Cape Cod (88 page)

“Yep,” Perez went on, raising his voice over the booming wind, “just last week Johnny said he’d rather pull out now than deal with the gover’ment. Take a little profit just to be clear of any land he owns in the park areas.”

“Uh, Dad—”

Perez looked at Mary. “ ’Less you want my son to lose what he worked for since he left Harvard, you tell your friend Rake here to talk to that Senator Kennedy in Washington.”

“Kennedy’s stayin’ out of this,” answered Rake. “Doesn’t want to make Dicker Bigelow mad.”

“A wise position,” said Dickerson.

The bell chimed in the steeple of the First Church. Then the bells in the rest of the town joined. Then the foghorn lowed into the wind.

“Here she comes!” Dickerson puffed up and bellowed, “Everyone to the boats!”

But Nance gave Rake a last nasty look. “Your name shows up every time I read about this federal land grab. Don’t forget that the first people who came here in rags like I’m wearin’ didn’t want the king or the pope telling them what to do. Neither do the people who live here now.”

That
was a truth that Rake Hilyard had never disputed.

When the boats were away and Dickerson’s voice was fading into the wind, Mary said, “It sounds as if you’ve made yourself a few enemies lately.”

“National Seashore’s the best thing could happen to the Cape. Save it from beady-eyed profiteers like Nance and big-arsed thieves like Bigelow.”

She shivered. She was wearing a light sweater, which should have been enough for June, but not today. “It feels like November, as if the good Lord sent us the same kind of weather the Pilgrims had when the first
Mayflower
arrived.”

“Let’s see”—Rake scratched his throat—“on that day, it was twenty-nine degrees and overcast.”

“How do you know?”

“Looked it up”—he gave her a little half-smile—“in the log of the
Mayflower.”

“The what?”

“Just a joke”—he pointed out to sea—“like that.”

The
Mayflower II
was rounding Wood End at last, but not on her own. After sailing from England to Bermuda and up the American coast to Cape Cod, an epic journey that no high-pooped caravel had made in three centuries, the
Mayflower II
simply could not weather Race Point.

So this wooden symbol of man’s questing spirit arrived under tow, courtesy of a Coast Guard cutter called the
Yankton
.

Even the church bells sounded disappointed.

iii.

A year later, the
Mayflower II
had gone to her permanent berth in Plymouth, while across the bay, in the towns of the Lower Cape, the fight was getting ugly.

Two Off-Cape congressmen, O’Neill and Boland, had filed a bill to authorize land-takings in six towns—Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown—for the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Cape Cod’s own Congressman Nicholson was squirming like a speared eel.

A week after the filing, Rake got a call from Washington. He knew the voice immediately. “I—ah—I hear that Tip O’Neill was booed out of a hearing in Eastham the other night.”

“Booed ain’t the word,” Rake said. “Damn near shit on him, Jack… and on Boland, too.”

“HR 12449 doesn’t seem to be going over.”

“The Truro folks even hung O’Neill in effigy.”

Kennedy chuckled. “Like Tip says, all politics is local.”

“That’s why
you
should bring the bill, Jack. You’re a Cape Codder… kind of.”

“Thanks for the honor, Rake. But that’s why I’m
not
filing The only support’s come from the Great and General Court of Massachusetts and the—ah—Garden Clubs of America. I haven’t heard from a Cape businessman yet who likes the idea of the government taking land out of circulation.”

“How do you feel about it, Jack?”

A hand muffled the receiver. Someone was saying something to Kennedy—perhaps that he had spent enough time on such an insignificant matter. Well, this was
not
insignificant. The skinny kid who had sat beside him at gunnery class was going to hear what Rake had to say.

Kennedy came back on the line. “Ah, thanks for the update, Rake. I’m being called to a vote now.”

“Jack, are you with us?”

“I have to go.”

