By the Light of a Gibbous Moon Read online

  By the Light of a Gibbous Moon

  by Scott Jäeger

  Copyright 2009 Scott Jäeger

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please do not re-sell or publish this book online. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Iä! Iä!

  The Lighthouse Keeper’s Log

  Interview with a Lunatic

  An Excess of Radium

  Professor Lombardy’s Journal

  Found On a Tombstone

  The Curious Manuxet Medicine Man

  NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

  Report to Chief Magistrate Ledwidge

  Clockwork

  Heartbeat

  About the Author

  The Lighthouse Keeper’s Log

  Excerpts from the Log for Innispoint Lighthouse, 1761/62

  On the Occasion of the Wreck of the Genevieve

  17 April, 1761

  It was near Midnight when my boy, standing first Watch, woke me to say a Ship was in distress off our Coast. A ferocious Wind had blown up in the Night as I had foreseen, and the rain was lashing down & the waves running un-Godly high.

  I told Michael to get our weather gear ready whilst I check’d the Lamp. At the first lull in the Wind I heard the ring of the ship’s fo’castle Bell and the shouts of her Crew. From the nearness of the sounds I judged her to be driven on the Rocks any moment. I gather’d up some musty blankits and filled our biggest cauldron to boil.

  Returning to my Lookout for another view of our Friends, what did I see but another Light some ways down the coast, and blinking in exackly opposite time to our own! This was not much of a Surprise to an old salt like mesel. Ever since the white man has plied his Trade in these Waters, there have been Villinous beggars who will try to lure ships upon the rocks to salvage whatever Loot they may find afterwards. A bigger Mystary is how some Ruffians had set up a Light as strong as our own and Timed it perfeckly to match us. And this in the middle of such a Storm as I hadn’t witnessed in Twenty Year.

  I shouted to the boy to grab my Musket, which I all-ways kept primed and close to hand for such dire Events. He came back right smart, and with a boathook for himsel beside. Good lad!

  ‘Twas then the crash came, like a Thunderbolt striking about our heads, follow’d by a long and Terrible grinding. There was no mistaking her Fate now.

  Without the lighthouse we did our best against the Gale, my bulls-eye lanthorn fighting the darkness ahead. After some minutes heading South, we came upon a Desperate Sight indeed: bodies washed up hither and yon, an even dozen by my count, all mixt with wreckage and ruin. I settled our Lanthorn in the sand and moved to grab a pair of ankles and drag their owner to dry Ground. Whither he was Alive or Dead I would sort out later.

  Then it was I spotted our Enemy, two of them and big fellows, loping away down the shore, their Light no longer to be seen. As far as I could Judge, they made for a nearby Sea-cave, already flooding with the rising Tide. One carried some sort of strongbox recovered from the wrack all about, and t’other a Sailor limp in his arms. Why he wanted a waterlog’d sailor, as like Dead as not, I do not know, but as I raised my Musket, he was the one I Aimed for.

  I waited the Lamp’s sweep to light him plain for I’d only have time for the one Shot. Then I let loose. It was a coin toss whether the Ancient Meckanism would fire or blow up in my Hand. Fire it did though, and True, for the Wretch stumbled, and fell to one knee. But then he rose up again and lurched on with his companion, without so much as dropping his burthen! Both waded into that unlighted crevice in the earth. Yon Cave must have some hidey-hole within, which these Scoundrels know better than I.

  I barely had time to draw Breath before the boy was hot after them, a-waving his boathook in the Air, heedless that his quarry could take a half-inch lead ball in its back and barely lose a step.

  I shouted the boy back but the Storm grab’d up the words and hurled them in my Face laughing. I stumbled fighting a huge Gust of Wind, and crack’d my head on a rock what God had put in that place at the Dawn of Creation for just such a Purpose. I swear I only Swooned a moment but when I look’t up the boy had vanish’d into the Cave. My lanthorn was lost in the Dark and the Waters in that evil Grotto were already chest-high and rising. ‘Twas no use to follow.

