The Ransom of Mercy Carter Read online

  The shooting downstairs stopped.

  It was not silent, because the fighting went on outside, but there was a pause within.

  The children were gasping for breath from the smoky air. Mercy assumed the house was on fire. Which would be worse? To go downstairs and be tomahawked or stay up here and be burned?

  Stepmama’s face turned inside out with terror, and she backed up, screaming and sobbing and tripping on Marah.

  Standing on the stairs was an Indian.

  MERCY HAD ALWAYS wanted to see war paint. Now she had her wish.

  Black zigzags crossed his bare chest. Black stripes encircled his eyes and snaked over his shaved head to the single lock of hair braided in back. The braid had been tossed over his shoulder to hang in front, and the braid itself was hung with scalps. They were quite lovely, as if he collected horses’ tails in many colors.

  In his hand was a tomahawk, which turned out to be a smooth rock on a wooden handle. The stone was speckled with blood.

  Mercy stood between her brothers and death. She had no idea what to do. Beg? Pray? Kick?

  Stepmama backed into her own bedroom, pulling the curtain shut, as if cloth might save her and the baby from the Indians. Marah, abandoned, began crying in her most annoying whine.

  The Indian’s eyes traveled slowly, examining each of the four boys before he focused on the sobbing three-year-old. Mercy had time to walk between the tomahawk and her little sister. Kneeling beside Marah, she said, “Hush now. It’s all right.”

  Marah didn’t hush.

  The Indian’s hand, large and dark and covered with drawings, landed on Mercy’s shoulder. His fingers closed tightly, and she obeyed the pressure and returned to her brothers. Tucking Marah under his arm like a sack of grain, the Indian pointed a finger at each child. “Go,” he said in English, nodding at the stairs. “Go down.”

  Albany Indians who came from New York to trade in Deerfield spoke a little English, and Andrew, the new husband of Eliza, spoke the same English as the rest of them, but English from a Canada Indian in war paint?

  Mercy swept the boys ahead of her. John and Benny and Tommy were too little to wake up fast and so they were too confused and sleepy to cry or fight. Sam was organized and calm, checking stockings and shoes. The boys stumbled down the narrow steps while the Indian entered the bedroom. He wore heavy leggings, but the rest of his body, split in half by white and black paint, was bare. In this terrible cold, he had come without even a shirt?

  It was true then, what Mr. Williams said. Indians were not human. No real person could endure such a thing.

  Onto the bed quilt, he tossed their nighttime drinking cups, Benny’s fishhooks and Mercy’s sewing needles. He found Sam’s knives and John’s book of ABCs.

  Mercy could not collect herself. She could not even form a prayer.

  “Go,” said the Indian. “Leave house.” Eyes that did not seem like eyes stared at her from a face that did not look like a face. Mercy backed away from him and tried to go down the stairs, but the boys had come to a halt at the bottom.

  Mercy looked over their heads. Hanging from the ceiling were hats, bullet pouches, strings of dried red peppers and apples, yarn in skeins and powder horns. Indian hands were plucking them down.

  Mercy forced herself between her brothers and on down the narrow steps until she could see what blocked the way.

  Bodies.

  Only last night, Mercy had cleaned that floor with sand, scrubbing on her knees, sweeping it down the cracks, until the floor was white. Now it was red.

  In this warm familiar room where Father read every night from the Bible while Mercy knit, here the soldiers had bunked, and here they had died.

  They looked as if they had been talking or smoking their pipes and been slaughtered where they stood. It did not look as if they had fought back. Perhaps they had never even bolted the door, expecting to come and go when it was their turn to walk the stockade.

  She looked for Aunt Mary, Uncle Nathaniel and her two cousins, but they were not there dead or alive. Fire spread gaily from one soldier’s pile of blankets to the next. The painted Indian bumped Mercy in the middle of her back.

  “Step over the bodies,” said Mercy to her brothers. “We must go outside. Here, Tommy, I’ll help you.” She sounded as if she were lifting him over mud on the way to church. Perhaps the Lord had answered her prayer and made her brave. He had certainly answered another prayer: they were going to leave the stockade.

