt Constance and Aunt Irene as big carrion birds flying overhead, circling, circling.
* * *
When I get back to the house, Grandma is awake, dressed, and standing on the back porch with binoculars pressed to her eyes. The fleet is scattered across the bay. She watches each sail as it passes. “Funny sort of day for a race,” she comments.
“It’s that missing yacht, the Calliope. Mrs. Wally got everyone stirred up, and now they’re out looking for it.”
“That woman’s a fool.”
I couldn’t agree more.
“Caught it on the news last night,” Grandma goes on. “Bunch of nonsense. The boat’s gone over. I should know; I saw it plain myself the other night.”
“You—what?”
Grandma nods, looks very satisfied. “She’s different now. A ghost. Anyone with eyes could see it. All blacked out and draped in bunting, like a funeral cortege. Her keel doesn’t touch the water, just glides over it. She passed right by here like the Flying Dutchman.”
Her voice is calm, almost uninterested. “When was this?” I ask, as casually as I can. But I should have known better than to ask for specifics. A cloud passes over her face.
“What was it? Last week? No. Couldn’t have been that long. But she’ll be back, of course. Dead ships never rest, everyone knows that. Her and the old General Kearny be doing the patrols together from now on.” She laughs, looks out to sea again. Talk of wrecks has awakened something in Grandma. She’s alert, almost chipper. “Did I ever tell you about old Sylvanus Hazard, the first wrecker in the family?”
She has, many times. “But what about the Calliope?” I press. “Did you see anyone on board? How late was it?”
Grandma frowns. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“The ghostship. The one you sa
w the other night. Like the Flying Dutchman.”
“Oh, yes.” She nods. “That’ll be old Sylvanus. Not a chance he’d rest easy. He’s still on the hunt for Puritan souls. Not too many to be had nowadays, I expect. The Marylee’s Revenge will search the coast and find nothing but Italians and Irish.” She chuckles, as if this were a good joke.
“Grandma…”
“Have I ever told you about Sylvanus Hazard?” she asks again. I can see she’s not to be deterred.
“No,” I sigh. The tape recorder is still on the dining room table. We sit on either side of it, and I insert a fresh cassette. “Tell me.”
Maggie
It’s no wonder you turned out the way you did, love. Hazards have always been a queer bunch. Always running against the current. Sometimes they work it out by getting as far away from Little Compton as they can get. Your father is one of those, and Great-Uncle Charlie, who ran tea clippers for the Black Ball Line. Others just stay round here and raise hell. Your grandpa, God rest his soul, was like that. Either way, they’re not a contented lot.
Just look at Aunt Constance. Yes, she’s actually a relative, didn’t you know? Her mother was Fanny Hazard, who was your grandpa’s cousin. Constance got the worst from both sides of the family. Goes through husbands like Kleenex, but none ever satisfies. And she’s a wrecker, too, like all the Hazards. She’s more a man than most of them.
Sylvanus Hazard was the first. He came over from Braintree round about 1680. Stupid name for a town. The family settled there sometime in the 1660s when Sylvanus was just a boy, so he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or so when he made his break with them. They were proper Puritans, of course. His father, Silas, was a farmer with a big house and three barns and a seat on the town council. His mother, Abigail, was one of those dreadful pious types that beat her son raw with a birch rod and then prayed over the wounds. So maybe it wasn’t a surprise Sylvanus finally had enough of them. Or they him.
Sylvanus was a surveyor, the man they send out into the forest to see what parts of it might be good for crops. Part of his job was dealing with the local tribes and buying land from them. Yes, I said buying. That whole string of beads thing is nonsense. Puritans might not have been good for much, but they paid cash. Anyway, these trips took Sylvanus away for months at a time, and with no postal service, the family wouldn’t know if he was dead or alive until he came home again. Lots of surveyors didn’t make it: disease, unfamiliar territory, and of course, the odd scalping did for quite a few. But Sylvanus was lucky. He not only came back with his head but a young Pequot that he took for his wife. Her name was Marylee.