  Swallowing my heart I made all Haste back down the beach to see what could be done for any Survivors. I found the Beach empty of men or their Corpses. If I hadn’t my long experience of the Sea -or a lick of Sense- perhaps I’d have thought a Monstrus Wave had claimed them back to Ocean’s cold bosom. But if that were so, why was the scattered Ruin of the ship just where I left it?

  18 April, 1761 –

  After yestereve’s confused Debacle, I set mesel down outside that Cave and Waited, with only my musket for Company. I dared not but Hope that there was some Refuge in the Darkness where the boy might escape the rising Sea.

  When the waters did at last Recede, my Prayers were answered! The boy struggled out, still clutching that blasted boathook. I thanked God and wept then, I am not Ashamed to say it. He was batter’d, cut and bruis’d, but whither it were the work of our Enemies or just the Sea hersel I do not know. The boy’s eyes were Empty and seeming Sightless at first, and him so weak I needs must carry him up our treacherous stair to the kitchen. There I will watch o’er him until he is full well again, warrant it.

  Now that my Hands have stop’t their shaking, there is one thing more I must add which is absent from last night’s Acct.

  Just afore I Fired, when the cone of Light shone upon the Villins as they loped up the beach, I saw that my target was Naked and of a great Bulk, greater than any stevedore or seaman I had ever seen. His Skin also shone as if scaled and was of an un-natural hue. He was shaped like a man, aye, but Twisted somehow, like some horrible Creature of the Depths that had learnt to walk on land. I question’d my senses after the Maelstrom and hectic Activity of last Night, but after To-day’s long Vigil, I grow only more certain of what I saw.

  27 May, 1761

  The boy’s tongue is stop’t ever since the Aweful night of the Wreck. I bethought his Voice would return with a little Time, but now I Despair of’t. What’s more, his hair is growing White at the root, as pure white as a man of six-ty. I am sore glad now he was brung to me an Orphan. For how should I return a boy to his father in such a State?

  12 June, 1761

  The boy is of no use to me Any More. He will take an Order if told severally, but he is Spiritless and slow of Wit. Most times he stands at the shore without our Lighthouse and Stares at the waves, silent all-ways.

  17 April, 1762

  I did not realize until dipping my quill early this Morning that it was one year To-day since that Accursed Night when the Genevieve founder’d on our Shore. I bethought the boy yet lay a-bed as he does now Every Day until roused, but when the porridge was hot I found his cot Empty. I rush’d then to the rail without the Lamp and looked to that spot where ever he was wont to stand. Nothing. Turning my eyes to the Sea I spied for a moment, some yards out where I gues’d the water about five feet deep, the barest white spot amongst the waves, as of a tiny white head.

  The boy is gone now and will not return.

  30 June, 1762

  This will be my last entry. Called a Disgrace and a Wastrel, I have been discharged from my Dutie. Not so many months agone, I would have been disgusted at this turn of Events. Now I wish only to be away from this horrid Place. The last thing of mine I have kept is the Truth, and I give it now entire to my Successor to believe or not as he Wisht. God willing, I am rid of it for Ever.

  When the boy walked off into the Sea –to Drown, I most fervently Hope– I espied another Figure, some yards farther
out and standing head and shoulder above the Water, a greenish-blue shape, man-like, but no man under God’s eyes. All in a Panick, I grab’d up my musket and Fired, although it was Useless at such a Distance. Then rushed I straight down our treacherous stair. At the Beach head I stared out, just as Michael had done many and many a time, but saw nothing but the Cruel and Senseless Waves.

  House of Yig

  I, Father John Marylebone, have promised to record the statement of the Pocumtuck Indian called ‘Blind Crow’ exactly as spoken. This particular Pocumtuck is a fine reader of the English language, and has some letters as well, but he insists that his tale be recorded by a more learned man. He has done much work with the Church as we help the Pocumtuck people come into the Light of Christ, so I am happy to oblige.

  Firstly I must set down, at my subject’s grave insistence, that he is not called ‘Blind Crow’ because he is old and sightless. It is an affectionate jibe chosen for him because of his clumsiness with tools and, I speculate, also because of his croaking laugh. It is a laugh unheard in Deerfield Township for many a long month now.