“Jack… Senator, wait.” He felt that he was sticking his arm through the phone line and hooking a finger into Kennedy’s lapel. “Plenty here in favor of a National Seashore, Jack—a lot of selectmen, people in the streets—but even the supporters are scared of the fed’ral gover’ment. Everyone else is just plain scared. People who own houses are scared they won’t be able to stay in them, never mind pass them on to their kids.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“People who own land are scared they won’t be able to build on it or get a fair price.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The towns are scared that if the Feds take land, they won’t have the property taxes to operate.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You have to make people stop bein’ scared, Jack.”

“Ah—right, Rake, good. Keep up the good work and keep me posted.”

Rake’s throat was as dry as sand. He’d talked more since this seashore fight started than he had in his whole life, and for all his talk, he couldn’t even get Kennedy to come down on one side or the other.

iv.

By the following spring, the opposing forces had marked their positions like dogs pissing on the same beach.

Those in favor of the taking of 28,465 acres of land said they were protecting nature, the past, the future, the Great Beach, apple pie, the flag, and motherhood. Those who opposed federal intrusion said they were protecting property rights, property values, home rule, homeowners, independence, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and, of course, motherhood.

But in May, a senator from Oregon filed a no-more-Mr.-Nice-Guy bill, to let the Department of Interior acquire a hundred thousand acres of land in three unspecified places, without public hearing or local approval. As bad as taxation without representation.

Even Rake Hilyard had a hard time swallowing it.

John M. Nance read the bill and decided the end was near. The Feds were coming, and eminent domain would follow—wholesale takings of private property with wholesale prices paid. For almost two years, he had been fighting, but now it looked like time to retreat.

In Dennis, Dickerson Bigelow agreed that this was a bitter thing, but Dickerson never retreated. His first question was always “How can I profit?”

If he bought wisely and took advantage of the fear and greed that drove any deal, he couldn’t lose. If the seashore proposal failed, he would own enormous tracts of land, purchased at bargain prices. If it succeeded, he would control commercial property along the main roads and profit from that.

In the newspapers, officials were warning of “business interests outside of your communities who know what this development is going to mean…. They are among you, acquiring land in anticipation of the establishment of the Area. They know that there will be a large influx of people and that land values will rise…. Hold your lands within your communities; don’t let outside speculators come in and take over.”

Much better, thought Dickerson, for an Old Corner to do the speculating, a member of a local planning board, a Cape Cod businessman whose family had owned property in the target area since… well, since Jeremiah Hilyard sold his Eastham farm to Ezekiel Bigelow in 1717.

“What’s this, Pa?” Douglas had a baseball glove on one hand, a ball in the other.

“A battle plan, son.” Dickerson stood over his desk. “A map of every piece of property and every property owner on the Lower Cape.”

“What are you going to do?” Doug tossed the ball into the glove.

“I’m looking for the weak links—people who might sell because they’re overextended or undercapitalized or just plain scared.”

“Oh.”
Smack, smack
. The ball hit the glove a few more times. “I thought you said this National Seashore was a bad idea.”
Smack, smack
.

“It is, but like I’ve told you, when everyone’s runnin’ away, think about jumpin’ in.”

“Right.”
Smack, smack
. “And when the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin’.”

Dickerson was proud of his son’s curiosity. Douglas was twelve now and as bright a boy as a man could want. He liked the usual things that boys liked—baseball, bubble gum, Steve Reeves movies, his uncle Blue’s bulldozer—but he also liked real estate. Maybe he liked it because any boy was interested in what his father did. But maybe he had a future, to go with his family’s illustrious Cape Cod past.

Dickerson’s target was John M. Nance. He knew nothing of his family’s history with the Nance family. He knew only that Nance’s father had loudly played one of his son’s aces on a Provincetown wharf two years before, and a man who
wanted
to sell could be schooled into thinking he
had
to sell.

On a bright June day, Dickerson had lunch with Nance at the Orleans Inn, overlooking Town Cove. Dickerson ordered chowder, Nance the fried clam plate.

For all his barrel-chested bulk, Dickerson ate carefully, in small spoonfuls, and never let a dribble sit on his beard for more than a moment. Nance covered everything with ketchup and ate with both hands.

