Flight of the Sparrow (24 page)

•   •   •

T
hey take shelter in what remains of the garrison house belonging to Cyprian Stevens. Its stockade is gone and half the house has been blasted away. The front door gapes; wood shards rise like teeth from the sill. When Mary examines the blackened chimney bricks, the squire tells her that the Indians returned after their attack and used gunpowder to finish their work.

Squire Hoar builds a fire on what is left of the hearth and then draws bread and cheese from his satchel of provisions and offers them to her. Shadows rise and fall on the scorched plaster walls as they eat. After a while he inquires about her treatment by the Indians. His voice surprises her with its gentle concern and she soon finds herself pouring out her trials to him. She tells of Sarah’s death and the slow healing of her own wound. She recounts the long days of marching, of forcing herself to go on when she was on the verge of collapse. She speaks of how hunger and privation taught her to take pleasure in Indian food.

He listens with a smile of pity. Finally she runs out of words. “I forget myself,” she says. “I fear it has been too long since I spoke with an Englishman.”

He nods slowly, then says, “You have not yet asked after your husband.”

She feels as if he has just slapped her face. Her cheeks burn, yet she can manage no words of contrition. “He did not come,” she says, the words scratching her throat strangely, as if they are filled with tiny barbs. “I thought—” She stops and swallows. “I have heard it rumored that he has remarried.”

He dips his head as if complicit in a conspiracy, but then she sees he is only struggling to contain a smile. “I fear the Indians have tricked you,” he says. “They are overly fond of making mischief, though the truth is they mean no harm. No, your husband has not remarried. He waits for you in Boston.”

She expels a breath. “He is well, then, I hope?”

“Well enough. I know he will rejoice to see you.” He takes a pipe from his satchel, pours tobacco into the bowl, lights it, and draws deeply. Mary has a sudden memory of Philip drawing on his pipe after telling her his story of the Mohawks gathering wood. She smiles and wonders why she did not detect the story’s humor at the time. She was still learning Indian ways.

“He has been greatly occupied raising your ransom,” the squire says.

She looks longingly at the ribbons of smoke. “The sachems said he would be present at my redemption.”

“Mistress Rowlandson.” He places his pipe carefully on his knees. He leans forward, his manner that of a king bestowing wisdom on his subject. “They asked a dear price for you. It was not a simple task to come by twenty pounds.”

•   •   •

I
n the morning, they discover their two Indian guides have left sometime in the night. The squire does not appear surprised. Nor is Mary, for she is now well acquainted with the Indian inclination for stealth and independence of mind.

The squire tells her it is Sunday, and asks if she wishes to tarry longer at the ruined Stevens house, in observance of the Sabbath rule. She shakes her head. “I have not observed the Sabbath in many weeks,” she says. “We had best continue on.” She knows that if they linger she will be tempted to disappear into the forest like the Indian guides, and try to make her way back to Philip’s camp.

As they ride past the hill where the meetinghouse stands guard over the stones of the burying ground, Mary recalls the last time she sat on the pew bench listening to her husband. The world has become so disordered, it seems as if years—not months—have passed.

They pass abandoned barns and houses. The squire tells her that all the frontier farms have been deserted. Everyone has fled east, taking refuge with friends and family who live in the towns near the sea. He describes the way the Indians butchered the English and burned whole villages. He says that now only soldiers venture beyond their yards.

When they reach Concord, the squire dismounts and walks through the village, leading his horse with Mary on it. At first she thinks the place is abandoned, but she soon sees that faces are peering from the tiny windows and half-open doors. Two young boys squat at the side of the lane playing a game with pebbles. A man comes out of a house carrying a yoke. Mary sees a woman in the shadowed doorway behind him. The squire calls out cheerfully and the man acknowledges his greeting with a solemn nod. Soon after, the squire stops in front of a large frame house set against a hillside.

“My home,” the squire announces. “We will stop here for some refreshment and Christian fellowship. Which,” he adds, as he helps her dismount, “I warrant you have sorely missed these past months.”

