Cape Cod (8 page)

Jack did not think that with all the things God had to do, he was watching this miserable corner of the earth, so Jack would do it for him. While the others kept their heads out of the wind, Jack watched for creeks and inlets and, most of all, for whales, which they found, along with a handful of Indians, on a small bay some ten miles south of Cornhill.

The Indians were cutting up a dead drifter and ran at sight of the explorers. This seemed a bad portent. Still, Jack said they were fools if they did not settle on a bay that drew drift whales and was a full five fathoms deep. But they were most of them farmers before seamen, and deep anchorage meant less than a spit’s-depth of black earth. So they named the bay Grampus for the abandoned whale, rejected it for the thin topsoil, and continued south.

They stopped for the night just north of where the armlike Cape bent its elbow. There, they built a barricado of logs and boughs and gathered at the fire to give a prayer of thanks. For what, Jack did not know, as they lacked the good sense to settle on Grampus Bay, and how many more chances would God give them? While they prayed, he borrowed the mate’s spying glass and went down to the beach to continue God’s work.

The tide had ebbed from this corner of the bay as though flowing from a shallow bowl. Flats now stretched for miles, a bleak muddy plain dotted with freezing pools and flocks of gulls gabbling busily about, gossiping and laughing like old women on market day. Jack wondered if they laughed at the fire glimmering feebly in the dusk… or at the praying around it.

Through the glass, Jack scanned the southern coast. There was an inlet near the elbow, and west of that, two creeks. Between them stretched a beach, beds of eelgrass, and a collection of shadows that looked, in the fading light, like boulders, all of the same size and shape. He steadied the glass on the gunwale of the shallop to better see.

“ ’Tisn’t appreciated when one of our number will not pray with us.” Simeon Bigelow’s voice, even in rebuke, was gentler than his brother’s, as if the voices and features reflected the men. Simeon was near as tall as Ezra, but fleshy and rumpled where his brother was hard and precise. Even his beard, a rough black tangle, contrasted with Ezra Bigelow’s pointed chin whiskers.

“More whales.” Jack handed the glass to Bigelow and pointed toward the land between the creeks. “Enough oil to pay off all the debts of this group in one motion.”

“They look like boulders.” Simeon lowered the glass. “Come mornin’, thou may seest more clearly.”

“Come mornin’, we must go there.”

“I be not the man to ask.” Simeon began to dig for something in the shallop.

Jack grabbed him by the elbow. “Thou be the man to ask
for
me.”

“Why shouldst I ask for thee?”

“Thou be a man of good sense and broader mind than most.”

Bigelow straightened himself and removed Jack’s fingers, one by one, from his elbow. “I hold the same beliefs as my brethren.”

“But thou got charity in thee. Thou knows that, for all me rough words, I wish to see us survive as much as any.” A cold wind snapped over the flats and blew the brim of Jack’s hat against the side of his head. He pulled it lower on his ears. “These flats be bounteous full, Simeon—whales, fish, shellfish. ’Tis a good place to settle.”

“Come mornin’, make the case thyself.” Simeon smiled. “ ’Twill benefit thee if they settle there.”

v.

Morning came as no more than a graying of the gloom. The woods above the campsite were still deep in darkness. The flats were gray, the sea grayer. Even the sand seemed gray. The gulls stood like gray sentinels on the flats. And the shadows of other shorebirds darted through the gray sky, their nervous swarming a sure sign of change in the weather.

From the woods, Autumnsquam watched. His face was painted black, his body covered with animal grease. He had come for war. During the night, he and the others had tested the white men by howling like wolves in the woods. The whites had roused themselves and fired off their guns, and many of the Nausets had lost their courage. But Autumnsquam would not let them run. Now he counted only one white man for every three Nausets, and by some arrogance or stupidity, the whites had carried most of their weapons to their canoe, then had gone back, unarmed, to their little square of logs and boughs on the beach. Autumnsquam crawled to Aspinet and said the time had come.

Jack Hilyard was watching Simeon Bigelow melt goose grease over the fire. “Through the mist, nuffin’ can be seen of the beaches to the south.”

“Then thou hast little to say.”

“I’ll say no matter, when the mood ’round the fire warms.”

