Newcomen was not pleased with his interaction with John Billington.
He went to Standish’s post. Standish’s servant was sitting on an overturned bucket, whittling, and did not look up when Newcomen spoke.
Left for Duxbury. He’s got land there.
John looked up at a blood-splattered sheet flying above them both.
The servant shrugged. Looking for a quieter way of life, he said.
Newcomen thanked him and started over to the meetinghouse, to see what the women had cooked. He did not want to ask for much, but he needed sustenance to help him through the rest of the day.
Newcomen had been looking for quiet, too, but Captain Standish had put him next to what he suspected was the town’s most difficult man. Newcomen tried not to muse too long on this, though, for he could easily linger on how men with power always took more for themselves, how men who have had nothing hoard what they have and take what is not theirs, how the world is a terrible place he was trying not to avoid. How this follows him everywhere, even to a town striving to be in God’s favor.
John Newcomen saw Captain Standish approach the meetinghouse on a black horse. So he had not gone to Duxbury. Standish got down and tied her up to a post. Newcomen knew to take this moment to speak with Captain Standish alone before the passengers on the boat out at sea, arriving within hours, would occupy his time by inquiring about their land.
The acreage, Newcomen said, abutting the Billingtons?
Yes. Standish took off his black gloves, exposing his long, pale fingers. Fingers too pristine for the type of work building a colony required.
Where doth it begin?
At the oak, as I showed you.
Perhaps another plot is available?
I’m afraid not, Standish said.
Why had he, John Newcomen, been so vain as to want for more than England?
For Eugenia. For his mother. For himself.
John thanked Standish for the kindness he had not shown him, lowered his head, and stepped into the meetinghouse.