Flight of the Sparrow (16 page)

One day she thinks to ask James if he is married. He looks at the surrounding trees as if he does not know and might find an answer there. “Aye, I was,” he says quietly. “But Nippesse died of a fever two years past. I have two young sons, Ammi and Moses.” He pauses, regards her again with his dark, direct gaze. “They are not here. Children require a mother. My wife’s sister cares for them in the north where they are safe, far from English towns.”

She feels a flutter in her throat. “Do you not miss them?”

“Does the grass wither when there is no rain? Does the sparrow long for dawn?”

She looks down at her lap and pinches a fold in her apron.

“My brothers and father are here in camp. I am among my people.” His tone is warm, forgiving. She wonders if he is seeking a new wife, but she does not ask.

One cold, cloudy afternoon when she encounters James as she is searching for groundnuts, she asks how he came to be among Philip’s people. “If you are a friend of Mr. Eliot, why are you now among the warriors who terrorize the English?”

His eyes harden. “I am not a warrior. I have terrorized no one. Do you not remember who freed you?”

“I have not forgotten.” She puts her hand to her throat, recalling the weight of the rope against her skin. “Yet you live openly among the rebels,” she prompts. “You dress as an Indian; you go freely among them.”

“As do you,” he says, smiling. She feels her face flush as his words strike home. She has indeed adopted many Indian ways. She
wears a deer-hide dress and moccasins, plaits her hair, and wraps a blanket around herself when she is outside. She smears bear grease on her hands and face to protect her skin from the elements. She has learned to carry heavy baskets and to weave mats and tie them on the wetus.

“You ask how I have come here,” he says slowly. “I, too, have been a captive. I, too, have felt the rope bind my neck.”

She looks at him in surprise.

“It is so.” He points to his neck, and she sees what she has not before: a white scar cutting across his skin. “In August, when I was celebrating a successful hunt with my friends, English soldiers came. They put ropes around our necks and marched us to Boston. They put us on trial for killing settlers in the town of Lancaster. Your town.”

A cold finger runs down Mary’s back and she moves away from him. “You were among those who attacked the outlying farms?” she whispers.

“No. It was a false charge contrived by Captain Moseley.”

“I have heard the name,” she says. “’Tis said he is an excellent soldier, though his disposition is hard.”

His eyes narrow. “He is more than hard. He is a cruel man. A devil. With a special hatred for Indians. He slaughters people as mindlessly as a deranged wolf, and with less reason. It is said he once ordered his soldiers to stake a grandmother to the ground and set hungry dogs upon her. A grandmother!” He looks at her closely. “While she screamed and begged for mercy, the dogs tore the flesh from her bones and devoured every morsel. Moseley looked on, laughing, though even his own soldiers turned away, sickened by what they had done.”

“I cannot believe this,” Mary says. “’Tis some lie invented by his enemies.”

“’Tis no lie,” he says, “for I witnessed his cruelty myself when
he tied one of my friends to a tree and burned his flesh with brands from the fire because he would not speak a falsehood.”

Mary closes her eyes against this image.

“In Boston they kept us chained in a filthy cell for a fortnight,” he continues. “We could not see the sunlight or the stars or any green, living thing. We were not allowed to wash ourselves. They gave us tainted water and bread infested with worms.” He leans toward her. “Do you know what happens to an Indian’s spirit when he is confined? It withers and dies. We all sickened toward death. When we finally came to trial, the judge found us innocent. He said we must be sent to Deer Island until the war is over.”

Mary tries to remember what Joseph told her about Deer Island, a barren strip of land in Boston Harbor used to contain friendly Indians during the hostilities. “I warrant it was for your protection,” she says. “A safe haven where you would not fall victim to the attacks of enemy tribes.”

He shakes his head. She notes the way the late winter light plays over his face, warming and softening his expression. “’Tis no protection. Deer Island is a sentence of death. The people sent there have not been provided food or shelter.”

“I am certain the General Court has guaranteed their safety,” she says, though she has no such certainty. “And surely the Lord will protect them.”

He makes no response.

“Still, none of this explains why you live among Philip’s warriors,” she says. “Why did you not go back to your home village and live in peace?”

His eyes narrow. “That is what I wished to do. Tried to do. I fled Boston and returned to Hassanamesit. But in November Nipmuc warriors came and took all our stores and warned us that if we did not go with them, the English would seize us. The entire village followed them, save one family, which fled to its winter hunting
camp.” He strokes the scar on his neck and smiles. “Thus you see how it is. Though the Nipmuc captured me, I am able go about freely, for they understand that a man’s spirit is free and will wither when confined. But the English do not understand the spirit and think it can be bound and caged.”

His words trouble her. “True freedom lies in Christ,” she says.

“No matter that an Indian is converted to Christ, to the English he will always be Indian.” He gives her a sad smile. “I have lived many years among Englishmen. I have studied their books and worn their clothes and lived in their houses. But that does not mean I understand their ways.” He leans in. “
Your
ways,
Chikohtqua
. Perhaps you will be able to explain them to me.”

To her surprise, Mary finds herself smiling back at him. “I welcome the opportunity.”

•   •   •

A
few days after this conversation, Mary wakes to the cries of birds and the smoke of cooking fires. Though it is not yet light, the camp is already coming to life. She hears footsteps outside, the sound of voices. She is alone in the wetu. She sits up and pushes the heavy skin away; she can sense that the camp is already moving. There is no predicting how long they will stay in one place. Sometimes it is days, sometimes hours. More than once, when the word is passed, they have begun marching almost immediately.