Myles Standish stood at the opening of the barricado. Not the cheeriest of men, his demeanor had worsened as several had elected to carry their guns and gear to the shallop, to be ready to go when the tide rose. Hunger made him even angrier. “What breaks our fast, Master Simeon?”

“Hard tack in goose grease and a gill of beer.”

“For
this
we leave our guns unguarded.”

“Repast fit for a king,” said Bradford cheerily.

Jack Hilyard cleared his throat. “I knows a way we’ll all eat like kings, with sterling brung by whale oil—”

Nothing more of what he said could be heard above the wild cries that came from the woods.

“Wolves?” said Bradford.

Stephen Hopkins rushed into the barricado, “They are men! Indians! Indians!”

And a shower of arrows whistled through the air. Three shafts thumped into the ground around Jack. One struck the kettle and splashed grease onto his breeches. Another landed by his boot. A third pinned Simeon Bigelow’s cloak to the ground.

Jack felt a familiar chill at the nape of his neck, which was good, because a little fear sharpened the senses and steadied the hand. But too much fear froze men to their boot soles, and for a moment, none of the others could move.

Then Standish proved the worth of a soldier among farmers and shopkeeps. Though he had no target, he raised and fired his snaphance at the woods. The thunderous roar frightened the Indians into silence and roused the explorers from their shock.

“Arm yourselves! Now!” Standish shouted.

“Fear not the arrows,” cried Bradford, finding his courage. “God is with us.”

“And dressed most of you in armor!” added Jack.

“But the guns be by the shallop!” said Hopkins.

“And you bloody
fools
for leavin’ ’em there!” shouted Standish.

“
I
be no fool,” cried Jack. “Mine be right here.”

“And there are two more,” said Bradford.

“Be quick with ’em, then,” ordered Standish, “and the rest of you ready yourselves to run for the shallop.”

Jack looked at Simeon, who was still crouched in fright, and held out his gun. “Fire the match.”

Another flight of arrows came in, some digging into the sand, some fluttering to the ground, a few tearing into the cloaks drying above the fire, and every one rooting Simeon Bigelow more firmly to his fright.

“Fire the match, Simeon,” said Jack evenly, “or we’ll none of us get out of here alive.”

With shaking hand, Simeon pulled a burning stick from the fire and touched it to the slow match on Jack’s musket.

Standish was now standing in full view of the Indians, letting arrows bounce off his corselet while he reloaded. When a stone-tipped arrow struck the armor near his neck, he snapped it in half and spat on it.

This infuriated the Indians, who screamed out a strange cry—“
Woach, Woach, ha ha hach woach
”—and sent down another rain of arrows.

“Do all the spittin’ you wants, Captain.” Jack raised his matchlock and pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped, touching the smoldering cord to the powder in the pan. There was a small flash, then an explosion that once more shocked the Indians into silence, but this time, their fear neither grew as great nor lasted as long.

Standish ordered the unarmed men after their guns. “Run, you bloody fools. Run now!”

And as the white men fled down the beach, the Indians burst from the woods to give chase.

“Run!” cried Jack.

“Be men of faith,” added Bradford.

“And you be men of the musket!” cried Standish. In the firelight, his face now shone as red as his beard.

Bradford and John Carver rushed out with their matchlocks, dug their rests into the sand, fitted the barrels, and took aim.

Standish pointed at the shadows churning down the beach as though driven by the wind. “Aim together,” he ordered calmly. “Together, now. Fire!”

The noise of the guns frightened the Indians back into the woods. Their kick knocked Bradford into Jack, who fell against Carver, who fell onto the seat of his breeches.

“On your feet,” ordered Standish. “The savages muster courage to come at us next. Load and pray we have help from the shallop presently.”

Then they heard the men at the shallop calling for a firebrand.

“Bloody fools!” roared Standish. “What soldier lets his match go out?”

“What soldier leaves his gun three hundred feet from his side?” answered Hilyard. “Simeon, another firebrand.”

Simeon poked his cutlass through the logs. “There be no more small pieces.”

“Then a log! Take a log!”

“Take it where?”

“The shallop!” roared Standish. “Without a firebrand, matchlocks be no better than clubs.”