“Aye,” she says, though her agreement is accompanied by a shiver of trepidation. Will the faces of her fellow Christians be filled with judgment? Or pity? Instead of following the squire across the
yard to the door, she finds herself staring at a wooden palisade a few yards to the east.

“Ah,” he says, “I see you find my garrison of interest. But you need not fear for your safety, Mistress Rowlandson. You are perfectly secure now.” He comes back across the yard to stand beside her. “I had it built for my Praying Indian friends, who lived there under my protection,” he says. “Though there were many in town who wished them dead.” Some of the ten-foot-tall posts no longer stand upright, but lean inward, as if in discouragement. The stockade is not very big, no more than fifteen feet square. She wonders how many people lived there.

Mary thinks of James. Of his family’s exile to Deer Island. “What became of them?” she asks. “Did they join Philip’s warriors?”

The squire shakes his head. “I have sometimes thought it would be better for them if they had. But Captain Moseley came to town one day and arrested every one of them. Women and children and old men as well as the young. It was a Lord’s Day, and we were all at the meetinghouse. Yet in he marched with all his soldiers behind him, like the Devil and his minions, and there he declared his foul purposes.”

Mary frowns, for this seems an unlikely tale. “He interrupted worship? Is it not against the law?”

“Moseley cares nothing for law. He came in during the sermon, stated his wicked intention and threatened to arrest any who sought to impede him. I slipped out and hurried home to defend my friends. But my striving came to naught.” He turns his back on the palisade, as if to get more quickly away from his memory. “Captain Moseley and those like him are a terrible scourge on this land,” he says. “It is one thing to be valiant in battle, quite another to visit tortures upon innocent women and children. It is said that he ordered one of his young Indian captives stripped of her clothes and he himself applied hot knives to her breasts.”

Mary remembers James’s description of Captain Moseley’s tortures and tastes a dark bitterness on her tongue. She stares at the logs of the palisade. Bark has been stripped away in places, and woodpeckers have made holes in the wood in their search for insects and grubs.

“Come,” says the squire, taking her arm. “We must go in and prepare ourselves, for I soon expect guests who I know you will want to see.” He is smiling at her in a way that tells her that he has some surprise in store. She turns her head away from his gaze. She thinks of James, standing by the rock where she was redeemed. His sorrowful eyes.

Squire Hoar leads her into a room with a table and bench set before the fire. Two small windows slant triangles of sunlight onto the floor. He tells Mary to sit on the bench, leaves the room, and returns with a woman who carries a bundle in her arms. Her hair is long and straight; she has a triangular face with a sharp chin. She could be sister to some Indian women Mary has seen in camp. She sets her bundle on the table.

“English raiment, combs, shoes, everything you will need to refresh your appearance.” The squire gestures to the bundle. “Delores will help you.” He leaves the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Delores smiles and looks deferentially down at her hands. Mary rises, curious to see the clothes, wondering if they will fit her. As soon as she moves, Delores leaps to unwrap the bundle and within minutes has spread out a new shift, bodice, skirt, apron, cap and a pair of latchet shoes.

Mary fingers the skirt, which is the deepest shade of indigo she’s ever seen. Someone has paid many pounds to have these clothes made. She looks at Delores. “Where did these come from?”

Delores shrugs. She has not spoken a word. Mary suspects she is one of the Praying Indians that Squire Hoar sheltered.

She unties her pocket and lets it fall to the floor. She feels a wave
of tears and has to swallow them down as she removes the deerskin dress and then her shift. Quickly, she pulls the new one over her head. The linen is cool and smooth against her skin. A moment later Delores is lacing Mary into the new bodice, buttoning her skirts. When she ties a fresh white apron around her, a faint whiff of lavender rises from the cloth and Mary almost sighs with pleasure.

Delores steps back and studies her. Then she makes a motion with her hand, fluttering her fingers over the cap that covers her own black hair. It occurs to Mary that she does not speak because she cannot.

Mary nods. “Aye, I suppose my hair must be presentable now that I am back in civilization.”

