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 would be none the wiser if we were to take the whale. He was going about from house to house, rousing enthusiasm for this venture, and had met with some success by the time he got to us. Father had gone some days earlier with Peter Folger to our sister isle, Nantucket, to transact some business there on grandfather’s behalf, and mother was with Aunt Hannah, who was ill, tending to her and her babes both. I am sure father would have counseled against Nortown’s plan. But Makepeace saw no flaw in it, and readily agreed to go with the other men. “Bethia, you shall come also, and do a share at the try pots, and make my meal for me,” he said. All my life I had been schooled that it was not my place to argue with him, but as I hastily packed what we would need to spend a night on the open beach, and later, as our boat beat up the coast amid that small fleet of thieves, I felt a great heaviness, as one does, when one knows oneself engaged in an act of greed and sneakery.
By the time we reached the cliffs, the whale had indeed beached herself. She was huge, glistening, luminous, a pregnant shape that the surf pulled this way and that, as if she still had vigor and was not already doomed. There were many rounded rocks scattered across the shore there. As each wave receded, these stones beat against each other in a rattling tattoo. I have read that one hears such a thing at an execution.
We moored the boats in the lee of the cliff, where they could not be sighted from Nomin’s island, and commenced to unload them. The cauldrons and tripods were heavy enough as I helped to drag them up the beach, but the heaviness of my mood seemed to add to their weight so that my arms ached under the strain. I helped to set them, then we rolled the butts that would receive the oil up the beach and carried the long-handled dippers that would skim it off the boiling blubber. As soon as that was done, I went off to help in the search for driftwood to feed the fires, which would not be set until nightfall, so that the Indians on Nomin’s island would not descry the smoke. I was glad to leave the beach as I did not want to be witness to the cutting. As I walked away, I heard the men’s voices shouting in coarse merriment even as they hewed at the whale’s living flesh. I thought of the shining bass in my friend’s hands, the raised rock, and his gentle words of thanks to the creature. This no longer seemed outlandish to me, but fitting and somehow decent. The idea that this heathen youth should show more refinement than we in such a matter only added to my leaden mood.
The dunes up island are very much higher than those closer by Great Harbor, and on the far side of them is a vast expanse of low, wind-sculpted moor, wrapping around damp swales and shimmering ponds filled with every kind of waterbird. There was a Wampanoag pathway leading through thickets of stunted oak, shadbush and bay-berry. I followed it, until I was far enough from the beach not to hear the raucous voices of the men.
At first, I stopped from time to time to add a good-sized piece of wood to my sling, but soon I neglected this. The scent of the beach plum flowers hung in the humid air, and the drone of bees thrummed all around me. I felt heavy in limb, heavy in spirit. My head began to ache and throb. The very air seemed to push upon me. I have no idea how far I had walked, but suddenly I was aware of a deeper throbbing, a louder hum. The honey fragrance of the plants gave way to the sharp tang of woodsmoke. The path curved suddenly, and dropped away into a bowl of open grassland. I found myself on the lip of a great depression running down to a broad notch in the whitest clay cliff I had ever seen. Below me, Wampanoag were dancing in a wide circle, shaking corn-filled gourds and beating rhythmically on small skin drums.
My first thought was to drop my burden of wood and run back to the beach, to warn the others that the Wampanoag were not on distant Nomin’s island, but nearby, and in numbers large enough to threaten us if they caught us red to the elbows with the blood of a whale that was rightfully their own.
But then a voice rose, high and fierce, in notes that I had not known a human throat could produce. The sounds went through to the very core of me. I could not turn away. Indeed, I felt drawn towards the maker of those sounds. I told myself that I needed to give an exact count of the band, and the number of them who might be armed. I left the path, which led down into the clearing and would have put me in plain sight, and pushed my way through the dense heath plants that gave me cover should anyone look upward. Soon, I was close enough to understand some few words of the song. The pawaaw was calling upon his gods, praising, thanking, beseeching. The drums beat in tempo to the rhythm of my heart, which seemed to be swelling at the sound. I felt my soul hum and vibrate in sympathy with his prayers. There was power here; spiritual power. It moved me in some profound way. I had striven for this feeling, week following week, as the dutiful minister’s daughter at Lord’s Day meeting. But our austere worship had never stirred my soul as did this heathen’s song.
Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. So I had been instructed all my life. Still, it was to those strange gods that I wanted to cry out with the same abandon as the pawaaw. Time stopped its relentless forward march as I crouched in the scrub, rocking in tempo to the drums. Finally, I threw back my head and let the breath from my body speak for me, in a sigh of surrender to some unknown thing of power and beauty, adding my breath to the prayers filling the wide sky. When it was done, I felt the day’s heaviness go off me like a lifted weight.
After the pawaaw’s prayer finished, I meant to leave. But songs followed, and dances, and I stayed there, to watch and to listen. For a time, the young men danced in wild leaps, brandishing polished war-clubs in a
