A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard by Philip R. Craig Read Free Book Online Page A

great view of Quitsa and Menemsha Pond, with Menemsha Village way over on the far side, then cut through the gateway in the stone wall on the opposite side of the road and parked so we could walk down and see the Quitsa Quoit, one of the island’s oddest stone structures.
    â€œWhat is it?” asked Mondry, as we came into the little clearing and saw the quoit.
    â€œA genuine Vineyard mystery,” said Zee, taking him up to the structure while Joshua and I went down to see the little fire pit at the bottom of the grassy area. Mondry was busy with his camera.
    The Quitsa Quoit, also known as the Chilmark dolmen, consists of low, vertical supporting stones topped by a slab of rock that pretty apparently didn’t get there by chance. I’ve seen photos and read of quoits in Great Britain, and the resemblance is considerable. But American and British antiquarians, archaeologists, and historians differ greatly about their interpretations of such sites. The British are quick to say that their dolmens are prehistoric structures (the current favorite theory being that they were originally the interiors of burial mounds from which the earth has long since washed away), while the American scholars dismiss such claims about their country’s quoits and are inclined to say they are either fakes built by beguilers or are storage chambers built by early settlers who just never got around to mentioning them in their writings.
    Zee had apparently brought Mondry up to date on the various theories, for as we walked back to the car together he was saying, “Storage chambers? Burial mounds? That doesn’t look like a storage chamber or a burial mound to me.”
    â€œJohn Skye couldn’t agree with you more,” I said. “He thinks both theories are bunk.”
    â€œWho’s John Skye?” asked Mondry.
    â€œJohn Skye is a friend of ours who summers on a farm in Edgartown,” said Zee. “In the wintertime he teaches up in Weststock College, up north of Boston. Medieval lit. He goes over to England whenever he can get the college to pay for it, and spends his time in libraries and out in cow pastures looking at standing stones. He says that if the quoits were originally covered with dirt, there should still be a lot of that dirt right there around them. But there isn’t.”
    â€œFor years he’s been working on the ultimate translation and interpretation of Gawain and the Green Knight, ” I said.
    â€œSo what’s he think of this quoit here?” asked Mondry. “You’ll have to ask him.” “Will you introduce me?”
    â€œSure. If you need to know anything that happened before fifteen hundred, he’s your man. He’s not so good on things that have happened since.”
    â€œI’d like to meet him,” said Mondry. “I’m not sure if I can figure a way to get this quoit into the film, but I like it. Do you know who owns this land? I’d like to talk with him.”
    I’d heard the owner’s name, but I didn’t know him.
    â€œWe can find out,” I said.
    We got back into the car and headed for Gay Head, where the Wampanoags, after centuries of being hard-pressed by the Anglos, were now hoping to do quite well, thank you, from the profits of their proposed mainland bingo joint. Toni and Joe Begay, she a native of Gay Head and he a long way from the Navajo country of his grand-fathers, lived up near the cliffs, and I thought it might be a good thing for Drew Mondry to meet two real live Indians.

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    Gay Head has some of the finest bass and bluefish grounds on the island. Squibnocket, Lobsterville, Dogfish Bar, and other sites are famous among East Coast surf casters. The town lies on the western tip of the Vineyard, famous for the multicolored cliffs whose bright-hued clays give those cliffs and the town their name. Gay Head is a lovely place of rolling hills, fine beaches, and ancient Wampanoag