The Ransom of Mercy Carter Read online

  NOVELS BY

  CAROLINE B. COONEY

  The Lost Songs

  Three Black Swans

  They Never Came Back

  If the Witness Lied

  Diamonds in the Shadow

  A Friend at Midnight

  Hit the Road

  Code Orange

  The Girl Who Invented Romance

  Family Reunion

  Goddess of Yesterday

  The Ransom of Mercy Carter

  Tune In Anytime

  Burning Up

  What Child Is This?

  Driver’s Ed

  Twenty Pageants Later

  Among Friends

  The Time Travelers, Volumes I and II

  The Janie Books

  The Face on the Milk Carton

  Whatever Happened to Janie?

  The Voice on the Radio

  What Janie Found

  The Time Travel Quartet

  Both Sides of Time

  Out of Time

  Prisoner of Time

  For All Time

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2001 by Caroline B. Cooney

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ember, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, New York, in 2001.

  Ember and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows: Cooney, Caroline B.

  The ransom of Mercy Carter / Caroline B. Cooney. — 1st ed p. cm.

  Summary: In 1704, in the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, eleven-year-old Mercy and her family and neighbors are captured by Mohawk Indians and their French allies, and forced to march through bitter cold to French Canada, where some adapt to new lives and some still hope to be ransomed.

  1. Deerfield (Mass.)—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775—Juvenile fiction.

  [1. Deerfield (Mass.)—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775—Fiction.

  2. Indian captivities—Fiction. 3. Mohawk Indians—Fiction. 4. Massachusetts—

  History—Queen Anne’s War, 1702–1713—Fiction. 5. Indians of North

  America—Québec (Province)—Fiction. 6. United States—History—Queen Anne’s

  War, 1702–1713—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C7834 Ran 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00031545

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89923-2

  RL: 5.2

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  for Louisa, Brian and Liz

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  The Endings

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Deerfield, Massachusetts

  February 28, 1704

  Temperature 10 degrees below zero

  Dear Lord, prayed Mercy Carter, do not let us be murdered in our beds tonight.

  Mercy tucked her brothers in, packing them close. Or any night, she told the Lord, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Even though she wore both pairs of stockings to bed, the cold of the floor came through the heavy wool. It was the coldest night she could remember during a winter when every night had been colder than it ought to be. Downstairs, where the fire was blazing, one of the soldiers had tried to write a letter to Boston and his ink had frozen.

  She kissed each brother good night. The boys were wearing most of their clothes, which made them fat and funny under the quilts. She dreaded getting into her own bed, because she slept alone, and only body heat could keep anyone warm tonight.

  Before she shuttered and barred the window, Mercy knelt to look out. In spite of twenty soldiers quartered in the village and every Deerfield man armed and at the ready, Mercy could never fall asleep until she herself checked the horizon.

  Just below the window was the vegetable garden, covered now in three feet of snow. Against the barn, which sheltered one cow, two sheep and a pig, were drifts taller than Mercy, crusted over from freezing rain. Out beyond the stockade, icy fields gleamed like lakes in the starlight.

  None of the children had been allowed out of the stockade since October. This winter a hen in the yard was not safe from an arrow, or a child from a bullet. Surrounded by thousands of square miles of wilderness—and they were 4 trapped in ten crowded acres.

  Aunt Mary and Uncle Nathaniel and their two children, too afraid of Indian attack to stay on their farm, had been sleeping on the floor downstairs since the governor had first warned of possible attacks.

  Four rooms. Seventeen people. Week after frigid week.

  It was amazing that the three hundred citizens of Deerfield were not killing each other instead of waiting for the Indians to do it.

  Lord, she wished her father were home. He had ridden down to Springfield to buy molasses and tobacco. Without Father, the house felt weak and open, even with soldiers sleeping downstairs. Even with Uncle Nathaniel.

  Indians sneak up, Mercy reminded herself. Nobody can sneak across such crusty ice. We’d hear their feet crunching a mile away. Father said so.

  Except that when the Indians had come last October, there’d been no sound. Mercy had been the only witness, leaning out this very window.

  October in Massachusetts was crimson berries and orange pumpkins, tawny grass and bright red sumac. The colors called to Mercy like bugles; like battle cries. She had unpinned her hair to let the wind catch it and pretended to be the figurehead of a ship, although she had never seen the sea, or even a lake.

  “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills!” she told the horizon. She loved this psalm. “From whence cometh my help.”

  Swinging so far out the window that her fingertips barely held her safe, Mercy had spotted Zeb and John heading toward Frary’s Bridge to bring in the cows. The tall grass around their thighs made them swim in dusty gold. Mercy’s hair was the same color, like wheat in the sun, and she was admiring her own thick yellow hair when out of the grass appeared Indians, as natural as wildflowers. Before Mercy could choke back her psalm, they had encircled Zeb and John.

