Cape Cod (28 page)

Jack glanced again toward the beach. “We’ll chew on all this later. Get Amapoo out of sight.”

“She be my wife. She stand by my side.”

Amapoo cast her eyes toward the ground. She wore a black dress with a white collar and now called herself Patience, but shiny copper pendants still hung from her ears and beaded strings held her long hair in place.

“Then the both of you get out of sight.”

Christopher led Patience into the house, though it was Jack’s suspicion that they would not be there for long.

“Very sad,” said Autumnsquam.

“What?”

“Amapoo and Chris. They learn ’bout Kautantowit. But thee boy turn back to Bloody Christ, and she go with him. Very sad. Bad talk. Bad talk.”

“Aye.” Jack peered down at the beach, where the shallop had just grounded. “Methinks I see the gray beard of Ezra Bigelow.”

The world believed it was grief that turned Ezra Bigelow gray. Jack knew there was another reason.

On the night that the messenger brought the news from Port Royal, Ezra Bigelow cursed God. He went out into the darkness, like Jack Hilyard so many years before, and shook his fist at the heavens. Of all the Englishmen to fight, why had God chosen
his
son, his brilliant boy, flower of his faith, future of his colony, foe of its French enemies, why had God chosen
his
son to be martyred in the grass of Acadia? Robinson had died a true Christian soldier, they said, but still he was dead, and the only one to die.

As the days passed and his hair, strand by strand, began to go gray, Ezra found himself turning to the Bible after all, and he found comfort—in Lamentations, in Job, in the joyous conclusion of Luke. He saw that God, in his own good time, had come around to visiting upon Ezra the pain that few men escaped, and in his own good time, God would bring Ezra and his son together again.

Jack Hilyard came around to visiting Ezra a week later, in his own good time.

Ezra knew of Christopher’s kindness to Robinson on the field and thanked Jack. “I understand why Jonathan joined that expedition. But thou and Christopher art neither of thee orthodox men.”

“We went for booty. That make us as orthodox as any.”

After the French had capitulated, those who wished were allowed to take to their ship. The rest, including the Capuchins, were given “freedom of conscience,” though the missionaries lasted little more than a year under English masters. In return, the French were made to yield up more than ten thousand pounds’ worth of weapons, skins, and supplies, and every English soldier earned a share.

“Thy portion could not have been great,” Ezra said. “Thou lost more than a month of whaling season.”

“Me portion was nothin’ as compared to this.” Jack pulled from his pocket a transcription from Master Jones’s journal.

The next morning, Ezra’s hair and beard were the color of a gull’s back, and Jack was preparing to go to Nauseiput….

Now the Plymouth visitors found Jack in his new barn, sharpening a flenser. Autumnsquam stood at the door, harpoon in hand, like a picket.

“A fine day to sail down from Plymouth,” said Jack.

“Hello, Pa.” Jonathan Hilyard had taken a Plymouth wife and moved back to the seat of the colony, where now he captained the militia. “We come as representatives of the General Court.”

“We come also as friends,” said Ezra Bigelow.

Jack touched iron to the grindstone and tiny sparks flew in the shadows. “Me
son
proclaims himself from the Gen’ral Court, and
Ezra Bigelow
calls himself friend. The world does change too much.”

“ ‘Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath’ has not changed since Moses,” Brewster Bigelow clamped a hand on his hip. He was nineteen, the youngest of Ezra’s children. He wore a green waistcoat with yellow satin piping and had just enough hair on his face to cover his boyish blemishes.

Jack pretended to ignore him. “We found us a fine big drifter up Billin’sgate way.”

“Fine big stinker,” said Autumnsquam.

“Aye. Must’ve been there a week. ’Tis a true marvel you didn’t smell him in Plymouth. Flensed him on the beach, we did, then hauled the blubber down here, stink and all. If we didn’t try him out today, he’d’ve been too far rotted for anythin’ but manure.” Jack tested the edge of his iron with his thumb and now looked at the younger Bigelow. “The Lord wanted us to use that whale, son. So he put him on that beach.”

“A broken Sabbath ain’t why we come, Pa.” Jonathan went over to the grindstone and knelt beside his father.

“How be me granddaughter?”

“Healthy as a horse.”

Jack’s smile folded his face into a thousand creases. “A little beauty, she is, and me pride for certain.”

“Come spring, there’ll be another.”

Jack gave out a hearty laugh. “Thou old cock.”

Jonathan blushed. “I’ve a lovin’ wife, Father.”

“And a lovin’ old dad.”

“But a Quaker for a brother,” said Brewster Bigelow.

Jack looked at Ezra, who remained in the sunshine, beneath the shadow of his wide black hat. “Easy to see where the lad come from, Ezra.”

“The colony knows Christopher’s a Quaker,” said Ezra.

“I never seen a Quaker in me life.”

“What be Quaker?” asked Autumnsquam.

Ezra glanced at the old Nauset. “Better a praying Indian at Portanimicut Plantation, my friend, than a lying Indian at Jack’s Island.”

“Me no need plantation to learn ’bout white God. Plantation for lapdogs. Me free. Me pray to Kautantowit. And”—Autumnsquam raised the harpoon—“me no lie.”

The harpoon whizzed at Ezra, past his ear, and buried itself in the oak on the far side of the clearing.

“Arrest this bloody savage,” Brewster ordered Jonathan Hilyard.

“Me no bloody. Tree bloody.”

Sure enough, a red stain was trickling down the gray bark. Autumnsquam walked past Bigelow and pulled the harpoon out of the tree. On the tip of the blade, a squirrel still twitched. “Kautantowit send us dinner. Squirrel stew. Nuff for two. Me go fix now.”

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.”