Cape Cod (16 page)

They would make of him an example, if it would stop a war. They dragged him outside and hanged him.

Then Standish asked Jack Hilyard, “The axe I did see in your belt, be it sharp?”

“Like a razor.”

“Then give the great Witawawmut a shave.”

They broke up the Wessagusset colony. Any who were willing to meet Plymouth standards were allowed to return with them. The rest put aboard their small ship, the
Swan
, and went to join the English fleet fishing at Penobscot.

The returning warriors went straight to the governor’s house, where Standish placed a bundle of bloody rags before William Bradford.

“Is this what I think?” asked Bradford.

Standish urged him to open it. Bradford hesitated, so Ezra Bigelow peeled away the rags to reveal, first, the greased black hair and feathers, then the painted forehead, the eyelids half closed, the mouth half open, the tongue lolling grotesquely at the corner, and the raw neck meat that looked like chicken guts and bone.

“This be the one they called Witawawmut. A most arrogant
pinse,”
said Standish.

“Very good,” said Bradford. “Now take it away.”

“Mount it, Captain,” said Bigelow.

Bradford shook his head. “A savage custom.”

“The better to frighten the savages,” said Standish.

“Aye,” added Bigelow.

“We do not want fear.” Bradford folded the rags loosely around the head again. “We want peace.”

“Fear ensures peace,” said Ezra Bigelow. “Fear and punishment for the Nausets.”

“We are not strong enough to punish them,” said Bradford, “nor have we evidence ’gainst them.”

“We have the word of Massasoit,” said Bigelow.

Jack Hilyard did not wish to stay an extra moment. He wished to tell his new wife of his bravery, his new and most pregnant wife, most pregnant and most envied by those who still waited for women from England. But he had to speak. “I be the one what took this
pinse’
s head.”

“Bravely done,” muttered Ezra, “after he was dead.”

“I
killed
him first,” said Hilyard, “when thou was nowheres to be found.”

“Speak your piece, Goodman Jack,” Bradford interceded.

“The Nausets be allies. They saved me boy and dealt corn for Weston’s men, too.”

“They saved thy boy to put us in their debt. They traded corn to get good English hoes,” grunted Ezra Bigelow.

“They be savages,” added Standish. “Had we not give Massasoit a good shit, even
he
might have been down on us.”

“We’ve not strength to fight them all,” said Bradford.

Bigelow picked up the head and held it by the hair so that the jaw dropped open and long strands of fluid dripped from the neck. “Let this be our weapon. Mount it. Let ’em see what we do to our enemies. Let ’em see our anger and spread word. Let ’em think we come in all wrath, with musket and cannon, to punish the plotters. Let fear be our ally.”

And Bradford agreed, for Bigelow spoke good sense. The head of Witawawmut was put upon a pike at the meetinghouse, so that the people of Plymouth could study it each Sunday on the way to service.

Christopher Hilyard studied it each day. He watched a crow perch on the top of it and peck until he pulled the tongue completely out of the mouth. He watched swarming flies blow the flesh full of eggs. And when his father took guard duty atop the blockhouse, Christopher went with him and watched the maggots hatching in the eye sockets.

Such contemplation was not good for a young boy, his father said, but in Christopher’s confusing world, Witawawmut’s head seemed the heart of confusion. Why had it been put up to frighten the Nausets, who had shown only friendship since the first fight? Why was this Indian not simply buried, and the memory of his enmity buried with him? This world belonged to them, he thought, and they to it.

To Christopher, this head bespoke his father’s hatred of those who had befriended him. His father’s new wife bespoke his own eclipse in his father’s eyes. Now Christopher longed to leave his father’s house and see once more the smiles of Amapoo and the Nausets.

But among the Nausets, there were few smiles.

Even in that enlightened time, trial by ordeal was used to determine guilt. A man accused was put to a test. If he survived, God was showing favor. If he did not, he was guilty.

The Nauset sachem Aspinet had conspired with no one, but upon hearing of Witawawmut’s head and the white men’s wrath, he and many of his people were struck with fear and fled into the marshes. Within months, the misery of life there made them easy prey for the diseases that now came each winter. When word reached Plymouth that Aspinet was dead of pestilence, it was taken as a clear sign, not of misunderstanding between white and red, but of red guilt.

