Cape Cod (24 page)

“Master Bigelow says the robe covers a forked tail,” muttered Jonathan.

“And some Eastham Protestants spend more time manurin’ their brains than their corn rows,” said Christopher.

Jonathan gave his brother a hard look. They were no more alike in appearance than in beliefs. The younger shaved his face smooth and wore his clothes for no more than a week at a time. The older hid his face behind his black beard and had not removed his greasy leather jerkin since spring.

“I simply ask if they can be trusted,” said Jonathan.

“They be men,” said Christopher. “And shipwrecked. I say we show ’em charity. Right, Autie?”

Autumnsquam stood on a dune and studied the staff that the priests had planted in the sand. It was topped by a crucifix on which Christ writhed in agony. Though he had heard plenty about God’s son, he had never before seen him, as the Saints did not permit the worship of godlike images. “They know good torture. Give ’em ride.”

“We save our baggage,” said Father Druillettes, “but only the box that Père Daladier ’olds do we want.”

Jack glanced at the younger priest, who clutched a metal box like the first Gospel. Daladier was tall and ghostly, with reddened stumps for thumbs and forefingers, ugly scars where his fingernails should have been. As Jack stared at the hands and wondered what strange rite of self-flagellation this had been, he noticed a foundry stamp on the corner of the box.

His eyes were no longer sharp, nor could he read, but the symbol seemed strangely familiar. Jack touched the damaged fingers, pretending sympathy while moving them to better see the stamp.

“Torture,” explained Father Druillettes. “Iroquois devils.”

With great pride, Father Daladier said, “Jésus-Christ give me strength. Jésus-Christ do not desert me.”

The hands now had Autumnsquam’s attention. “Why Iroquois do this?”

“I try to bring them the true faith.”

“More holy men. More true faiths.”

“T.W.” Jack remembered. This symbol stood for a name. His first harpoon showed the same mark. And his memory had been marked for many years by the man who made it. T.W. Thomas Weston.

“I guess Plymouth ain’t so far after all.”

ii.

The Community of Saints that the Old Comers had envisioned had existed for only a brief time at Plymouth. True, William Bradford and his favored assistants were regularly elected. They made laws and meted out punishments as good scholars of the Bible, and they still oversaw all land purchases. But Plymouth had grown so quickly that it had long ago burst its boundaries, both physical and spiritual.

Where once the people worked on communal farms and small plots, they now owned acreages stretching north to Scituate and south to Cape Cod. Where once the settlements had hugged the coast, they now reached far into the New England forest.

Most roads still led to Plymouth, but new ones went to a town forty miles north, near the mouth of the river Charles. There, a far richer group of religious rebels had arrived in 1630. Within a year, they had brought thirty shiploads of followers to the place they named Boston, and their population had created a fine market for the fruits of Plymouth farming and husbandry. This meant more substantial homes and a better life for most everyone in Plymouth. But by 1640, Puritan Boston had surpassed Plymouth in all save longevity.

Moreover, Bradford and his assistants had determined that they could no longer restrain settlement of Cape Cod. The Indians were docile, the patents secure, and the people already moving there of their own will. The towns of Sandwich, Barnstable, and Yarmouth were founded around the first parishes. Then a ten-mile stretch was reserved for those like Ezra Bigelow, who had assumed the colony’s debts to the London Adventurers. This was known as the Old Comers’ Tract, and within its boundaries was the island that Jack Hilyard had coveted but Ezra Bigelow had claimed.

By 1644, the fortunes of Plymouth had sunk so low and the population had dwindled so far that there was talk of moving the First Church itself to the fertile plains of Nauset. Though the idea was deemed too radical to carry out, enough of the newer generation left that Bradford was moved to call Plymouth “an ancient mother, grown old and forsaken of her children.”

Nevertheless, to do business with the colony, men still paid their respects to the ancient mother, and two priests paid theirs at the home of the governor.

Extra logs made the fire blaze on Bradford’s hearth on the night that the priests arrived. Whale oil lanterns were lit instead of rush candles. An Araby rug was laid upon the table. The governor’s pewter and Venetian glassware were brought out. And he wore his finest red cloak and waistcoat.