  Sam gave Benny a push and John a hand and then the Carter children were outside.

  The burning village was spectacular. Flames lit the sky. Snow gleamed gold and orange. From one house came deafening gunfire, Deerfield men shooting out the upstairs windows and Indians shooting back.

  The chaos was unimaginable. Painted and fearsome in the firelight, the attackers were red and white, black and white, black and red and white, slashed and zigzagged like lightning.

  The fire spread, with its own horrific sound, sparkling as it devoured.

  Hell will be like this, thought Mercy. All I love turned to ash.

  And then a unit of French soldiers in scarlet jackets with gold braid appeared. They even wore their swords.

  The presence of Canada French stunned her. For three hundred miles there were no roads; there were hardly even paths. They would have walked on frozen rivers; slept without shelter; eaten with their fingers. Just to get to Deerfield, this little button of a town in the middle of nowhere? How could Deerfield matter so much?

  A bullet took a Frenchman in the chest and knocked him down at Mercy’s feet. His companions surrounded him, exposing their backs to the Deerfield guns. Lifting the wounded man, they rushed him inside the Catlin house.

  The Indians paid no attention to the wounding of a Frenchman. In fact, they paid no attention to anything. As if nothing at all were happening, they lined their prisoners up. Mercy and Sam, Tommy and John and Benny stumbled into place, and now Mercy saw that the line was long. Dozens of children had been thrust out into the cold, where they stood stunned and silent. There were some parents.

  She counted the entire Kellogg family. All six Hurst children. Some of the Williams children. Mercy found herself next to the oldest Williams girl, who tried twice to speak and twice could not; who pawed at Mercy’s shawl and scrabbled at the fringe. What bodies had she had to step over to get out of her house?

  Her father was the minister. Mercy loved Mr. Williams. He was the voice of God. Deerfield could not survive without him. Surely he could not be dead. “Your father and mother?” Mercy said finally.

  “John and Jerusha,” came the whisper.

  John was six years old; Jerusha a newborn. If the Indians would kill John and Jerusha, they would kill Marah.

  Mercy left her brothers, running back into her house, slipping in blood and ignoring flames. Her Indian was at the hearth, adding pots and spoons to his bundle. Stepmama was standing next to him, staring blankly, the baby asleep on her shoulder. The savage still held Marah upside-down under his arm and Marah was still holding her beloved blanket. Mercy remembered that she too was carrying things: Tommy’s jacket, her own cloak.

  Mercy walked in front of the Indian and said loudly, “I’ll carry my sister,” pointing to show what she meant.

  His eyes rested on Mercy. Then he put his hand on her hair.

  I’m dead, she thought. He’ll scalp me right here.

  But the Indian handed Marah over, and with both arms free, he tied his loot into a bundle, using the four corners of Mercy’s blanket. He threw the sack over his back.

  “Wait. I need a coat,” said Mercy, reaching into the bundle and yanking out a warm covering for Marah. “Come, Mama,” she said, but her stepmother did not move. “Walk on,” said Mercy, shoving her. “Don’t drop the baby.”

  Perhaps being upside-down had prevented Marah from whining, because as soon as Mercy got outside and turned her upright, she started shrieking again.

  The line of prisoners had changed; it was m
oving; people were being forced out of the stockade and into the frozen fields. Her brothers and the Hurst children and the Williams children were gone and Mercy ended up next to Jemima Richards.

  “They’re going to kill us,” cried Jemima, her body convulsed by sobbing.

  “They had time to do that and they didn’t,” said Mercy. “I think we’re prisoners.” She forced Marah to stick her arms into the coat she had snatched, but it was Benny’s and far too large for Marah. It would keep Marah warm to her toes, but it meant Benny wasn’t wearing anything. Where were the boys? She must catch up to them and button Tommy into his jacket. She looked around. She had already lost Stepmama and the baby.

  There were too many people. She couldn’t think straight about so many people who needed so many things. Jemima held on to Mercy so hard that Mercy could barely keep her grip on Marah. Burning barns fell in and the shrieking of penned animals filled the air. They had to get out of the stockade or burn. “Hurry, Jemmie. We have to catch up.”