  ****

  I am Blind Crow, of the Pocumtuck people. I swear before Our Lord Jesus Christ that everything I speak here is an account of what I have seen and done, and is in all particulars the truth.

  In the late days of the past Autumn, I and two friends from my village made west to hunt. Their names are Tall Pine and Ahanu. We were headed for the Bent River Valley, hoping to find muskrat or hare, deer if we were lucky. The Good Fathers would prefer we give up hunting for mating animals, but I loved hunting and still engaged in from time to time.

  Deerfield has seen so many White Men these seasons past that the game all around has been hunted out. Even two days travel from the Township there was no game, small, big, or of any other size. The life of the forest had vanished and the conditions for hunting were getting worse, not better, as we followed the darkening sun. Even the birdsong had died off, something I had never witnessed in that season. The bit of salt pork we had brought with us was gone and my companions pushed me to turn back, but I told them I was too hungry to go back. In truth I was proud. The Good Fathers had warned me of Pride many a time, but I was a fool. I insisted we carry on a day more, even though I sensed we were already treading land claimed by the Manuxet.

  The Manuxet, the Reader will know, are the Pocumtuck’s worst enemy, and as far as I know the worst enemy of all Indian peoples. The Manuxet have not one medicine man, but are all medicine men. My Christian Brothers say some of the old Indian ways are wicked and heathen, but the Manuxet’s ways are unholy. Their shadows are said to be cursed, and wither the plants wherever they tread. It is known from men who have dared to raid their camps that they eat the flesh of their enemies. This is a sin not only to Christians. It is whispered that a man captured by the Manuxet does not only face torture and death, but will rise up and walk again when the first full moon shines on his resting place. From then on he will turn his face from the sun, and serve a new master not of this land or earth.

  Only hours after I insisted we continue into their territory, our enemies found us. They had surrounded us in perfect silence, then made a great shouting and racket near at hand, perhaps to confuse us. Tall Pine, his rifle out and cocked, fired at once, no doubt thinking some fierce animal was upon him. The grey-faced brave who leapt from the bush was hit dead center and knocked back two yards. When he came at once to his feet again, I thought that he must somehow have avoided the bullet’s path. Then I saw the hole in his breastbone, big enough for two fingers, and that as he yelled his war-chant black blood sprayed from his lips. Bad medicine. Ahanu drew his knife and fought to his death. I later thought this a very wise decision. At the time, Tall Pine and I stood and gaped like gutted fish at the holed man dancing about us, and were captured.

  Stripped of our weapons and gear, and our hands bound with leather thongs, we were marched several leagues further west, to a small settlement at the foot of a hill, not a proper village but a rough camp where dozens of slaves were already at work. Many different tribes were represented: Narragansett, Tunxis, Wappinger, but no other Pocumtuck. No more than a half-dozen men from any one tribe was used. This was deliberate, I think.

  It appeared our fate would not be death, but hard labour, and the Manuxet surely worked us as hard as any devil of Hell works the Damned. We were to dig. And dig. And dig. For this work we had shiny tools –White Man’s tools looking very new and expensive– and as much food and water as we desired. This food was a foul-smelling but invigorating stew, always thick with roots and meat, and tended constantly in an iron cauldron by a hideously scarred warrior. Our one other luxury was a few hours of sleep on the bare ground around noonday. Our captors hated this part of the day, and it seemed to be the only time they were not on their feet. They sat and brooded on the work which was not being done. Them, I never saw sleep. No mention was made of the reason for digging. The work was slow going, for the ground was rocky and sewn with the roots of many trees, which had been pulled up prior to my arrival. The goal did not appear to be a ditch or trench, or a cellar, for whenever I reached a certain depth, I was nudged to start digging in some unexplored spot, or to deepen a hole already started elsewhere.

  All my fellows were terrified of failing the Manuxet, but after not many days of digging, I saw a man collapse from exhaustion. He was dragged from sight and did not return, the fate of any who could not dig. Our masters moved ceaselessly about the ragged holes like drunken bedbugs. They talked loudly with each other and constantly declaimed in words I did not understand. I had not thought the Manuxet language much different from my own, but the sounds of their words I could not myself produce at all.