As it was a Friday, Mrs. Bradford served striped bass, the nut-sweet staple of late fall. Ordinarily the good Protestants of Plymouth made special effort to eat meat on Fridays, having no use for the superstitions of Romanism, but they always showed respect to men of faith.

And when the meal was finished, Bradford brought out one of his small treasures, a bottle of brandy given him by Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Jack Hilyard had not tasted brandy in many a year. Had Father Druillettes not insisted that his rescuer join the feast, Jack would not have tasted it on this night, either.

Seated with Bradford were the proprietors of the Kennebec Trading Post, William Paddy, Thomas Prence, Thomas Willett, and John Winslow. Myles Standish was there to lend his opinion on military matters. And the long, pinched face of Governor’s Assistant Ezra Bigelow glowered across the table at Jack.

Bradford and Standish were now graybeards, worn down by time and the cares of the colony. Merely to look at them made Jack feel like a stubborn old fool for shore whaling at the age of sixty.

But Ezra had aged little, perhaps because he did not take a wife until he was forty, perhaps because his life had been, in most things, a success. He had fathered two daughters and two sons, prospered in farming and trade, kept to his faith and kept others to it as well. And if he carried some dark secret from the days of the
Mayflower
, it did not show. His hair was chimney-black, and the more colorful clothes he now wore considerably softened his aspect. But his talk with Jack began sharply. “Hast thou trespassed upon my island of late?”

“I’d not touch it with me longest harpoon.”

“I know thou covet it, but my Indian tenants keep good eye there.”

“Good prayin’ Indians they are,” said Jack.

“Aye, who hear the preachments of my brother Simeon. Others on Cape Cod still resist. I disdain congress with such heathens till they be converted.”

Jack knew the intent of this remark. He wondered what Bigelow might say, should he learn that one of the “men” in his whaleboat was a woman.

Their pleasantries were interrupted when John Winslow rose to introduce the guests. “Gentlemen of Plymouth, I have come to know Father Gabriel Druillettes as a good man and true. He well deserves the name by which he is known through all Acadia—the Patriarch.”

Father Druillettes gave a little bow. Though it was said that he worked as hard as any man in the French missions, neither his round belly, his somnolent eyes, nor the new black cloak he wore over his cassock suggested privation. And he conducted himself with diplomatic grace, even among men whom tradition had made enemies of his nation and his faith.

“The Jesuits,” continued Winslow, “have undertaken to bring Christ to the Abenakis on the Kennebec. We must approve.”

“Indeed,” said William Bradford.

“Aye,” added Ezra Bigelow. “Knowledge of Christ from the papist is better than no knowledge at all.”

Whatever the priests had come for, thought Jack, they would not get it from Bigelow, unless it was the
book
they had brought in that metal box on the sideboard. All through the meal he had tried to keep his mind off the things the book might contain. But for twenty-seven years, he had wondered.

After introductory compliments, the priest begged permission for the Jesuits to continue missionary work near the Kennebec trading house.

“And if we say nay?” asked Myles Standish.

Ezra Bigelow tugged thoughtfully at one of his eyebrows. “Perhaps you will send ships from Acadia and seize our Kennebec house, as you did the house at Penobscot.”

“Excusez-moi, mais
… but that is fifteen years ago,” answered Father Druillettes, “and the
jésuites
, we ’ad no part of it.”

“Yet we did never regain our post at Penobscot,” said Standish.

“Good gentlemen!” John Winslow jumped up once more. “Father Druillettes is interested in the Christ we worship, not the commerce we pursue.”

“He is a papist.” Bigelow waved his bony hand, as if that was enough explanation.

“We have not come together to argue theology,” snapped Bradford. “We have grievance ’gainst the French over the Penobscot, but if French priests would teach the Word to the Abenakis, and we have not the ministers to Protestantize them, it is meet for us to give our assent.”

“Merci
, M’sieur le Gouverneur.” The priest bowed. “We interest also in
une entente
… an alliance. We bring, as you say, the Word to the Abenakis, but west of them are the Iroquois, who ’ave the devil for a god.”

To Father Daladier, these words were like the ringing of the bells in the papist mass. He raised his hands, spread the six fingers and four stumps, and showed them around as though showing the holy host. Then he placed his hands on the table and folded what fingers were left.

