The Ransom of Mercy Carter Read online

  His finger beckoned. There could be no mistake. The meaning was come.

  There was no speech and no movement from a hundred captives and three hundred enemies. It was the French Mercy hated at that moment. How could they stand by and let other whites be burned alive?

  She had no choice but to go to him. She set Daniel down. Perhaps they would spare Daniel. Perhaps only she was to be burned.

  She forced herself to keep her chin up, her eyes steady and her steps even. How could she be afraid of going where her five-year-old brother had gone first? O Tommy, she thought, rest in the Lord. Perhaps you are with Mother now. Perhaps I will see you in a moment.

  She did not want to die.

  Her footsteps crunched on the snow.

  Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.

  The Indian handed Mercy a slab of cornmeal bread, and then beckoned to Daniel, who cried, “Oh, good, I’m so hungry!” and came running, his happy little face tilted in a smile at the Indian who fed him. “Mercy said we’d eat later,” Daniel confided in the Indian.

  The English trembled in their relief and the French laughed.

  The Indian knelt beside Daniel, tossing aside Tommy’s jacket and dressing Daniel in warm clean clothing from another child. Nobody in Deerfield owned many clothes, and if she permitted herself to think about it, Mercy would know whose trousers and shirt these were, but she did not want to think about what dead child did not need clothes, so she said to the Indian, “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  He understood. Putting the palm of his hand against his chest, he said, “Tannhahorens.”

  She could just barely separate the syllables. It sounded more like a duck quacking than a real word. “Tannhahorens,” he said again, and she repeated it after him. She wondered what it meant. Indian names had to make a picture.

  She smiled carefully at the man she had thought was going to burn her alive as an example and said, “I’ll be right back, Tannhahorens.” She took a few steps away, and when he did nothing, she ran to her family.

  Her uncle swept her into his arms. How wonderful his scratchy beard felt! How strong and comforting his hug!

  “My brave girl,” he whispered, kissing her hair. “Mercy, they won’t let me help you.” In a voice as childish and puzzled as Daniel’s, he added, “They won’t let me help your aunt Mary, or Will and Little Mary either. I tried to help your brothers and got whipped for it.”

  He stammered: Uncle Nathaniel, whose reading choices from the Bible were always about war, and whose voice made every battle exciting. He needed her comfort as much as she needed his.

  “Uncle Nathaniel,” she said, “if I had done better, Tommy and Marah—”

  “Hush,” said her uncle. “The Lord set a task before you and you obeyed. Daniel is your task. Say your prayers as you march.”

  In a tight little pack behind Uncle Nathaniel stood her three living brothers. How small and cold they looked.

  Sam lifted his chin to encourage his sister and said, “At least we’re together. Do the best you can, Mercy. So will we.” They stared at each other, the two closest in age, and Mercy thought how proud their mother would be of Sam.

  “Mercy,” cried her brother John, panicking, “you have to go! Go fast,” he said urgently. “Your Indian is pointing at you.”

  Tannhahorens was watching her but not signaling.

  He isn’t angry, thought Mercy. I don’t have to be afraid, but I do have to return. “Find out your Indian’s name,” she said to her brothers. “It helps. Call him by name.” She took the time to hug and kiss each brother. How narrow their little shoulders; how thin the cloth that must keep them from freezing.

  She had to go before she wept. Indians did not care for crying. “Be strong, Uncle Nathaniel,” she said, touching the strange collar around his neck.

  “Don’t tug it,” he said wryly. “It’s lined with porcupine quill tips. If I don’t move at the right speed, the Indians give my leash a twitch and the needles jab my throat.”

  The boys laughed, pantomiming a hard jerk on the cord, and Mercy said, “You’re all just as mean as you ever were!”

  “And alive,” said Sam. When they hugged once more, she felt a tremor in him, deep and horrified, but under control.

  AGAIN SHE WAS toward the end of the line.

  The pace was hard. They were heading northeast, with the goal, she assumed, of reaching the Connecticut River. It would be frozen solid, an actual road through the wilderness, but first they had to get there.

  It was one thing to follow a well-worn cow path over a hill stripped of its trees. It was another thing entirely to cut through the forest. Beneath the snow, like snares for rabbits or pits for deer, were the crevices and jags of the earth. Cliffs tumbled to the side. Fallen trees from ancient storms were like jumbled masts of ships thrown in the path. Tangled vine and briar grabbed legs and snapped against faces.

  The men who had refused to exchange their boots for Indian moccasins had to stop and wring the blood out of their stockings.

  As the day wore on, and Daniel fell, and Mercy fell, and Ruth fell, and Jemima fell, and Eben fell; as each time they were slower to get up and saw yet another mountain ahead and understood that they were not going around, they were going over—well, Mercy did not know how long they could continue.

  She was often overtaken by Indians coming up from the rear. Except for Tannhahorens, Mercy could not yet tell one from another. Were these the same two or three, circling and checking? Or Indians just now coming from the battle site? Or—more likely—returning from hunting the escaped prisoner?

