Caleb's Crossing

by Geraldine Brooks

Below me, Wampanoag were dancing in a wide circle, shaking corn-filled gourds and beating rhythmically on small skin drums. My first thought was to drop my burden of wood and run back to the beach, to warn the others that the Wampanoag were not on distant Nomin’s island, but nearby, and in numbers large enough to threaten us if they caught us red to the elbows with the blood of a whale that was rightfully their own. But then a voice rose, high and fierce, in notes that I had not known a human throat could produce. The sounds went through to the very core of me. I could not turn away. Indeed, I felt drawn towards the maker of those sounds. I told myself that I needed to give an exact count of the band, and the number of them who might be armed. I left the path, which led down into the clearing and would have put me in plain sight, and pushed my way through the dense heath plants that gave me cover should anyone look upward. Soon, I was close enough to understand some few words of the song. The pawaaw was calling upon his gods, praising, thanking, beseeching. The drums beat in tempo to the rhythm of my heart, which seemed to be swelling at the sound. I felt my soul hum and vibrate in sympathy with his prayers. There was power here; spiritual power. It moved me in some profound way. I had striven for this feeling, week following week, as the dutiful minister’s daughter at Lord’s Day meeting. But our austere worship had never stirred my soul as did this heathen’s song. Thou sh...