Now this was shocking enough, but still worse was the little bundle Marylee carried in her arms. The couple had a child, a son. Sylvanus named him Moses.
The Puritan community was horrified. Pequots were devil worshippers, everyone knew that. And they had no respect for traditional family roles. Pequot men took multiple wives. Pequot squaws prostituted themselves among the tribe, even committed incest with their own children. That was what the Puritans thought. Sheer nonsense, of course, but it explains what came after. The Braintree Council, the same one Papa Silas sat on, met at once to deal with this crisis. Silas persuaded them that Sylvanus was not to blame; he had been bewitched and ensnared by this monstrous Native creature.
It was just before first light when the men came. They turned their collars up and pulled the brims of their hats down low. Silas broke into the house and, none too gently, woke Sylvanus. He was lying with the devil Marylee, both naked, covered in lustful sweat. Silas threw a cloak around his son’s shoulders and had three men carry him out of the house and bind him to a thick poplar tree. Marylee and Moses were locked in, the door barred and the windows shuttered. Then the good citizens of Braintree set fire to the roof. They gathered in a circle around it and prayed earnestly, loudly. But the sound of their prayers could not disguise the screams of the people inside. Sylvanus watched as his home disappeared in a column of fire. Only when it was reduced to ash did his father loosen the cords. “Now you are free,” he told him, kissing him on the cheek. “Praise God and fear His holy name.”
For the next few weeks, Sylvanus moved like a ghost through the town. He stayed with his parents since there was nowhere else for him to go. The other Puritans, believing he had been freed of a terrible curse, treated him kindly. They bore him no ill will. So it was all the more shocking when they came to the Hazard house one morning and found Sylvanus gone, along with a chest full of gold that had been the bulk of his father’s fortune. Both Silas and Abigail were lying in bed, their wrists bound to the bedposts and their throats slashed. More horrible still, their scalps were mounted with iron tacks above the hearth.
With a chest full of gold, Sylvanus had no difficulty arranging passage, and for a fugitive on the run, there was really only one place to go. That was Rhode Island. Roger Williams founded the colony as a haven for dissenters and anyone else Massachusetts was glad to be rid of. There was an old rule that any renegade who made it across the border would be absolved of his crimes, for Rhode Island refused to let Massachusetts put any of its colonists to judgment. Naturally the colony became overrun with every kind of rogue. And some truly kind people like Quakers and Jews, but that’s another story.
Sylvanus had just enough money left to buy a small cottage on Block Island, and a boat. He called her Marylee and had a mind to earn his living at fishing for the cod. This he did, for a while. But when he sailed out past the cutwater, he could not help but notice the big, fat Indiamen coming in and out of Boston, swollen with spices and silks and gold. One came so close it nearly cut the Marylee in half. Sylvanus cursed them out but came back into harbor brimful of ideas. He raised a second mast on the Marylee, turning her into a sloop, and fitted a broad centerboard that would cut through the water like a knife. He cleaned all the fish guts out of the hold and stocked it with gunpowder and shot, stolen from an English brig that had grounded itself off Prudence Island. On the bow and stern, he fitted two brass ten-pounder cannons, with another two bronze pieces on port and starboard. Then he stripped down the decks, tore out bulkheads, made the ship much lighter and faster. And finally, he fixed a new figurehead to the prow: a Pequot maiden holding a flaming arrow of justice. He called his new ship Marylee’s Revenge.
