That night, Billington was committed to the fort. John shared William the younger’s bed, and William, sweet boy, offered his blanket, eager as he was to have an older brother.
In haste, my husband wrote to John Winthrop, the new Massachusetts Bay Colony governor, seeking his advice. But he was not seeking his advice, exactly, as much as he was confirming his good favor with the King by including the King’s favorite into his decision. What, he asked Winthrop, would be a firm discipline but not lose him favor with the colonists? He wanted to send the message that Plymouth was not a colony to come to if you were a criminal.
And how to do this without news getting to London and rumors spreading that Plymouth was unsafe? William would have liked—we all would have then—to see Billington dead. He also told Governor Winthrop that the outlawed Morton had arrived on the Gifte.
I trust you’ll know what to do with him, William wrote.
Our house was full. Quietly, my husband complained that the food we needed to feed all the newcomers would cause our own daily supply to be cut in half. There was also Thomas Morton to reckon with. William asked the price Morton had paid for the passage, and what portion of the fee the colony would receive. Weston said the accountant applied it to our debt, but he would have to check with him upon return to London. My husband was distraught by this, at the costs of it all, and the timing of Billington’s murder.
But now, at least, we will be done with him, I said.
I lit a candle to do a bit more needlework—my hands needed to be kept busy—and William looked at me askance.
That did not stop the wick from burning so he said, Good Wife, why must you cost us so?
I put out the candle and reached for him. I wanted to press together all that I had and all that I loved and all, I knew, I would one day lose.
He touched me, betwixt my legs, and looked at me with fondness. His intention was not, as I had thought, to chastise me. A look from him that only I knew. And Dorothy. The cool air and our warm bodies.
This was not the time for God’s earthly blessing—the room was too full this evening—but I thought of other days. Always at the brink I held my breath.
Once he was nearly there, he would give a small gasp—a favorite sound—but also, too, from there he was no longer mine. His body would urge him onward, his muscles would tense, his flat palm would seem as if it could push through the wall. I would squeeze him closer into me. It was always him I was after.
I put my finger to my body, discreetly, and circled there. Him hard and deep inside me, his stubble rough against my chin, him bent down in prayer to my body, no sweat, not him, rarely sweat, and in that wave and crest I felt the ocean rise and then slowly, slowly creep away.
In the morning, the men buried John Newcomen in the soft dirt atop Burial Hill. No one knew him enough to speak of him, but we said we hoped it pleased God to bid him rest.
We’ll have a trial, my husband said that afternoon. My husband and Susanna’s husband culled the names of the twelve most honest men in the colony to serve as jurors.
John Billington stayed a week beneath the meetinghouse.
On the morning of the trial, I woke to the sound of wolves howling at the edges of the colony. I’d seen a pack kill one of its own once. At sunset, in the clearing, I had gone to the brook. The rushing water disguised all sounds around it. When my pitchers were full I started back home. I saw it. A wolf lying on the ground, still lifting its head to bite back, its body in bloody tufts, some innards beginning their decline outward through a lesion in the stomach. Three wolves around it, barking, baring teeth, biting and tearing. The weakest killed: That was nature. Divine providence was everywhere present.
My husband and I held hands to the meetinghouse. Little William ran up alongside us, said, Three hands, and broke the chain betwixt us. I turned for John, sensing his eyes on my back, and urged him to join us. John gave the smile of one unaccustomed to such inclusion, then shook his head no, as if to remind me he was no longer a boy, and too old for such shows of affection. We outgrow it, don’t we, the expression of that fierce edge that is always a part of love?