There was a new hardness at the cheekbones, and the lines were leathering in around her eyes and mouth. But she still had great legs and one of those forthright Yankee faces—a little long in the jaw, a little pinched around the nostrils, never ravishing, but handsome when simple beauty faded. Too bad she was so damn stubborn.

He took her arm, and they walked in silence for a time, following the flashlight beams that danced ahead like fireflies. Then Janice said, “I think you should do it.”

In the distance, someone set off a machine-gun string of firecrackers.

“Sell out my uncle?”

“Talk to him. Tell him the world won’t stop because an old man wants to keep things the way they were in 1928.”

“You’re sounding heartless.”

“You’re thinking the same way.”

He slipped his arm from hers and hurried to the crest of the hill, where dozens of happy, half-lit people were singing the ooh-and-ah chorus to the bass thump of distant fireworks.

Around the rim of the bay, the oldest towns in America were celebrating its birth. To the west, above Plymouth, fireworks blossomed and faded like flowers on a distant mountain. To the south, where the land dipped below the horizon, nothing could be seen but white flashes. To the north, over Provincetown, you could almost touch the colors dancing against the blackness.

Janice whispered, “Even the Pilgrims knew you had to move one idea aside to make room for the next.”

CHAPTER 4

December 1620

The First Encounter, The First Mysteries

December 1, 1620. Clear, calm, cold beyond freezing. It is said that in the planning of this migration, some argued for the Guianas, but fearing the tropics unhealthful and the Spaniards too close by, they chose America. Of the Spaniards I have heard no good, but no place could be less healthful than this.
Three days past, we sailed to the place called Cornhill, so named because the first explorers from the ship found there buried, amongst Indian graves and abandoned dwellings, a store of corn, some of which they did bring back. Wishing to find the Indians and barter for the rest, but mindful of the wrath they may have incurred in first taking of it, the elders wanted many arms on a second exploration, so I offered the crew.
We shipped in longboat and shallop on November 28, but were much hindered by crosswinds and rough seas and put in after only four miles. All waded ashore, some to their knees, some to their waist in the cold water. And the salt wind that stung our ears turned wet seams and stitches to ice on our legs.
We slept that night in soggy clothes on the beach, and by suncoming, our blankets were covered over with snow. Though all suffered the cold and gripin’ bellies, we explored a shallow harbor and two tide-cut rivers, then went up Cornhill, tallest bluff on the bay, covered over with stunted pines, brambles, sassafras, and hardwoods in the protected places. Ezra Bigelow charged his brother Simeon and others to dig into a certain sand hill where the corn was hid, but Simeon hesitated, as it might be a grave that they defiled.
Jack Hilyard said digging was the only way to know if it was Indian corn or Indian bodies in the mound. Simeon, who seems a gentle and honest man, answered that they had come firstly to make amends with the savages. Ezra answered that they had come firstly to guarantee a store of corn and could not make amends with them who would hide from them and do them harm if they could.
Bradford told Simeon to quiet himself, as they would do business with the Indians at the first moment.
Then a rush basket of corn appeared, and Bradford led a prayer of thanksgiving.
In whatever they do, they believe God watches over them. ’Tis a fine confidence, especially when they take what is not theirs.
I returned to the Mayflower with the corn, ten bushels in all, and those men too sickly and tired to keep on. The rest of the party—Bradford, Carver, Hopkins, Hilyard, the Bigelows, et al.—returned this forenoon, bringing with them wooden bowls, spoons, rush mats, and other trinkets taken out of empty Indian dwellings.
And Ezra Bigelow spoke of something that struck me as mysterious. North of Cornhill, in a mound near two abandoned dwellings, they found a bow, arrows, cups, bowls, a strange sort of crown, and two bundles.
They ope’d the larger of those and found bones and skull, how long buried could not be told. Some unconsumed flesh remained, and hanks of hair, which was yellow. In the smaller bundle were the bones of a boy, buried also with a bow and beads around his wrists and ankles. Indian king and son? But Indians have black hair. French fishermen? The canvas shirt and breeches on the larger skeleton are sailor’s garb. But why buried with such honor? None could say.
After telling his tale, Ezra Bigelow was strangely disconsolate and sought out another disconsolate one, Dorothy Bradford, who has remained at the rail, gazing fearfully at the wilderness, all the weeks we have been here.
In truth, they should all be disconsolate that went out. ’Tis no season to explore, but they must continue. ’Tis no season to build shelters, but it must be done. ’Tis time for me to be sailing, but I must stay.

ii.

Some Nausets tipped their arrows with eagle claws or the tails of horseshoe crabs. Others used pieces of brass traded from white men.