The Last Days of Dogtown Read online

  Ruth kept her eyes on the tiny woman’s back as they walked inside, past the couple dimly visible in a corner of the parlor, and up a flight of stairs to a long attic room that was too low for Ruth to stand up in. Sunlight filtered through spaces between the timbers and mouse droppings littered the floor. Still, it was as big as the whole house, and it smelled of pine.

  Easter went back downstairs to her guests, leaving Ruth to shake her head. She felt as if she’d walked into one of the legends that Mimba used to tell by the fire, though in those stories characters like Easter always turned out to be flesh-eating witches, and Ruth was certain that Easter was harmless.

  Within a week, Ruth had scrubbed the floor of her aerie with sand. She mixed ground clamshells with clay to caulk the ceiling and stuffed her sack with sweet straw for a pillow. Easter crept up the steps when Ruth went out, curious to see what all the hauling and scuffling overhead

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  had been about, and found that the African had hung bunches of sedge and wild peppermint to dry from the rafters. She’d woven a floor mat from river reeds.

  “Right cozy,” she told Judy, who wondered if her friend hadn’t acted hastily in inviting such a peculiar stranger to live in her house.

  Easter did not notice the white, oval-shaped stones in the four corners of her attic, set out to protect the house against evil spirits. Ruth polished and repositioned them from season to season, and she checked them whenever there was a bad luck sign, like an owl calling during daylight or a night when a full moon was swallowed by its dark twin. On the day she saw the sea serpent breach and dive into the dark waters of the harbor, she moved the stones as close to the walls as they’d go without touching.

  Ruth had never seen a worse or clearer omen of coming evil, and it had rattled her bad enough that she’d gone and flapped her gums, like a foolish old woman, in front of Easter and Judy Rhines. She wondered if Judy would pass her words around; no doubt she’d make something of the way that Ruth, silent as a post most of the day, had rattled on.

  Easter’s good opinion of Judy counted for something in Ruth’s eyes, but she knew how much the woman liked to chew over the workings of other people’s hearts. From her pallet, she’d heard Judy tease apart the motives and morals of everyone who crossed her path; not maliciously, but with an avid attention that Ruth found unsettling.

  She lay back and listened to Judy tell about all the young boys camped on the beaches to catch a glimpse of the sea monster, and how some of the preachers were using it as an

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  example of the devil’s power. Finally they turned to other topics, laughing about a crop of new babies born to the residents around Sandy Bay on the northeastern limits of Cape Ann. Exactly nine months before, the area had been pounded by a three-day storm that kept fishermen ashore and farmers indoors. Ruth knew those hamlets well, having recently built a large paddock there for Tom Fletcher, who had decided he’d try breeding horses for the rich men of Cape Ann. He’d given up on farming, he said. There was no money to be made from a small place like his anymore.

  Fletcher was the only white man who had ever shaken Ruth’s hand, and the first person on Cape Ann to hire her on as a stonemason. She’d spent her first years there walking from one farm to the next, offering to build or mend any kind of wall, for a pittance or even in trade for food. But no one would take her on to haul rocks, much less build. Money was scarce then, and when sugar and coffee are luxuries, people don’t pay for any work that can wait.

  Ruth was told no with shrugs, stares, and plain rudeness.

  She paid Easter for her lodgings with fish and berries, and laid a handsome path to the door, just for the practice.

  Fletcher had said yes only as a last resort. He’d hurt himself trying to get a fallen tree off the fence around his cornfield: With sheep in the next pasture, harvesting about to begin, the neighbors busy with their own farms, and a bad back, he hired Ruth at fifty cents a day to finish clearing the tree and mending the wall. It was robbery, but Ruth threw herself into the job with such energy and skill that

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  Fletcher was embarrassed at what he’d paid and promised to use her again.

  In fact, Ruth had been ashamed of the work she’d done for him, which seemed clumsy and awkward to her.

  Mending a wall is harder than building one, especially one piled up as a slag heap for the nuisance of rocks plowed up, year after year. And these refuse rocks had presented her with a new kind of trial, for Ruth had learned her craft on Rhode Island schist, a soft stone that broke into two-inch slabs and stacked up neat as slices of bread. Granite was much harder and crotchety, and she’d bruised her fingers and blackened her nails as she hurried to master it. After a few bad days, she slowed down, remembering to let the stone call the tune for the heavy dance of lifting and dropping.

  The night she finished Fletcher’s wall, Ruth dreamed about the crisp click of granite hitting granite, and she woke up longing to build something else. But there was nothing for many months, leaving her little to do but dig clams and pick rose hips for Easter, and mend whatever she could to keep the house from falling down.

  Ruth’s fortunes rose when the wife of the minister at Fourth Parish at Riverview sent word that she wished a pen for a newly plowed vegetable garden beside the parsonage.

  As soon as the enthusiastic Mrs. Pembrooke heard that the mysterious female stonemason called John Woodman had not stepped foot in a church since arriving in Cape Ann, she made it her mission to save the African’s immortal soul.