Some Nausets, however, refused to flee. If the white men attacked, Autumnsquam would die rather than leave his home. Others believed that even if they fled, the white God would chase them into the marshes and strike them with sickness. But if this God was so powerful, Autumnsquam wondered, why had he not struck
him
first? After all, Autumnsquam deserved punishment. It had been he who promised that the Nausets would join Witawawmut’s war.

It would have been bad work, killing the boy Christopher Hil-yud. But Autumnsquam would have done it. He would have done it for his own boy and for his people. Many Wampanoags, rising against the whites, falling on them at night, killing the forty or fifty men-at-arms, killing the women and children… He would have done it… for the future.

Now he feared that the people of the Narrow Land would never rise up. Some villages were even sending gifts to Plymouth. They would accept the white man’s terms and the white man’s gods. First, they would accept the whites who were smart and dangerous, like those of Plymouth. Then they would accept the ones who were lazy and crude, like those of Wessagusset. And it sickened him. Had it not been for his boy, he would rather have left his head on a pike beside Witawawmut’s.

v.

“Be you certain we can handle this tub?”

“A shallop’s the finest tool what was ever made for the sea, master. She’ll handle this blow like a three-poler.”

“And only the Indians knows this coast better’n—”

A mountainous wave rolled over the boat, filling her ankle-deep with water.

A crude one, who was also smart and dangerous, was shaping a course for Plymouth. He had crossed the Atlantic on a fishing vessel, telling his mates he was a blacksmith. That was partly true, but he had not told them that his name was Thomas Weston.

The Council for New England had grown more vexed with Weston than ever the Plymouth men had. He had sent ships to New England without permission. He had charged them to fish where they would, for the ocean was free. He had funded the renegade Wessagusset colony, for New England was too big to be controlled by a few men. And none of it was lawful in the eyes of Crown or council. So had he been prohibited from setting foot anywhere in New England.

Weston had read the decree, taken a false name, and sailed for New England, council be damned. No man or royal authority could keep him from his investment. But when he reached the fishing fleet at Penobscot Bay, he learned that no man in his colony had done anything to
protect
his investments, and the
Swan
could not be found. His speculation had fallen to pieces.

But he never dismissed an idea that might prove profitable, and he had brought with him a sealed iron box. In it was something to use when there was time for the wildest of speculations. It was the sea journal of the
Mayflower
, and the time had come.

As blacksmiths were not well suited to the sea, he had found a pair of fishermen who would take him to Plymouth. However, but for the Saints, he had never judged men well. They were north of the Merrimac River when the seas rose and the shallop began to ride like a leaf in a rushing stream.

“By’r Lady!” cried the one who said he knew what he was doing. “We be headin’ for the breakers.”

“Hold her steady!” cried the one who had said he knew where they were going. “Or we’ll be in pieces.”

“The wind’s got her!”

“Then bring her about!” cried Weston.

“Shut up,” cried one.

“He’s right!” shouted the other.

Through the sheets of rain Weston saw the breakers wearing on the bar a hundred yards from the beach. “Throw out an anchor!” he screamed.

“Shut up!” cried one.

“He’s right!” cried the other as a wave broke over them and carried his mate into the black boil of water.

Now the shallop began to turn with the force of the waves. Weston grabbed his box and clutched it to his chest, “Bring ’er about!”

“But the tiller’s gone!”

“It’s the tiller
man
what’s gone.”

“We be adrift! And bloody sinkin’! Bail!”

“You brung no buckets, you damn fool.”

“Use that.” The fisherman lunged for Weston’s box.

“No!” Weston pushed the fisherman away.

The sea rose and the fisherman followed his mate into the abyss. A moment later, it swallowed Weston as well….

vi.

They were Penobscots. They had come with pelts to trade at Strawberry Bank. Now they had new knives, beads of glass for their women, a copper kettle, and buckets of white men’s beer for the long walk north.

