“The idea don’t matter a damn ’less we get somethin’ that makes people happy.”
“You can’t always make people happy. The trick is to make them less mad.” Then he talked about the bill he planned to file in September, a joint effort with Republican Senator Saltonstall. “This one will settle a lot of stomachs.”
The bill would allow people to retain their houses and three acres of land to sell or bequeath. The towns would be protected against tax losses. And there would be a local Advisory Commission with influence in park policy. The plan was going to be made to work, one way or the other.
“Guess you were listenin’ after all,” said Rake.
Kennedy looked out at the Sound, sparkling and blue in the afternoon sun. “The story of this Cape is the story of America, Rake. I want my kids to be able to read it, too.”
Afterward Mary told Rake she was more impressed than she had been the night she met Eugene O’Neill.
So Rake suggested they go skinny-dipping.
vi.
A good commander kept spies in every camp. Dickerson Bigelow had learned that as an OSS functionary in 1945.
One of his Cape Cod spies was Arnie Burr, whose family had intermarried with the Hilyards once and was about to do it again.
Arnie had gotten himself engaged to Rake’s niece, Emily Hartwig. It was known that Rake loved Emily like the daughter he never had. She was no beauty. Her nose took care of that. And she had reached twenty-seven without a single marriage proposal. But Rake had urged her not to accept Arnie Burr.
This surprised no one. “More selfish than a he-lobster in matin’ season” was the way one old fisherman described Arnie Burr.
Arnie was an independent who followed the seasons. He took Pleasant Bay scallops in the winter, set trawls on the back shore in spring, and chartered from summer through the big bass runs of fall.
“Jig
, damn you,
jig
the line,” Arnie growled at vacationers who were paying him for the privilege of fishing. And he cursed them when they lost fish, because he said a charter captain built a reputation on how many fish he boated, nothing more. And in summer there were new customers every two weeks.
Off-season, it was different. He couldn’t keep a trawling partner when he trawled or a shucker when he scalloped. Married scallopers usually relied on their wives to clean their catch while they went after more. Bachelors came home to barrels of cold shells, knuckle-slicer knives, and slimy little squares of scallop flesh. Or they hired women at four cents a cleaned quart.
Emily Hartwig was one of the best shuckers in Brewster, and one winter, when Rake put off scalloping, she took on Arnie Burr’s catch.
She might have heard about his temper and his reputation as a “soaker” who put scallops in fresh water and cornmeal to make them swell. But she must have found some good in Arnie, too, because pretty soon they were cleaning scallops together. She didn’t mind when he sneezed on the shells; he didn’t care if she left a trail of ash in the bucket. Amid scallops, sneezes, and cigarette ashes, they fell in love.
But if love softened Arnie, Rake hardened him right up again. And he was willing to give out information to Rake’s enemies for nothing.
“Hello there, Arnie.” Dickerson came down to the wharf in Sesuit Harbor. Where the Shivericks had built their clippers, day boaters and charter captains now held sway.
Arnie was scrubbing fish blood from the deck.
“Any luck?”
“Hit a school of bluefish. Chopped ’em up real good. Sent the landlubbers home happy.”
That was enough small talk. “Any news?”
Arnie sprayed the hose onto the deck. “Rake had a invitation to Hyannis Port yesterday. When he came back, he told Clara that the good guys were going to win.”
For Dickerson, this was reason enough to look Rake in the eye. He drove to Jack’s Island. He parked at his mother’s house, took off his shoes, and headed out onto the flats.
It didn’t take him long to reach the clam digger picking along near the tide line. “Hello, young feller.”
Rake scooped up a big quahaug with his rake and dropped it into the bucket. “Be careful, Dicker. The tide’s turnin’.”
Dickerson pressed his feet into the mud and watched it ooze through his toes. “You mean the Feds are floodin’ us?”
“Can’t stop the tide.”
“You can’t stop the tide of people who want to come here. Everybody wants to see this”—he swept his arm at the land and sea around him—“but take twenty-eight thousand acres out of circulation, and that tide may swamp
you
, Rake. It may even swamp Jack’s Island.”
“That’ll be the day.” Rake pressed his foot into the sand and turned up a big rock.