  Ruth, whose hands itched at the prospect of working on a project of her own, quickly agreed to the price offered by the pallid, gap-toothed woman.

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  As she walked the boundary of the garden, measuring it heel-to-toe, Ruth promised herself that she’d be more patient than she had been at Fletcher’s. She would consider every stone before lifting it; for as she’d been taught, only a child or a fool picked up the same rock twice.

  Ruth decided she would make a double wall, though it was hardly necessary to fashion anything so sturdy for the purpose. But she needed the challenge and liked the fact that it would take longer, as the days weighed heavily when she had no work.

  Even the drudgery of digging the foundation delighted her, and Mrs. Pembrooke thought she detected the hint of a smile as the African knelt to carve a trench and place the heavy, flat rocks belowground. Ruth set the ground stones an inch apart for drainage, with enough slag in between to make an even base.

  While she was on her knees, Ruth hit upon the idea of building from found stone only and decided she would touch neither the stone feathers nor her sharp stone points to cut and shape. She would use nothing but her hands and her eyes.

  No chocks or shims, either—those little bits and pieces that balance the bigger ones. Only stone on stone, two upon one, one upon two.

  Ruth held her breath as she placed the first stones aboveground, since each of those carried consequences.

  After that, the wall would tell her what was needed next. As the wall grew, it filled her mind with the particular shapes it called for. Her head was full of holes, she realized, and nearly laughed at the idea.

  She walked with downcast eyes, her head swiveling left

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  to right and back again, putting Mrs. Pembrooke in mind of a lighthouse as she watched Ruth arrive one morning, carrying what looked like a man’s skull under her arm.

  On fine days, the parson’s wife would spend several hours near Ru
th, reading aloud from the Bible. Her student tried to ignore the breathy babble, and whenever the lady returned to her house, Ruth gave silent thanks and tuned her ear to the sound of stone dropping into place, each granite kiss creating a permanent home, two upon one, one upon two.

  In her dreams, the stones all fell effortlessly, landing with a satisfied tock.

  When the wall was finished, Mrs. Pembrooke handed Ruth five dollars and placed a hand on her sleeve. “I trust I’ll see you at church,” she said. “Soon. As we discussed.”

  Ruth nodded, wondering what the pale little woman was talking about. Back in her room, she considered the prospect of the empty days ahead and felt a dark fogbank gather around her.

  As it turned out, Mrs. Pembrooke did become a source of salvation for Ruth, though not of the sort she’d intended.

  A distant cousin of hers, a wealthy matron in town, was charmed by the lovely wall and declared that she must have one just like it. She sent word through Easter that she wished to hire the mason for her Gloucester garden, one of the largest in town, and made no objection when Easter quoted a price four times higher than what the clergyman’s wife had paid.

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  Ruth finished that wall in half the time, though it was more than twice the length, using all her tools, chocks, and every stone that came easily to hand. It turned out to be a lovely piece of work, and its proud owner made all her guests admire the clever way that Ruth had set a rosy-hued stone near her pink rosebush, and how care was taken to set off the tansy with a showing of green-tinged granite. With such an endorsement, several of her friends decided that they required similarly cunning masonry in their gardens, and Ruth had work waiting for her, months ahead.

  The women liked having her in their gardens, not only for the quality of Ruth’s creations, but also for the mystery of her person. Africans had become almost as rare as pumpkin flowers in May, and it was a novelty having one so close at hand. A black woman in trousers, as strong as a man, was an oddity of the highest order.

  Children tried to imitate her odd accent, young girls wondered if she had any knowledge of the spirit world, and people with abolitionist leanings guessed at lurid hardships that must have attended her life to the south. A few of the braver ladies tried to engage her in conversation, but the African barely said “thank you” for the draughts of water and the occasional biscuit she was offered. Her face betrayed no gratitude or impatience, nor anything else for that matter, and eventually, people stopped trying to peek behind the stolid mask she presented to the world. Soon enough, Ruth was as unremarkable as any other servant, and she began to feel just as invisible as them.

  That changed on the day a roughly dressed young

  stranger stopped to watch her work. He stared for a good

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  half hour until the mistress of the house came out and asked him to state his business.

  “That nigger looks like a runaway I heard about in Virginia,” he drawled, loud enough for Ruth to hear.

  “This person is not a slave,” said Martha Cook.

  “I suppose you can prove that, Mistress?” he said, bold as a fox.

  Martha’s voice grew icy. “Sir, if you are calling me a liar in my own home, I shall thank you for your name and lodgings so that my husband, Judge Cook, can call upon you to settle the matter.”

  The blackguard removed his cap and backed off,

  sullenly begging her pardon even as he glared daggers at Ruth, watching his cash bounty slip away.

  Ruth kept her head down during this exchange, but after she’d finished Mrs. Cook’s wall, she accepted no more assignments in Gloucester and eked out a small living up-country, repairing pasture walls and building animal pounds.

  But when Martha Cook requested that she return to extend her wall a little, Ruth agreed. As much as she dreaded returning to town and the feeling of pale eyes on her skin, she could not deny the lady who had defended her against a bounty hunter. It was on the last day of that job that Ruth caught a glimpse of the sea serpent that had set all tongues to wagging.