  One shot was fired, one dash stopped, two surrenders made.

  Zeb and John and the Indians vanished over a rise and out of Deerfield forever.

  The boys had known better than to fight. Fighting meant a tomahawk to the head. Surrender meant a chance to live.

  And Mercy had known better than to sound the alarm. Taking the boys was bait. The English would do anyt
hing to save one another. All the Indians needed to do was capture one white and the rest of the English would come running to the rescue.

  Ambush was the Indian form of battle. They did not like casualties. It was not their plan that they should die; only whites. So if Mercy were to scream, the sentries would mount up and the whole village rush in pursuit. But the English would find their horses shot from beneath them, and where only Zeb and John had been lost, now twenty might die.

  So Mercy had stayed silent.

  The grass closed in, the captives were gone, and the world went on, full of color and glory.

  I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help? Mercy thought. Maybe in Israel, in the days of King David, the Lord sent help from the hills. But Massachusetts? Help does not come from our hills, Lord. Only Indians.

  Mercy had shaken her fist at the Lord. How could you let those savages take Zeb and John? Why aren’t You on our side? You sent us here! Take care of us!

  Five months ago, and Mercy still trembled when she remembered her rage at the Lord God. It was the kind of thing that turned the Lord against Deerfield. Every sermon Mr. Williams had given this winter dealt with sin. The Lord had no choice, said Mr. Williams. Deerfield must suffer. Mercy had done her part to anger the Lord and she knew it.

  Mercy pulled the shutter across the window, fastened it with the wooden bar and climbed into her freezing bed to consider her sins.

  She had woven five yards of cloth today, but the Lord would not care about that. He would care that she harbored evil thoughts toward all three brides in Deerfield.

  She was envious of Sally, who had gotten a perfect husband in Benjamin Burt. Horrified by Eliza, who had married an Indian, even if Andrew was a Praying Indian. Sickened by Abigail, whose choice was a French fur trader twenty years older than she was. How could Abigail marry a Frenchman? The French were the enemy. The English were at war with the French!

  Besides, Jacques had no teeth. If Mercy had to marry the enemy, she would not pick a toothless one.

  Mercy was too young to think about marriage, but she thought about it all the time anyway. There were no good husband choices. She was related to everybody, or they were the wrong age, or she would have to be their third wife and take care of six stepchildren as she gave birth to her own first child, like Stepmama. When Stepmama married Father, she’d been bright and saucy. Two years later, she was gaunt and beyond laughter.

  Mercy had taken over the care of her four brothers and little sister. The boys were usually good, but three-year-old Marah taxed everybody’s patience. Marah was lovable only when she was asleep. She didn’t sleep much and she didn’t sleep well.

  Stepmama was too worried about her own new baby to help. The fierce winter made it almost impossible to keep the baby warm. Stepmama would not set her down, for fear the tiny body would freeze.

  At least Marah and the new baby slept between Father and Stepmama, so at night Mercy had some relief. But half the time, Aunt Mary and Uncle Nathaniel would hand her the two cousins to take care of as well. Mercy liked Will and Little Mary, but as more and more children were added to her care, Mercy had to pray constantly for patience.

  Forgive us our sins, Lord, she prayed. Let spring come soon. Let the Indians stay in the north.

  Benny and John were already asleep. Sam, the oldest, was curled against Tommy, who was still trying to find a breathing space. Tommy poked his head out from under the covers. “Mercy, do you think they’ll come tonight?” he whispered. Tommy was only five. He didn’t really know who “they” were.

  “No,” said Mercy comfortingly. “Remember, Indians have to come all the way from French Canada. Nobody would travel three hundred miles in a blizzard.”

  But she knew this to be untrue.

  White settlers based their lives on outwitting weather. While the men were building thicker walls, the women were knitting thicker stockings. Indians, however, did not hide indoors. Their lives were based on entering the weather.

  “How far is three hundred miles?” asked Tommy. He had rarely been beyond the stockade. Built of great slabs of tree trunks, sharpened to points at the top, the huge fence was fastened on the inside by horizontal beams. Along these, the night watch would walk uneasily in the brutal wind.

  “Three hundred miles is too far for anybody, Tommy. Sleep tight.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Trusting his big sister, Tommy tucked himself into the elbows and knees of his brothers and slept.

  But Mercy was not sure. She didn’t trust the soldiers. What did they care about Deerfield? Every week they wrote to their commander, saying, “Nothing is happening here, let us come home.” She knew how cold the nights were; how easy to drift toward a door in the dark, slip inside to find a fire and a hot drink.

  From the fields came a vicious ripping sound, like a huge sheet being torn into rags. Mercy jerked upright, straining to comprehend the night sounds. Voices? The sharpening of knives? The priming of guns?