“People have to live somewhere. Builders build because there’s buyers. The federal government can’t stop that, not Eisenhower, not the National Park Service, not even Kennedy of Hyannis Port.”
Rake dug into the sand again and turned up a few squirming seaworms.
“Of course, Kennedy hasn’t done you much good, has he?” said Dickerson.
“Come September.”
“Come September, what?”
“Introducin’ a bill to make everyone happy.”
This was what Dickerson had feared all along. At least he had come to the right place to hear about it. He looked out at the terns working the waterline. “That can’t be done, Rake Hilyard.”
“Sure can. Come September.”
Dickerson pumped reticent Rake for every detail Kennedy had given him. And Rake was no different from any other man. He had won a victory and he would gloat.
When he had learned what he wanted, Dickerson gloated back. “What’ll happen when the world finds out that Cape Cod’s most famous rumrunner is giving old man Kennedy’s kid advice on this bill?”
“No threats, Dicker.”
“Half the country thinks that mick bastard’s fortune came from booze, and here you are, helpin’ his son to steal some of the most beautiful real estate in America. A thief to a thief.”
“Old man Kennedy and rumrunnin’—that story’s nothin’ but chum. And it
don’t
draw fish.”
“It could hurt the seashore plan
and
those presidential fantasies everybody talks about.” Dickerson was toying now, a dangerous thing to do with Rake Hilyard. But if an idle threat could make him quit the fight, fine. It would serve him right for the trouble he’d caused. “So long, Rake.”
“Don’t try to use rumrunnin’ against me, you son of a bitch,” Rake’s voice came rolling across the flats, “because there’s people who think the Bigelows burned a hotel to destroy one of the most valuable books in history. I can spread
that
around.”
Dickerson stopped in his footprints and turned. He knew nothing about this. And Rake just looked small and ridiculous, his pants rolled up to his knees. “You’re standin’ on the flats, Rake, but you’re off the deep end. See ya.”
Dickerson no longer cared about the seashore fight. Kennedy had made the end inevitable. His job was to use his new information to improve his position before Kennedy introduced his bill. But he still had to keep up appearances. And he always appeared to Rake Hilyard as a son of a bitch.
vii.
“Back to you, David, in Washington.”
“Thank you, Chet. President Kennedy today signed into law the Cape Cod National Seashore Bill, which puts much of the outer arm of Cape Cod under federal protection….”
John M. Nance sat in his Boston apartment, watched the Huntley-Brinkley Report for August 8, 1961, and seethed. He had seethed many times over the land he had sold, at distressed prices, to Dickerson Bigelow. They had played poker, and Nance had lost.
But until now, he had never known if he had been outsmarted, outguessed, or beaten by an insider who knew that the government would allow landowners to keep as much land as they did.
Now, as Kennedy signed the bill and handed out souvenir pens, Nance saw a face he remembered among the grinning congressional leaders. He almost didn’t recognize him in necktie and ill-fitting shirt. It was his father’s old friend and his new enemy, Rake Hilyard.
Nance had vowed that he would make Dickerson Bigelow pay. His accomplice Hilyard would pay as well. Someday.
But first, there were other matters: the blonde he was meeting for supper, the new idea he had been discussing with a few investors—something called a shopping mall. And then there was his long-range project: developing the town of Mashpee. What money he had made from his Lower Cape lands he had invested in the old Indian town, where the federal government had had no interest, where nobody had much money, where they had nothing but some of the prettiest ponds and pine woods around.
He was not finished yet with Cape Cod.
July 16
“Nance could have people there right now.” Geoff leaned on the throttle of Rake Hilyard’s Boston Whaler and pointed toward Eastham. “I wish I borrowed Arnie Burr’s bow and arrow.”
Taking the boat had been the right idea. And with the tide rising, they would have plenty of time to get in and get out. In fifteen minutes, they were anchored innocently among several moorings on the Eastham flats.
Geoff filled a bucket with mortar mixture, threw the tools in after it, and they slipped into the knee-deep water like three commandos.
George said they couldn’t be far from where the Pilgrims anchored their shallop before the First Encounter.