There were lots of pirates sailing out of Rhode Island at this time, and Sylvanus wasn’t better or worse than any of them. But he was cruel. If the crew of a captured ship were Moslem or Hindu or even Catholic, he let them go unharmed. Yet if they happened to be Puritan, he showed no mercy. Especially preachers. He cut off one’s ears and grilled them right in front of him. Others he lashed to the mainmast and pelted with broken bottles until they bled to death. Sometimes a kind of frenzy took him, which no amount of blood could sate. He slaughtered whole ship’s companies, taking hours at it, making each watch as his brethren were slain in front of him, reveling in their anguish. Even his crew was afraid of him at moments like this. In Boston he came to be known as “Demon” Hazard, and there was a fifty-guinea reward put out for his head—a pretty price in those days.
Now this sort of thing couldn’t go on forever, and it was really only a matter of time before Sylvanus found himself dangling from a gibbet. But the governor in those days was Peleg Sanford, and he hated Puritans even more than Sylvanus did. Peleg was grandson to old Anne Hutchinson, she who’d been kicked out of Boston for having views on the Holy Trinity and a tongue like an adder’s. Peleg was a fine, worldly fellow who kept a good table and didn’t mind pirates on principle, so long as they spent their money in the town and kept their thieving to Massachusetts. But Sylvanus’s wild ways had begun to attract attention from other colonies. Letters were written. Finally, even the King sent round a note politely asking Governor Sanford to do something about the pirate Hazard who called himself a devil from Hell.
So Peleg invited Sylvanus to supper, and after pipes and brandy, he put his hand on
the young man’s shoulder and told him, “My lad, I’ve every sympathy for thee and none for those pious bastards across the sound. But they’re fixing to stretch your neck in Boston, and there’s naught I can do to stop ’em.”
Sylvanus Hazard shrugged and said he expected as much, and it didn’t make any odds with him either way.
“Now, now,” the governor objected, shaking his head, “that’s no way to talk. Had your fun right enough, ain’t ye? Made ’em pay dear for what they did to your poor wife and son. But you’re a young man still, not thirty yet. This is no kind of life. There’s no future in it.”
Sylvanus looked warily at the other man and asked, “What d’ye suggest?”
“Marry, for one. Plenty of fine girls in the town, some of them Pequots, if that’s your taste. Have yourself a child and teach him how to reef and steer and hunt the cod.”
Sylvanus shook his head. “I’ll not go back to fishing.”
“Did I say that? But this pirating business has to stop.” Peleg brought his hand sharply down on the table. “Stop, d’ye hear? I’ll not have any more damned letters on’t. There’s easier ways to pluck feathers out of Puritan backsides, and you’re a damned fool not to have thought of ’em already.”
Almost against his will, Sylvanus was interested. “Such as?”
The governor leaned back in his chair. “There’s a convoy coming on the morrow evening. Raw silk and calico, three ships in all. Owned by some fellows in Boston, but I hear the captain’s from Bombay, by way of London. How much you figure a Hin-doo captain would know of our waters? He’ll be looking for lights and markers, same as anyone on an unfamiliar coast. Lights and markers, you read me?”
Sylvanus did. The next day he sailed the Marylee’s Revenge out into the bay and began moving round the buoys that guided ships down the coast. Captains bound for New York from London usually took their soundings off Narragansett and looked for the light on Block Island to keep to starboard. But Sylvanus funneled them right into the bay, and had his men light a bonfire on Fogland Point to make the Bombay skipper think it was Block Island. He laid the markers to lead to Scilly Island, which wasn’t no more than a cluster of rocks shaped like a crescent moon. Funny thing, though, it had a hidden entrance, like Ali Baba’s cave. Think of a croissant with overlapping ends. From a distance, it just looked like solid rock; get close, and a channel appeared. Like a big fat fly waiting in a spider’s web, Sylvanus hid in the harbor till he heard the crash of timbers, then sailed out bold as brass and offered to rescue the crews. Those poor fellows thought he was their savior. But once he ferried them to shore, he and his men came back and picked the convoy clean. It was a good racket, and he kept it going. Sylvanus married Peleg Sanford’s daughter, and by the time he drowned during a winter gale off Cape Newland, he was a wealthy man, well respected in the town.