A smile blooms on Delores’s face, and she quickly produces a wooden comb from her pocket and begins to unbraid and comb out Mary’s hair. It reminds Mary of the intimacy and comfort she felt the night Alawa braided it. It takes some time but after a while Delores seems satisfied. She hands Mary the linen cap, so white it reminds her of winter, and Mary settles it on her own head. It has been three months since she wore a cap and it feels both comforting and confining.

Delores looks her up and down, and solemnly nods her approval.

Mary runs her hands over her new apron and smoothes her skirts. “My pocket!” she says suddenly, and plucks it from under the discarded deer-hide dress. She straps it on, though the linen is filthy with grease. But she will not be parted from it, for it holds all she now owns in the world—her scissors and needles and the little Bible that James gave her.

“Thank you,” Mary says. “I believe I am respectable now.”

Delores nods, gathers up the old clothes, hurries to the door, teases open the latch with her elbow, and leaves Mary to face the squire.

•   •   •

T
hey eat a simple meal of bread and milk, seated beside each other on the bench. “I would feed you more heartily,” he says, “but the goodwives of Concord cautioned me that your stomach will be too tender for rich fare just now.”

Mary’s stomach roils as if in agreement with the unseen goodwives. Her hips and thighs ache. During her captivity she has grown accustomed to sitting on the ground; perching on a bench is no longer effortless. She shifts back and forth, trying in vain to find a comfortable position.

She asks about Delores and the squire confirms that she is a Praying Indian—a Nashaway who was widowed several years ago when her husband took a fever and died. “She took a vow of silence,” he says, “and has not, to my knowledge, broken it.” He shakes his head. “But I fear for her health. She does not have the usual stamina of Indians. Which is why she is still under my protection.”

Mary would like to learn more about this woman and starts to ask, but the squire begins talking about his wife, who has gone to Ipswich to stay with her cousin. Many in Concord have moved close to Boston, he tells Mary, for with the burning of Sudbury, Groton, and Lancaster, Concord has become a frontier town
.

Before she finishes her meal, Mary hears voices and then a knock on the door. As Delores hurries to open it, the squire rises expectantly. A group of four men and seven women come into the room. The squire welcomes them enthusiastically and encourages them to partake of their simple meal. Delores places a platter laden with bread before them. Mary resists the urge to hide some in her pocket and forces herself to smile back at the women, who crowd around. They speak to her soothingly, as if she is ill, making sympathetic sounds. She thinks she recognizes one of them, but cannot recall her name. She feels a moment of panic as they close in, as if she is about to be trapped and suffocated. Instinctively, she rises,
moving away from the table, stepping back. But the women follow her deeper into the room and she realizes with distress that she’s placed herself even farther from the door and its promise of freedom.

She steps to the side, bumps into a tall man, apologizes, moves the other way. She suddenly feels desperate to be outside in the air. She heads toward the front door and is halfway there when it opens and two more men step over the sill.

Mary cries out and claps both hands over her mouth. Abruptly, she is swept into the arms of her brother Josiah.

“Mary!” His voice is raw, almost a sob. He releases her, steps back, holds her face between his hands. “Praise God; you are alive!” His gaze is so filled with worry that her entire impulse is to soothe and reassure him.

“I am well, brother.” She smiles, though her eyes are stinging yet again with tears. “And you? And our sisters, Joanna and Ruth?”

“We are all well. They are eager to see you face-to-face. But, sister, I have brought with me someone most keen to be reunited with you.” For an instant, Mary is sure he is speaking of Joseph. Her heart thumps in her chest and her palms dampen. Then Josiah moves to the left, revealing the man who entered with him.

It is Henry Kerley, Elizabeth’s husband. He stands by the open door, his long arms hanging at his sides. There is a pleading look on his face.

Mary frowns in confusion and looks at Josiah. “But where is my husband?” she asks. “Did he not come with you?”

Josiah touches her shoulder. “Nay, Mary, he had duties to attend. But you may rest assured he is most impatient to see you.”

Not impatient enough to travel to Concord,
she thinks, then pushes the unseemly thought away, for Henry is now standing before her, beseeching her with his dark eyes.

“Henry.” She reaches out and puts both her hands in his outstretched ones. Already her eyes are brimming with tears.