“And started all the trouble,” added Jimmy.
Geoff said, “Forget the history lesson. Let’s just get across the beach…” and up through the parking lot, across the yards, around the great sleeping bulldozer, to the back door of the Billingsgate house.
“Nobody home,” whispered Jimmy.
“Lights out,” said George.
Geoff looked into the street. Nobody out front. Then he opened the screen door, which squeaked like a tire on wet pavement. All three froze, waited, heard nothing, went inside.
Geoff scuttled through the kitchen. At the living room door he paused, listened, heard a gentle brushing sound.
“What’s that?” asked George.
“Roaches.”
“Roaches… I can’t stand roaches.”
Geoff went straight to the chimney. He fitted the chisel against the smooth mortar, raised the hammer. No thoughts about what might be in there… how it might change his life… how it already had. Just
clink, clink
. The mortar flew into little pebbles.
“One more hit,” said Jimmy.
Clink!
The brick came loose. Geoff told Jimmy, “Shine the flashlight. There should be a second course of brick behind this. If there isn’t—”
The shaft of light struck something dark, metallic.
“There isn’t,” gasped George.
“Hit the brick above,” said Jimmy.
No thoughts. No connections. Just
do it
. The mortar flew and three bricks came out.
The beam of light played over the outline of a box, fitted like two bricks into the chimney.
It was there, right in front of him. But don’t think about it now. Don’t think about the ways it’s changed your life. Not now. Just one more sharp whack. Two bricks fell. He scratched his knuckles on the jagged edges of mortar. He slipped his hands around the corners of the box.
“Iron.” That was all he could say when he finally held it in his hands. “Iron, sealed over with wax. You were right, George. The metal detector would have found it.”
George grabbed the flashlight and played it over the box until he found the stamp. “T.W.”
“Thomas Winslow?” asked Jimmy.
“
Edward
Winslow was the name,” said George. “But Thomas… T.W., T.W., uh… iron box… T.W., ironmonger… Thomas… Thomas Weston!”
“Who?” said Geoff.
“Never mind. This has to be it! The Holy Grail.”
“Okay, okay.” Geoff tried to focus on the task at hand. If there was energy emanating from that box, he couldn’t let himself feel it, not until they were safe. “We all know what to do.”
He grabbed the hammer and chipped the old mortar from the bricks. George took a whisk broom from his pocket and swept the chips from the floor. Jimmy went into the kitchen and mixed the new mortar with water.
It was quick and clean. Geoff mortared the seven bricks back into the fireplace, smeared a little dirt into the joints, and hoped it would suffice until the house came down. Considering how the rest of the place looked, it was a good bet that no one would notice the patch.
And the headlights that lanced through the windows as Geoff finished were a good bet for trouble. The guys didn’t wait. They were out the back door and halfway to the beach before the car engine turned off.
They did not see the flashlight beam come on inside the cottage, hear the sneakers squeak across the bare wooden floor, or see Carolyn Hallissey’s hand touch the wet mortar.
But as they waded back through the rising tide, they heard a sneeze.
The water was now up to their armpits, but warm and cloying, like bathwater. Geoff held the box high over his head and peered into the darkness. He could make out the shadow of a big cabin cruiser about a hundred yards away. And someone sneezed again.
“Sounds like a fish with a cold,” said George.
“Or a fisher
man
,” said Geoff.
“Fisherman or fish, hurry up,” said Jimmy, “before somethin’ swims by and bites off our nuts.”
When Geoff started the engine, a beam of light came to life on the cabin cruiser and began to sweep across the water like a snake slithering along a path.
“Hit it!” Jimmy cried.
Geoff leaned on the throttle and the engine jolted. George nearly fell over the stern. Jimmy gripped the box, stumbled, and braced a leg against the transom.
The powerful Merc lifted the boat like a hydrofoil, so that only the three keels were touching the water, and they took off across the waves.
But the beam of light took off right after them.
“Big boat!” Jimmy cried over the roar of the engine.
“Can we outrun ’em?” shouted George.
“We’ll try,” said Geoff.
But before long the beam of light began to grow like the bulge in a feeding snake. And it was feeding on
them
.