  Back in Easter’s parlor, the debate raged: Was it real or not? A fish or a fish story? A harbinger of the end of days?

  Everyone who walked across Easter’s threshold announced an opinion, one way or another. Everyone, except for one particular fellow who came knocking early one morning, when no one else was about.

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  Most of Easter’s visitors were spirited boys and girls from town, or sailors wishing to flee the sight and smell of water before shipping out again. The summer usually fetched up a small assortment of eccentrics, too: Englishmen in search of the unsullied American wilderness, or awkward fellows from Boston and New York who made the trek carrying sketchpads, paint boxes, or leather-bound notebooks.

  But Easter had never had a guest like this one. He wore the drab, cassimere wool coat favored by traditional Quakers, though his white silk stockings were grimy from the road and the silver buckles on his shoes were coated with dust. Doffing a large flat-brimmed hat, he revealed a head of white curls stuck to a high damp forehead. “Pardon the intrusion, Mistress,” he said. “But may I trouble thee for a drink of water?”

  “No trouble, dearie,” Easter said, tickled to be addressed so biblically. She gestured for him to follow her inside, limping on her still-sore ankle. “Take a seat. I’m Easter Carter and this is my place. You’re welcome to a draught of ale if you’re of a mind.”

  “No, thank thee. Water will be ample blessing,” he said, blinking at the indoor dimness. He drained Easter’s cup and then mopped his face with a large handkerchief. “But perhaps thee could be kind enough to provide me with guidance. I am in search of the home of Abraham Wharf who was married to Anne Wharf?”

  Easter leaned forward. “You knew the Wharf family, did you?”

  He nodded. “The family did me a good turn long ago, and since I find myself nearby, I thought to stop and pay my respects.”

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  “Well, Abraham passed some three years back,”

  Easter said.

  “God’s will be done,” the visitor said, gravely. “And Mrs. Wharf?”

  “Twenty-three years dead.”

  “So young!” he cried.

  “A canker in her breast.”

  “A terrible thing,” he said. “Foolish of me to imagine that she might still be among the living.”

  “Abraham buried her behind the house,” Easter said.

  “Scandalized the minister who wanted to plant her in sanctified ground. But Abraham had to keep her close.”

  “His angel,” said the stranger.

  “That’s what Abraham called her, all right,” she nodded.

  “Even so, I should like to pay my respects, but I seem to have lost the way. Would thee be so good as to set me on the right path?”

  “I warn you that there ain’t much left to see up there,”

  said Easter. “But if you’re set on it, just follow the road the way you were headed till you get to a hard bend to the right, Mr.—” Easter paused. “You ain’t told me your name!”

  A momentary panic passed over his face. “It’s Mr.

  Henry,” he stammered and got to his feet. “Thee have been a gracious hostess, Mistress Carter.”

  “Nobody calls me anything but Easter, dearie. Stop by on your way back. I hope to have something stewing by then.”

  “Good day, Mistress Carter,” he said. “God bless thee.”

  Above stairs, Ruth lay on her bed. She had no work that day, which was just as well since her back ached all the way down both legs. She pocketed a long, narrow iron
chisel,

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  winced her way down the stairs, and was gone before Easter had a chance to call out to her.

  She hurried until she got the black coat in her sight, then kept a safe distance as the man made his way to the old Wharf place. Ruth watched him wander the tall grass until he found the hole that had been the cellar. He removed his hat before he stepped down, as though there were still a difference between inside and out. Turning slowly, he shook his head and frowned.

  After a few minutes of this, he stepped out of the hollow, replaced his hat, and began circling the overgrown boundaries of the house, thrashing at weeds and brambles with a stick until he found what he was looking for. He crouched and set to pulling the grass and saplings away from a thin slab of a headstone. He ran his fingers across a name still visible, clasped his hands, and bowed his head.

  Ruth bit at the inside of her cheeks as she watched the Quaker finish clearing the grave. He took a small packet from his breast pocket, laid it near the marker, and piled some stones on top of it. Then he stood, brushed himself off, and walked away.

  As soon as he was out of sight, Ruth sprang from her hiding place and ran to Anne Wharf’s grave. She tore the small cairn apart, tossing the stones aside like a digging dog, to reveal a square of brown paper, no more than three inches across. Unfolding it slowly and carefully, she found a twisted scrap of cloth, a lock of crisp, black hair, and a narrow silver band. Ruth stared at the three oddments for a long moment before replacing them in their paper, pocketing them, and rushing after the Quaker.

  He was nearly to the Commons Road, but instead of

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  heading back toward the harbor, he forged down an overgrown trail that was known only to locals. Ruth knew who she was following now, and where he was going.

  Brimfield’s pasture overlooked blue water on three sides, with views of ’Squam River, Goose Cove, and Mill River. But the Quaker did not stop to admire the sparkling scene. With his head down, as though he were leaning into a strong wind, he made straight for a large, flat boulder, where he finally stopped.