  Speaking amongst ourselves was forbidden, but one day, seeing our guards distracted with their inexplicable discussion, I wiped away the sweat pouring from the top of my head like a bitter spring and suggested to a fellow of the Mohican nation that perhaps we would find Hell itself at the bottom of these pits. He indicated to me that we were being made to dig in a widening circle, and said our captors were searching for some kind of underground house, but did not know its exact location. Even from a white man, I would have considered this crazy. Keeping one eye on our guards, I questioned him about this house.

  He told me we were digging for something called Yig. It is an ugly word, as all things of the Manuxet are ugly, and when I tried to speak it, it squirmed on my tongue as if I had bitten into maggoty meat. Although my companion’s eyes were wild, I nodded and accepted his words, for all that they made no sense.

  The nights grew colder and the moon’s face, which had been hidden from us, began to grow anew. Time passed, and over the days and nights of our capture, Tall Pine grew weak. He had got a fever some days after our arrival, brought on by too much night air I thought. I leaned for a moment on my shovel, pretending to study a stone that was in the way of my work, and he spoke these words to me, in a voice I did not think his at all:

  It is true, what the slaves have said: we go to Yig. I see His eyes. I feel His breath. We will serve in His house underground all the days of the earth.

  Having spoken these awful words, Tall Pine’s body buckled like a mature stalk of wheat cut down by the scythe, and he fell dead. All but knocking me aside, two warriors leapt up to tend him, as if they had waited all night for that moment. Paying me no mind, one of them slipped some tiny bundle from out his belt and into Tall Pine’s mouth. He was most certain to push it into Tall Pine’s throat where it would not come loose, and I knew somehow that this was a sacrilege to my friend’s body.

  I had had enough by that time of digging, and swung my shovel at the nearest of the braves. The force of my anger was such that the top of his skull came free and took flight like some bloody bird across the open pits. This man did not rise. Then I went after his partner and the others. So crushed with despair had I been, I had not noticed how careless our guards were about their weapons, which lay discarded here and there. Against my fury they could
not stand at all and I vowed to fight until I, or their entire tribe, were dead!

  That is what the Blind Crow in my head did then, what Blind Crow dreamed. I woke from this dream to see that I had returned to my labour, and that what had been Tall Pine was gone. Had the Manuxet taken my soul already? I wondered. I told myself my soul was consecrated to Christ, but found little solace in this. Then I brooded blackly through many unchanging days and spoke to no one. When I lifted my head to study my surroundings once more, perhaps to decide at last to lay down and die, I saw that only a few workers remained. Those who had been worked into collapse or sickness or death were not replaced. The work area had grown and the holes were many, some as deep as a man, some as deep as three. There was only one silent brave watching four toiling men now, but such an awful weight sat on my shoulders that thought of escape did not enter the whistling chamber of my empty skull. Another, less welcome observation, however, did take seed: the moon began to peek over the horizon, and I noted how great and fat it was, that indeed this night it was at its fullest.

  I shivered as I worked, feeling her stare, as if she looked upon me not with pity or care, as I thought she should, but with grinning malice. The moon rose, and other figures joined me in her harsh glare. Still I worked. Even without looking up from my labour, I could not help but note that my new companions worked harder and faster than any man, slave or free, ever did. The field of holes would soon be one massive opening in the earth. I swallowed my screams and worked, in some chamber of my brain wishing my heart would rupture with the strain and Blind Crow drop stone dead. My shovel flashed and flew as I tried to match the pace of the thing digging beside me, until a chip of stone from that demon’s shovel cut my cheek and I looked up into Tall Pine’s dead dead eyes.

  The world went from me then, and I descended into a blackness of which I remember nothing but an endless yearning to forsake this earth for the world of my ancestors. What followed I have since assembled from several dim fragments of waking. Everything I witnessed was at night, but I do not know if it was one night or several that I was bound to the tree trunk. It was the nearest sturdy tree to the dig site, and the Manuxet had tied me in such a way that any time I woke I must at once witness everything taking place. Truly there is no limit to their cruelty.