Nance wore a crew cut, the button-down collar, his Harvard tie, and tweed. He never became ruffled, never got mad, and carried himself with the air of a summer tourist, smug and condescending to the locals. But at heart, thought Dickerson, he was just a Cape Cod boy who ate as though he was afraid someone might snatch the plate away.

Which gave Dickerson his approach pattern: snatch at nothing until you gain his trust… then take it all.

So they talked about the seashore.

A land grab, Nance called it.

Absolutely, agreed Dickerson.
Sip the chowder
.

Terrible for the economy, too.

And don’t believe that stuff about boom times outside the park. The Feds’ll find a way to control commercial development from here to P-town.
Dab your napkin at your lips after a lie like that
.

You own land north of Nauset Harbor. What will you do?

Put down the spoon and sit back. Seem resigned
. I have to. It’s the Bigelow heritage. I’d like to bail out and leave entirely, but I’ll hold on and think about buying more land, so I can influence policy, however it goes.

Nance’s eyes lit up, as though he had found a sucker washed up on the wrack line. So you want to stay when a lot of people want to sell?

After three centuries here, I have no choice.

I guess not.

He wants out
. He hasn’t bought anything since the
Mayflower
came back and America claimed her for its own. Now America is going to claim Cape Cod, too. Let the frightened Mr. Nance believe it.
Pick up the check
. “It’s good to know that you’re on my side in this, John.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Like Ben Franklin once said, if we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately.”

And now take two paths. Rouse opposition to the National Seashore, but learn what you can about the government’s payment plans. Buy cheap and sell at… a small profit.

v.

That summer brought Mary Muldowney to the Falmouth Playhouse in a stock production of
Oklahoma!
, and Mary drew Rake to Falmouth, as pretty a town as there was, with white churches, fine old Victorian homes built for rich vacationers before the turn of the century, warm-water beaches at the foot of every street, an atmosphere that seemed more settled and established than the windswept Lower Cape.

In Falmouth, the National Seashore entered the conversation only after people had talked about Ted Williams’s batting average, the doings at the Falmouth Zoo—a row of Victorians rented by fraternities who moved in lock, stock, and beer barrel on Memorial Day and stayed until September—and the star at the Falmouth Playhouse.

“As Mae West says, “ ‘Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?’ ”

Rake knew a lot of women. Most of them just wanted to talk. But Mary, when she kissed you, she pressed herself against you and made you feel young again.

And she always brought a present. Like last summer, that funny lacquered log. Well, this summer, he had a present for her—cocktails at the home of the senator who had come within a whisker of the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1956.

They took Route 28 from Falmouth to Hyannis Port. This was the main road along the south coast, in some places running for miles through scrub pine forests, but in others a strip of plastic and neon junk shops, just the kind of thing that the National Seashore would stop.

Kennedy came ambling across the lawns between his father’s house and his own. It was the lawns that impressed Rake most when he visited the Gold Coast. In Brewster and beyond, the sandy soil and salt air did not make for the best fertilizer. Here they could truck in the fertilizer, truck in the loam, truck in the air if they had to. They had already trucked in the money.

There were few Cape-made fortunes in Cotuit, Osterville, Wianno, Centerville, or Hyannis Port—not that there were many anywhere else. The men who summered here brought their money from Wall Street or oil fields or manufacturing in the heartland and settled on the Cape’s south coast, where the waters were warmed by the Gulf Stream rather than chilled by the Labrador Current, where the majesty of great white houses gazing out at the yachts replaced the drama of the Great Beach and the Atlantic.

They had drinks on the veranda. Rake took a beer. Kennedy suggested that Mary have a daiquiri, his own favorite drink. “I only suggest it to special people.”

As smooth as ever, thought Rake. Part of his charm was that he could say something flattering and slightly silly at the same time, and a woman would hear whatever she wanted.

“Nice of you to ask us down here,” Rake said.

“A lot of people are going to take credit for this National Seashore”—Kennedy sipped his drink—“but as far as I’m concerned, it was your idea first, back in ’46.”