Thomas Weston had his old knife, a purse containing ten pounds in gold, a rucksack of clothing rescued from the surf, and the iron box which, somehow, he had clung to when the sea sucked him in. If there was anything of luck in this, it was the season. Had it not been summer, he would have frozen to death. But after the storm and the miracle of his deliverance, he had dried himself in the sun, and now had many hours of daylight in which to travel.

He had taken a path that snaked through marsh grass as tall as a man and as dense as thatch on a roof. He had not gone far when he heard laughter and men speaking in a strange tongue. His first thought was to hunker down in the rushes and let them go by.

But there was no time. They were rounding the bend now. And their chatter was ceasing as, one by one, they saw the big, bedraggled white man blocking their way.

Weston puffed himself up to his full five feet nine and squared himself on the path. If he understood one thing, it was the power of bluster. He clutched his iron box to his chest and resolved that he would not even step aside.

The Penobscots were not warlike people. But like the Nausets, they were of two minds about white men, who brought some good things and many bad. The Penobscots who met Weston may have decided that in his box and rucksack he carried some of the good things. And for all the bad they had endured, perhaps he owed them.

An Indian said hello.

Weston set his jaw and nodded. He guessed the Indian had learned English while working with the fishing fleet.

“Got pretty red feather in hat.”

“Aye.” The feather had stayed in Weston’s hat, which had stayed on his head during his ride in the surf. It was not nearly as pretty as once it had been.

The Indian took a gourd from his bucket of beer. He was as tall as the Englishman, but his chest and shoulders were scrawny. And none of his mates looked much better. Weston thought he might handle them all.

The Penobscot smiled. His face was pitted from the pox, and his body was covered with foul-smelling grease. The Penobscot, however, was in no way bothered by the mosquitoes, which feasted on Weston’s neck and had been biting through his hose since he entered the marsh.

The Penobscot offered the gourd. “Drink for feather?”

Weston was tempted. A draft of beer for a feather. A true bargain. But in mongering, he never accepted the first offer. It showed weakness. So he shook his head.

The Penobscot did not seem disappointed, as though he understood the game of barter. He ran his hand over the ridge of hair on his shaved head. “What bird?”

Weston did not understand.

The Penobscot drank down the beer, then said, “Me want feather from red bird. What bird? Cardinal bird?”

“No bird. Dye. Red dye.” He realized immediately that he had blundered.

The Penobscot looked at his friends and said something that caused them all to grumble. Then he pulled his knife and swung it toward Weston’s neck, screaming, “Red no die. White die. Then take feather.”

One of the Indians grabbed Weston’s left arm. He tried to swing loose, but another grabbed his right, causing the iron box to fall to the ground. One of the others grabbed it, while the leader slid the knife from Weston’s belt and pressed it against his chest.

“Give me my box.”

“No talk or thee die.”

The Indian took Weston’s knife and sliced through the wax seal on the box. He pulled it open, his face filled with anticipation, until he saw… a book. He turned the box upside down and let the book drop to the ground. Then he looked inside for secret compartments; then he threw the box into the rushes with a curse.

He took Weston’s rucksack and rifled through that. Then he grabbed Weston’s change purse from his belt.

That
Weston could not countenance. With all his might, he swung his body so that the Indian on his left slammed into the one before him. Then he bit the nose of the one who held him by the right arm. Then…

He woke in the bright, broiling sunshine… or something woke him. Was it the vicious pain at the back of his head or the curious feeling in his crotch? He rolled over, and the rushes scraped against his back, which was burned like meat. Then something bit him, bit him right at the tip of his manhood. He screamed and leaped to his feet. Sharp claws sank into his foreskin and he screamed again. But there was no one to hear. He did not know where he was or what had happened. He knew only the pain.

And there were crabs—crawling, scuttling, shuffling—everywhere.

He reached down and snapped off the claw so that the crab fell away, but the claw remained, fixed to his foreskin like a pincer. He was naked, barefoot, bitten all over by mosquitoes, and like a scalded dog, he began to run. He did not even think to look for his rucksack or his clothes or his book. It would not have mattered, for they were all gone.