Bradford drove the ramrod into his gun. “Be of good courage, Simeon, and be quick. God be with you.”

But Simeon stood staring at the flames, in the grip of terror.

So Jack took sterner measures. He kicked Simeon square in his breeches. “A firebrand, man! Fail in this and the colony dies!”

And Simeon Bigelow found his courage. He poked at the fire until a burning log came free. He wrapped it in his cloak, then threw it onto his shoulder and ran.

At the sight of his shadow bursting from the barricado, the Indians sped forth once more. But fear and the flames on his shoulder made Simeon run faster than any demon.

He fired the matches of the men at the shallop and a three-gun volley exploded so loud that a flock of gulls lifted from the flats. Amidst a splattering shower of white gull shit, three more stepped forward, fixed rests, fired, and put the Indians to flight.

These white men were demons, thought Autumnsquam. They made targets of themselves, but arrows did not pierce their clothing. Nor did war cries frighten them nor fire burn them. And their weapons made noise that could shake the ground. But even if the other Nausets were afraid, he would show bravery.

He stepped boldly from behind a tree and bellowed a war cry. The white men raised their weapons at him, but he did not flinch. Two shots exploded around him, but he did not run. He answered them with two arrows of his own.

These savages were demons, thought Jack Hilyard. Even in bitter winter, they wore nothing but breeches. They painted their faces, they screamed like animals, and after they attacked, they disappeared into the blackness of the forest like night creatures at dawn. And now this bold one was standing their musket shots and shouting defiance.

So Jack aimed his matchlock. Autumnsquam aimed his bow. One stood at the edge of the trees, barely visible for the blackness around him. The other stood before his campfire, a black shadow in the light. Autumnsquam’s arrow whizzed by Jack Hilyard’s ear. Jack’s shot struck a tree and sent splinters of wood flying at Autumnsquam.

The Indian felt a pain that was more humiliating than excruciating. He gave a last defiant cry and ran off with the others.

The explorers ran into the woods and fired off their pieces, then gave two shouts to show they had no fear of the Indians. The shouts echoed feebly through the trees and, in men of less faith, should have inspired fear. No sound could have been lonelier. But men who knew God as intimately as the Saints could never be lonely, no matter how vast the wilderness.

So they offered a prayer, then congratulated one another on their bravery. None spoke of marksmanship.

Simeon Bigelow, praised for saving the day, said he hoped they could make peace with the Indians.

“Peace comes when you prove you be ready for war,” said Standish, who paid Jack Hilyard the high praise of calling him “a good man in a fight.”

“Pray that he is as good in peace,” added Simeon.

After they were away, William Bradford proclaimed that henceforth, they would know the beach by the name First Encounter.

Jack Hilyard had no interest in naming names. He was looking toward the south coast, but the mist remained so thick he could not see the beach between the creeks, nor could he persuade them to put in so near to where the savages had attacked. They were not so foolish as to think a second fight would end as well. So Jack restrained his instinct to call them women and quietly promised Simeon that soon, he would return to the land between the creeks and claim it as his own.

From the woods, Autumnsquam watched them go. He would send word along the Narrow Land, and by the time runners reached the small villages of the Scusset, the story would tell of the Nauset victory that drove the white men into the sea. Autumnsquam would not object. Truth took many forms, and his bravery would be the heart of the tale. But there would be no need to send runners beyond the Scusset, for north of that was the land of the Patuxets.

And the Patuxets were no more. They had lived on the best harbor in the bay, with fish and shellfish in abundance. They had taken their water from a fine spring, climbed hillsides that gave long views of sea and countryside, and cleared wide fields for corn. But the sickness had killed them all. In the land of the Patuxets, there would be no one to care at the coming of the white men.

Autumnsquam could not have known that an Englishman called John Smith had charted this bay and given the name
Plymouth
to the Patuxet land. Or that the men in the shallop would arrive there that day and decide that the fresh water, the defensible hills, the cleared fields, and the lack of Indians were all part of God’s plan… for them.

vi.

December 13, 1620
. Cold, clear, wind NW. The return of the explorers after eight days brings as much rejoicing as the news that they have found a site for settlement.