Caleb’s Crossing - Geraldine Brooks

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that there was nothing so very extraordinary in my knowing some of his speech. I told him who I was, for all of the Wampanoag by that time had heard of the praying Indians and their minister, my father. I explained that I had learned something of his tongue by listening to the lessons of my father with Iacoomis.

      He made a face at that, as if he had sucked on a gallnut. He hissed out the word they use for the product of the bowel, a vile or stinking thing, and it made me blush to hear him say such a thing of a helpful man so well beloved by my father.

      He looked down then at my empty clamming basket.

      “Poquauhock?” he asked. I nodded. He closed his fingers to his upturned palm, beckoning me, and turned back into the beach grass from which he had appeared.

      I had a choice then, to follow or not. I wish I could say that it cost me more struggle. As I scrambled along trying to keep pace with his swift steps, I told myself that it would be a great thing to know of a better clamming place, so that I might do the chore with dispatch in future days and have more time for my own pursuits.

      It was the first of many times I followed that feathered head through eel grass and over sand dune, to clay pit and to kettle pond. He showed me where the wild strawberries sweetened and fattened in the sunshine, some of them above two inches around, and so numerous that I could gather a bushel in a forenoon. He taught me to see where the blueberry bushes dapple with fruit in summer and the cranberry bogs yield crimson gems come fall.

      He walked through the woods like a young Adam, naming creation. I learned to shape my mouth to the words— sasumuneash for cranberry, tunockuquas for frog. So many things grew and lived here that were strange to us, because they had not been in England. We named the things of this place in reference to things that were not of this place— cat briar for the thickets of vine whose thorns were narrow and claw-like; lambskill for the low-growing laurel that had proved poisonous to some of our hard-got tegs. But there had been no cats or lambs here until we brought them. So when he named a plant or a creature, I felt that I heard the true name of the thing for the first time.

      Always, we made a great pretense that we had met by chance, and feigned amazement that our tracks had crossed each other’s. And yet he was certain to let me know, in such a way as to make nothing of it, where he had a mind to be fishing or hunting at this or that phase of the moon, and such or so height of the sun. Every time, I would tell myself some falsehood as to why my day’s wanderings took me in that very direction at that very hour. Once I was in the general place, it was a small matter for him to track me: he told me, later, that I left a trail plainer than a herd of running deer.

      I justified the hours with him in the baskets of delicacies that I carried home. It was my duty, was it not, to help provide for my family? As I watched the jars of preserves fill the shelf, the strings of drying cranberries crisscross the rafters, and the strips of smoked shellfish laid in against a hungry winter, I felt satisfied in my self-deception.

      The truth, now, set down here, before God: I loved the hours I spent with him. In very short season he had filled the empty space that Zuriel had left in my heart. I had never had such a friend before. As a child I had not needed any, since Zuriel was always at my side, all the companion I wanted. When he died, I was without whatever knack it requires to draw someone close. In any case, the only girl of an age to have been my friend was an Alden, of the one family in the settlement with which we Mayfields were at odds. To have formed any kind of easy association with the few English boys my age would have been an unthinkable affront to modesty. But this boy was a different thing entirely. He had soon become more of a brother to me than Makepeace, whose concern for my proper bearing made him severe. I had learned to expect no word from Makepeace but to correct or to command. No playful banter, no genuine opening of our heart one to the other.

      At first, I followed this wild boy hungering after his knowledge of the island— his deep understanding of everything that bloomed or swam or flew. Soon enough, a curiosity about an untamed soul had kindled, and this, too, caused me to seek him out. But it was his light temper and his easy laugh that drew me close to him, over time, until I forgot he was a half-naked, sassafras-scented heathen anointed with raccoon grease. He was, quite simply, my dearest friend.

      And yet, I told no one this, not even myself. I knew that I deceived others, but the extent of my self-deception only became patent to me much later. I took pains that no one ever saw us together, forgoing meeting him if I thought there was the slightest chance that someone might come in our way. I did not take home the cuts of venison he offered, when he had killed and dressed a deer, since I could not have explained how I came by them. But I ate from a roasted haunch with him, and it was delicious. Another day, he led me to dunes rich with ripening beach plums, and as I picked them, he waded out, spear in hand, to inspect his fish traps, returning with a fine bass writhing in his hands. I heard him thank the fish for its life as he dispatched it with a quick blow. I had never thought of such a thing, and that day, I recall that it seemed to me outlandish. He said we would eat it, and I said it was not meal time. He laughed at that, and said that he had heard that the English needed a bell to tell them when they were hungry. Even as he mocked me, I realized that I was, in fact, ravenous. So we gathered some kindling and a little driftwood; he used his flint to strike a flame. We skewered the flesh on twigs and seared it, one succulent piece after another. I ate till I was sated. Later, at board, my mother commended me for my continence, and father chimed: “Son, you would do well to emulate your sister.” Makepeace liked his food too well and struggled against the sin of gluttony. I colored, thinking guiltily of my full belly, and mother’s eyes smiled at me, misperceiving that my pink flesh bespoke a modesty like her own; a fine quality that I did not in fact possess.

      Day following day, I grew in knowledge of the island, as we foraged in one place more remarkable in prospect or abundance than the last. For him, it seemed that every plant had some use, as food or medicine, as dye or weaving matter. He would snap the heads off sumac and douse them in water to make a refreshing drink, or reach up into trees to gather rich nutmeats— white and creamy. He was forever chewing upon one or another fresh green leaf from some plant that I had thought a weed, but which, when he gave it me, proved most palatable.

      As I grew to know places and plants, so also I grew to know my guide, though this came more slowly. It was many weeks before he would even give me his name, that being considered a grave intimacy among his people. And when he did finally confide it to me, I understood why it is that they feel so. For with his name came an idea of who he truly was. And with that knowledge came the venom of temptation that would inflame my blood.

      Chapter IV

      That summer, perhaps because of the lean winter that had preceded it, brought the first theft of a drift whale. It had been our practice to take those that washed ashore in our harbor, or those blackfish coming near inshore that our men could drive in to our own beach. Of these we generally had two or three a season. All the families would be called out, the men to do the harrying from the shallops and the butchery upon the beach, the women to set up the try pots and try out the oil. I misliked the work, and not just for the blackened, greasy air. It is one thing to butcher a deer killed with a swift arrow or blast of musket shot, or to wring a hen’s neck, as I have done often enough, delivering the bird to a death sudden and unforeseen. But the whale was generally alive when they commenced to carve it, and the eye, so human like, would move from one to another of us, as if seeking for some pity. I wanted to tell the creature that pity costs dear indeed when the oil of one Leviathan could yield near eighty barrels and keep our village bright throughout a long dark winter without mess of pitch pine knots or the rancid stink of cods’ liver oil.

      It had been understood that whales drifting onto the other beaches belonged to the Wampanoag, who believed that a benevolent spirit being threw them upon the shore for their particular use. They made even greater employ of the creatures’ every part than we did, thought the flesh a very great delicacy and cause for feasting, and had strict customs for its fair distribution. But our neighbor Nortown, fishing offshore in his shallop, had espied a whale likely to strand down by the colored cliffs that we call the Gay Head. Nortown said he had learned that the Wampanoag of those lands were away on Nomin’s island, with their sonquem Tecquanomin and their pawaaw, who dwelt there, engaged in days-long rites and pagan dancing. In such case, he argued, they

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