  “I don’t want to,” moaned Jemima. “I’m English. This isn’t fair. I don’t want some savage near me. They even gave me a pack to carry. I don’t want to carry it.”

  “Go!” said Mercy, jabbing her.

  The north wind flung embers into the air, tossing them down to burn on, like candles in the snow. Mercy’s family had never been able to afford candles, just pine knots.

  “Where’s my mother?” moaned Jemima.

  “We’ll find her,” said Mercy. “Move faster, Jemima.”

  Ruth Catlin stumbled into line with them, wearing only her white nightdress. On her feet were huge heavy boots that must be her father’s or brother’s. In the reflected fire, Ruth’s dark hair seemed to turn blue.

  Ruth was frail and had bad lungs. Nobody had expected her to live through the winter. No young man spent time with Ruth because if there was one thing a young man needed, it was a strong wife. Ruth didn’t qualify.

  She’ll freeze to death quicker than I will, thought Mercy. She gave her scarf and cloak to Ruth, who snapped them through the air as if whipping a bare back. “Somebody let those savages in!” yelled Ruth, stamping her foot and whirling in circles to find the evidence. “There is a traitor here. Who opened those gates?”

  Mercy had seen the attack. There was no traitor, only the stupidity of Deerfield, convinced that snow and cold were a barrier. She put Tommy’s little jacket over her shoulders until she could find him. It was a beautiful thing, heavy boiled wool the color of charcoal, a gift from Boston relatives. It had no effect on the cold. Ruth took her time wrapping herself in Mercy’s thick cozy cloak.

  “I’m finding out who it was!” said Ruth. “I’m killing them.”

  As if there were not enough killing.

  Out of the meetinghouse came a row of white men roped together, a crowd of women carrying babies, and older children carrying blankets and coats and little brothers and sisters. Dozens of prisoners. Had they fled to the safety of the meetinghouse only to find themselves trapped? Or had the Indians put their prisoners inside to keep them from being shot in the melee?

  They were herded like cattle toward the gate.

  Mercy made out her brothers far ahead, half hidden by smoke. She counted only three. Oh, no! O Lord! Who’s missing?

  They’re all here, she told herself, I just can’t see through the smoke.

  The last pair of settlers out of the meetinghouse were Eliza Price and her Indian husband.

  “I bet he’s responsible!” said Ruth. “He’s an Indian himself, for Lord’s sake! She married him, which is disgusting. An English girl choosing an Indian?”

  It was certainly amazing. But not only had Mr. Williams agreed to the marriage, he had performed it, and Eliza’s family had taken Andrew Stevens into their home. Everybody said it was the only legal marriage in the New World between a white woman and a red man.

  “He’s a Praying Indian,” Mercy reminded Ruth. It was as odd to have this conversation as it had been for Sam to think of shoes. Scraps of normality were flying around like burning embers.

  “So Andrew claims to be Christian,” snapped Ruth. “So he doesn’t use the name Strong Arrow anymore. What makes everybody think the man suddenly became Weak Thread? I would never take a red Indian into my house. Andrew Stevens opened our gates. I know he did.”

  But if anyone had betrayed Deerfield, it could not have been Andrew.

  Eliza was moved aside to make room. Then Andrew was hacked to death by his own people. Andrew did not fight. He stood still and erect while they chopped him to pieces and did not fall until he was dead. He seemed to have known it was coming. When it was finished, the Indians put Eliza in line next to Ruth, where she stood numbly, staring at her husband’s body.

  With the sharp edge of hatchets, the Indians prodded the line forward.

  Nobody argued.

  The huge gate had been half torn from its hinges. Captives were trying to fit through, trying to lead children, trying to count their families.

  Mercy tripped on a little boy sucking his thumb and tugging sadly at his earlobe. He wore a frown and not much else. Mercy set Marah down and knelt in the shadow of the fallen gate to see who the naked child was. Little Daniel, his mother dead and his father away, left for the winter with his Warner cousins. His father had gone to Boston in the hope of finding a bride who would come to Deerfield and take care of Daniel for him. Boston women were too sensible to consider moving to Deerfield. In fact, there was not one Deerfield woman who would not have been joyful to move to Boston, but Boston had passed a law saying that to abandon a frontier town was the act of a traitor. If you lived in Deerfield, you could not leave.