  “Just ice snapping on the river, Mercy,” said Sam softly.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Tried,” said Sam. “Failed.”

  Sam was a year older than Mercy and hated imprisonment even more. He was so bored. No horse to ride, no hills to climb, no fields to run across. Mercy knew her brother prayed the Lord would end this captivity even if it meant the attack actually coming.

  She heard a crunching sound, and then another. I will not get up, she told herself. I will not check the horizon again. I will rest in the Lord.

  THE CARTER children slept.

  Families who dared not stay on their own farms slept on other people’s floors.

  Animals slept in barns.

  Soldiers slept in rotation.

  FINGERS GRABBED Mercy’s hair, twisting the thick yellow braid and yanking it tight. Her neck stretched and she could get no air. The scalping knife would—

  All too familiar with this nightmare, Mercy suffocated her scream and hugged herself hard to keep from making a noise. The worst thing was to wake anybody up. They had had enough false alarms.

  Lord, let me be braver than this, she prayed.

  Downstairs, one of the soldiers was doing something with the fire. She heard the friendly clink of iron tools against brick, the whooshing collapse of embers and the rasp of a heavy log shifting.

  Did she also hear movement beyond the shutter, or was that just the soft breathing of her brothers?

  She slid out of bed and felt her way to the window. Her fingers found the familiar bar and as silently as possible she slid it back. When the shutter opened, the blast of air sucked the warmth out of her. Her nightcap had come off in bed, and cold rushed into her head, chilling all thought.

  Mercy didn’t like to think about heads because that made her think of scalping.

  People could live through it. Mary Wells had. She still had her face, but there was no back to it. The edges of her face had tightened around the bone. Nobody had married Mary Wells and nobody would. Who wanted to wake up in bed with a skull on the pillow next to him?

  A shawl hung on a peg by the window. Mercy held the fringed edge of wool over her mouth to warm the air.

  The snow writhed with movement. It looked like the river in spring, schools of fish leaping in the lap of the water. Mercy could not imagine what she was seeing. There wasn’t enough light to make out the shapes—and then suddenly there was an immense amount of light and everything was clear.

  The Indians had come.

  Hundreds of them.

  But Indians did not mass armies, like whites. They traveled in small bands. How could there be so many? They were leaping over the stockade! Impossible. It was twelve feet high.

  Mercy saw what she should have seen yesterday, and the day before. Snow had drifted up and frozen solid. The huge fence was no longer a blockade, but a bridge.

  She heard the long slow familiar creak of the stockade gate. No Englishman would open the
gate. The Indians who had climbed over the stockade must have run through the village and opened the gates from the inside.

  She realized why she could see. The Indians had fired the barns.

  What fools we are, thought Mercy. We store our hay and kindling leaning against the barns. One flick of the torch and the deed is done. If we are not shot or scalped, we will be burned.

  Mercy came to her senses. She slammed the thick wooden shutter, throwing the bar just as a bullet flew through the air. It thudded into the shutter, splintering the wood below her hand and half emerging into the room.

  All Deerfield had awakened at the same moment and to the same horror. Three hundred people screamed together.

  Mercy had listened to single shots all her life: killing a crow here, slaughtering a cow there. But a battle she had never heard. Now hundreds of guns were going off.

  Beneath her came the splintering smash of doors and window frames being burst through.

  The Indians were inside the house.

  Indians in the field, Indians in the woods—yes. Indians with arrows, with bullets—yes. But the attack was supposed to stay outside. She stood rooted to the floor.

  Furniture was being upturned. Plates smashed. There were thuds, one solid thump after another.

  Over the cries of the English came wolf howls so alien, so gruesome, Mercy felt them through her spine instead of her ears.

  Sam was out of bed, yanking Benny and John and Tommy with him. “Put on shoes,” said Sam roughly, shoving pairs toward the little ones. “Maybe they’ll take us captive. We’ll need our shoes on.”

  Mercy had been waiting for death, in which shoes were of little consequence. She was astonished that Sam could think of shoes. Well, if they needed shoes, they needed coats. She got her cloak and Tommy’s jacket, but fear made her stupid and slow.

  Their stepmother tottered in, moaning deep in her chest. She was holding the baby, but just barely. Marah, pulling her comfort blanket along the floor, clung to Stepmama’s nightdress. Stepmama’s eyes were open so wide they seemed ready to come loose and fall out. “Sam! Mercy! We have to barricade ourselves up here.”

  There was no way to do that. The only furniture upstairs was her parents’ bed. The children slept on rough wool bags stuffed with pine needles. They had neither chairs nor chests. There were no bedroom doors, only thick hanging curtains. Mercy slid past her brothers to take the baby before Stepmama dropped it headfirst onto the floor.