The hide covering the doorway snaps open and Weetamoo steps into the wetu.
“Peyau yeuut,”
she says, gesturing. Mary has come to recognize Weetamoo’s urgent tone and nods to show she understands she must go with her. Weetamoo touches her forearm with two fingers and surprises Mary by speaking English. “Today we cross big river. Meet Massasoit Metacomet
.
Philip.” She spits the English name as if it is an epithet, but Mary has already grasped her meaning: She is to be taken to meet the leader of the Indian
rebellion. Her heart contracts as she thinks of Ann Joslin’s cruel death and wonders if a similar fate awaits her.

But Weetamoo will not acknowledge any of her questions. She pushes Mary out of the wetu, straps a basket filled with rolled furs on her back, and leads her up a hill to a rock outcropping.

A wide river lies below, twisting through a long valley.
“Quinetukqut,”
Weetamoo says. Mary realizes she’s saying the name of the river. She has done this before, offering her the names of places, as if they are gifts, a practice Mary has failed to appreciate. For the first time she understands how these names give a shape and significance to her new life as an Indian.

She feels an odd flutter in her chest and closes her eyes against the thought. She is
not
an Indian. She is an Englishwoman and a Christian. It is evil to embrace heathen ways.

Weetamoo slaps her cheek. Mary’s eyes fly open and she stumbles after her down the hill to the river. Many Indians are standing on the shore; some have already boarded the heavy wooden vessels carved from tree trunks that they call
canoes
. Weetamoo points to an empty one that three warriors are putting into the water.

“Go,” she commands and gives Mary a shove.

Mary is now certain that once she crosses the river the Indians will kill her. She is going not to meet Philip, but to her own death. She reminds herself that if God has ordained this day to be her last, she ought to welcome it. She should not shame herself or her faith by fainting. Yet she is shaking as she climbs into the canoe.

There is a sudden clamor downstream. A man roughly pulls her from the canoe and pushes her back onto the shore. The warriors begin to herd people together. With shouts and gestures they urge everyone north along the river. Then Mary hears a woman scream,
“Ynglees
,
”
and she understands that English troops have been spotted nearby.

Everyone is moving close together in an urgent, jostling mass.
She wonders briefly if she can slip away in the midst of the confusion and find her way to the soldiers. She looks around, seeking cover under the nearby trees where she will be able to shed the heavy basket. She pulls her blanket tighter and steps sideways, toward a likely copse of bushes.

She catches a glimpse of James, walking with another man several rods behind her. Though he does not look in her direction, she knows he has seen her. She has the distinct sensation that he is watching over her
.
That he knows where she is at all times.

She hesitates. James continues walking toward her, talking with the man, but not looking at her. Yet she is certain he saw her step away from the group. Her legs and arms are weak and her stomach fills with bile. She slips back into the hurrying crowd.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

They
walk beside the river for miles. When the warriors halt them at noon, Mary takes off her basket and sits with her back against a boulder. She is grateful for the chance to rest. A childhood memory comes unbidden—tending the fire while a young pig roasts slowly on a spit. Her mouth waters violently. She thinks of all she has cherished and lost—the plentiful stores of food, the comfort and security of her home. Her beloved sister Elizabeth. Her children. The support and love of fellow Christians. Yet in her hunger, she believes she would exchange all of them for a mouthful of sweet roasted meat.

“Mother?”

The familiar voice startles her. Joss! She looks up and cries out, for there he is—standing right in front of her. For a moment she thinks it might be a trick of her mind. But no—it is truly her son. She leaps to her feet and embraces him.

“How is it with you?” She holds him out at arm’s length and then pulls him back in against her. Tears surprise her and she has to blink violently to check them. “Are you well?” She cannot stop
touching him—his shoulder, his arm, his face—though she can see that it annoys him. His features are gaunt and he is bony from hunger, yet he tells her again and again that he is fit. He moves restlessly as he speaks, jamming his hands into his sleeves and pulling them out again, almost dancing on the balls of his feet. He asks no questions, and she does not tell him she fears she will be killed once they cross the river.

It seems that only a few moments pass before the Indians begin to march again and Mary knows that she must put on the heavy basket and stagger along the trail with them. She embraces Joss one more time, and off he runs, disappearing so quickly into the trees that their encounter seems as insubstantial as a dream.

•   •   •

T
hey come to a broad, flat place, where they sleep on blankets on the ground. All night Mary lies awake listening to the water tumble and roll. At dawn, two warriors pull her to her feet and put her in a canoe
.
She sits very straight, as if strapped into iron stays. She is determined to keep her faith in the Lord, but when she sees the crowd of Indians gathered on the far shore, her resolve turns her spine to water. She grasps the gunwales, clenching them so tightly that her fingernails leave crescents in the wood.

As they draw close to the far bank, she sees Weetamoo standing onshore. When the sachem makes a small gesture with her right hand, the warriors roughly push Mary from the canoe
.
She stumbles and falls, soaking her dress and blanket in the icy water. Weetamoo motions for her to hurry and then turns and walks into the forest, as if Mary’s obedience does not matter to her. The Indians laugh as Mary rises and staggers out of the water. When she reaches the bank, her legs buckle and she sprawls on the sand.

She begins to weep—great, rolling tears—fortitude running out of her like the water that drips from the hem of her apron. She is exhausted, spent. She cannot go on any longer. Someone touches
her shoulder. She raises her head and finds Quinnapin kneeling beside her.

“Why you cry?” His voice is gentle. She feels the weight and width of his fingers through the deer hide of her sleeve. She smells the bear grease on his skin and in his hair.

She sits up and wipes her face. His image blurs and shimmers before her. “Because I fear my hour has come,” she whispers. “You are going to kill me.”