“The Iroquois pull out all his nail, then cut off the finger which are consecrated to ’old the sacred bread.”

“Blasphemy,” whispered William Bradford.

“Amen.” Jack Hilyard finished his brandy with a slurp, but the governor did not refill his glass.

“Others the Iroquois crucify. They make fire ’round the cross, and as the priest watch the flames burn them, the savage cut off their cooked flesh and eat of it. This they call Iroquois communion.”

“God have mercy,” whispered Bradford.

“Bloody heathens,” said Standish.

Father Druillettes let the story hang a moment in the air. “In Baston, and now ’ere in Pleymout, I ask for ’elp of good Christians to put down these ’eathens.”

“Mon-seur Droo-lay,” said Bigelow. “Our colony is not threatened by the Iroquois. Neither is the only trading post we have left in Maine. What vantage is there to help the French in anything?”

“Much good will come, m’sieur.” Druillettes waved a hand at Father Daladier, who stood and went toward the sideboard.

Jack Hilyard took the brandy bottle and poured himself more in spite of Bradford’s scowl. He drank it down quickly and waited for the revelation. But it did not come.

Instead, Ezra Bigelow stood and smacked his hands on the table. “I see
no
good from an alliance with the French. War is usually more imminent with them than with anyone else. Better to make our alliance with the Iroquois against the French papists.”

Father Druillettes’ face flushed as red as Bradford’s waistcoat. He raised his hand, and Father Daladier stopped in his tracks. “M’sieur le Gouverneur, is this your belief?”

“You must forgive Master Bigelow. He speaks harshly.”

“Et l’entente?”

“What did Boston say?” demanded Bigelow.

“That the Kennebec is yours, so the decision is yours.”

“Let us think upon it,” said Bradford.

“Très bien,”
said the priest.
“Et merci. Maintenant, excusez-nous.”
He folded his hands before him and left with Father Daladier and the box close behind.

Jack grinned at Ezra. “Still makin’ friends wherever you goes.”

iii.

Father Jacques Daladier had withstood Iroquois torture, but he could not withstand Jack Hilyard’s curiosity.

Jack and the priest spent the night on cornhusk mattresses in the great room of William Paddy’s home. Father Druillettes retired to a feather bed on the second floor, while Jack’s crew slept in the barn, well cheered by the beer he had brought them. It was a crime to give beer to Indians, but a small offense, thought Jack, when one of the Indians was a woman who slept at the side of a white man. Jack also brought a bucket of beer into the house. He mixed it with whaling stories and a bit of sympathy for a lonely Jesuit’s fingers, and led the talk toward the metal box.

Father Daladier had to grip the mug between his palms because he had no thumbs. “The beer, it is good. Most time I drink water.”

“Terrible stuff.” Jack spoke in a low voice, so as not to awaken anyone else. “We run low on beer and had to drink water the first winter. When it come spring, half of us was dead, me dear first wife amongst ’em. There’s plenty that think ’twas the water what done it.”

The priest licked the foam from his mustache. “The water, it is not good for any man.”

Jack stared into the fire. “Them was hard days.”

“That is what the Capuchins tell us.”

“The who?”

“The missionaries of Port Royal
en Acadie. Quand ils… Excusez-moi, mais mon anglais, n’est pas bien, et…”

Jack couldn’t speak French, but he sensed that the priest was starting to feel the beer. He poured a little more. “These Ca-poo-chins, how’d they know ’bout us?”

“Ils l’ont lu
… er, they read in a book.”

Somewhere in the house, someone was snoring. Jack could feel the vibration in his chair. He took a deep breath and said softly, “What book?”

“The book we bring in the iron box.
Les capucins
, when they ’ear that the Patriarch comes to Pleymout, they say, give this book if it will make
une entente.”

Jack Hilyard studied the firelight in the priest’s glassy eyes. “What is this book?”

“The journal by the master of the ship that brought them.”

“Christopher Jones?”

“Je ne sais pas
. I do not seen the book. I know only that it tell the story of great dying and great faith. We think to give it to the men of Pleymout this night, but M’sieur Bigelow—” Daladier shrugged and slid his mug across the table for more beer.