  Except now. They were leaving now.

  Mercy hugged Daniel, who smiled around his thumb sucking and said without moving the thumb, “Hi, Merfy.” Mercy wiped away Daniel’s tears so they would not freeze to his skin.

  “Where are the Warners?” said Jemima irritably.

  Mercy did not want to know the answer to that. She had enough answers. “Daniel is our responsibility now, Jemima. Tuck him in your cloak while I carry Marah. And stop him from crying, Jemmie. They are killing the babies who cry.”

  Jemima would not pick Daniel up. He was too heavy, she said. Anyway, if she set her pack down, she would get scalped. “He’s three,” said Jemima, “he can walk.”

  Mercy took Tommy’s jacket off her shoulders and bundled Daniel into it. She lifted the little boy on one hip and hoisted Marah on the other. Daniel settled in, putting one arm around Mercy’s neck and still sucking his thumb. Even now, Marah did not want to share and tried to kick Daniel.

  The sun was rising. It jumped out from behind the eastern ridge, throwing pink shadows over the snow and golden rays into Mercy’s eyes. In minutes, the world went from dark to dawn to daylight.

  There seemed no point in trying to catch up to her brothers, even if Mercy could have walked quickly with a child in each arm. Sam will take care of the boys, she told herself.

  The snow had been so trampled inside Deerfield that she had half forgotten it, but beyond the gate, the snow became a living creature: deep and solid, crusted and pathless. Leaders somewhere out of Mercy’s sight were taking the line of prisoners northeast, and into the hills.

  Only fifty yards beyond the gate, the weight of two toddlers already seemed impossible. Mercy was used to babies; most women in Deerfield had a baby every year. Not all of them lived, of course, but it took a lot of big sisters and cousins and neighbors to hold so many babies. Rocking them by the fireside was easier than carrying them uphill.

  Mercy’s breathing came hard. Jemima kept muttering and looking back while Ruth made threats from the safe warmth of Mercy’s cloak and poor sad widowed Eliza stumbled.

  Mercy paused to catch her breath and shift the children. She squinted into the rising sun, trying to make an accurate count of the prisoners, strung out now across a mile of snow. Smaller children were hard to see, hidden by snowdrifts or the long swinging cloaks of adults o
r being carried. When Mercy rubbed her eyes she realized it was not the glare of sun on snow that made it hard to see. It was tears.

  She thought there might actually be a hundred captives. She had never heard of Indians taking more than one or two. There was no way to march a hundred prisoners, mostly little ones with short legs and hungry tummies, all the way to Canada in the middle of winter. No way to keep these children warm and their feet from freezing.

  Already her feet, uncomfortably jammed into Mother’s old leather shoes, were chafed and cold.

  Cold replaced fear. She was not going to last long without a coat. Lord, care for me. I have Marah and Daniel. I need to be strong.

  An Indian appeared next to her. He wore a deerskin cape and fat fur mittens. His black and white paint stared at her. It was not until he took off the cape and his chest was bare again that Mercy recognized him as the Indian on her stairs.

  He put his cape over Mercy, tucking it around her and both the babies. It was lined with rabbit fur and had a hood, which he tied beneath her chin.

  The Indian pointed Mercy forward and gave her a gentle push.

  On this terrible morning, forward could have only one meaning: Canada.

  Three hundred miles.

  On foot.

  In this weather.

  Carrying two toddlers.

  Chapter Two

  Deerfield, Massachusetts

  February 29, 1704

  Temperature 0 degrees

  Eben Nims was last in the line of captives that straggled across the fields and up into the hills. The Indians had strapped a heavy pack to his back, its weight supported by a belt across his forehead. Wrapped in the quilt his grandmother had made in England were his mother’s stew pot and china bowls, his sisters’ dolls, his father’s gun and his brother-in-law’s Bible. There were boots and a whole ham, powder and shot and yesterday’s bread.