  Mercy found herself checking scalps. Joe Alexander’s hair was curly and brown, pulled into a tail which itself curled and flopped. She found herself thinking, No, that one’s too blond; that one’s too short. By nightfall, horrifying as this pastime might be, she knew that nobody had caught Joe. He had gotten home.

  Such as it was.

  Mercy put one foot ahead of the other and refused to think of Deerfield.

  Sarah Hoyt had been given some moose jerky by her Indian and she passed chunks to the other children, who chewed as they walked. It was as hard and dry as a shingle on a roof.

  Sarah’s Indian had divided his loot, carrying his share tied in English blankets but putting Sarah’s share inside an Indian leather sack. The forehead strap that attached Sarah’s burden was embroidered with glittering glass beads. Every time Mercy looked at Sarah’s headband, she wondered whose fingers had made that. Whose needle; whose design?

  She always thought of Indians as being men; warriors. But the strap was proof that there were also Indian women. Women who loved beauty; who spent time on embroidery as once Mercy’s mother had spent time on ruffles.

  “Does it hurt to carry things by your forehead?” she asked Sarah.

  “No. It’s heavy, but it rides well. At least so far. By dinnertime, it’ll probably bother me.” Sarah was laughing. “If we have dinner. If we don’t, I’ll really be bothered.”

  Hairpins and bonnets had not been in Sarah’s mind when she was yanked from her bed, so her beautiful auburn hair was not fastened up and hidden but streaming in the wind. Mercy marveled that nobody had scalped Sarah. Didn’t the savages see that coppery red hair and want it?

  Perhaps they did not scalp because of hair color. How did they make their decisions? How did they decide who deserved life and who did not?

  “How can you laugh about anything, Sarah?” said Jemima. She wiped tears away and sniffled heavily. “I hate this! I hate everybody. I’m not doing it.”

  “Then you’ll be dead,” said Mercy. She could not be patient with Jemima. They all carried burdens, in their hearts or in their arms.

  “Jemima,” said Sarah, more gently, “did you not listen to Mr. Williams? We have to survive for each other and for the Lord. It is our duty.”

  Jemima kept crying.

  Mercy with Daniel and Sarah with her pack put their minds on their feet and walked faster. Behind them straggled Ruth, wheezing and c
arrying nothing; Eben, carrying everything; Eliza, barely carrying herself; halfblind Joanna, whose pack had been taken back by her Indian after Ruth threw it and who now carried only a fur rug draped over her shoulders, which made her probably the warmest prisoner on the march.

  Jemima carried her pack in her arms, sobbing into it.

  Joseph Kellogg, Joanna’s brother, had three toddlers literally in tow, each child holding to a rope he’d wound around his wrist. It had been his plan that they would stumble less if they kept a grip on the rope. But to such little children it was a game. They skidded along, letting Joseph pull.

  “Go, horsie!” cried Waitstill Warner. She was a pretty little girl; cold but not aware of it; hungry, but forgetful of that too. Daniel wanted to get down so he could be hauled on the rope like his cousin Waitstill.

  “They’re having fun,” Jemima accused. “It’s wrong of Joseph to be making sport. Their mothers are dead.”

  “Jemima, Joseph is keeping them from crying,” said Sarah. “They don’t know how awful this is. They’re having an adventure.”

  But Jemima would not be comforted.

  “Here,” said Mercy, “have some jerky. You’ll feel better.” She didn’t really want to give it to Jemima. Jemima was perfectly sturdy. Anybody could fast for a day or two.

  “I will not feel better,” wept Jemima. “I want to go home. I want my mother.”

  There were plenty of mothers on the march, but not Jemima’s. Jemima was one of the stranded children. No father or mother, no brother or sister. Whatever had happened to their families, nobody had seen it or nobody wanted to talk about it.

  “I will be your mother,” said Mercy, who was exactly the same age as Jemima. She had, however, been mother to her brothers for three years. “Now hush, Jem. We must not fall behind.”

  And then a creek, so fast-flowing that even in this wicked cold it had not frozen. The Indians stood in ice water up to their thighs, handing the small children across, but the adults had to wade. Wet clothing froze to the body. In this wind, at this temperature, that could spell death. Should you fall in and get entirely wet, could you even get back on your feet in the force of that current? Would not your heart stop and your lungs fill?

  The adults dithered fearfully along the ice-rimmed rocks.

  Lord, thought Mercy, wishing for solid English shoes instead of Indian slippers, I have to get myself over, I can’t let Daniel fall in; Ruth needs help, she hasn’t thrown anything today because she’s so tired she can hardly put one foot in front of another. Joanna can’t see and Eliza is still only half here.

  When her turn came, however, the Indians lifted Daniel from her arms and passed him safely to the other side. Mercy took a deep breath, steeling herself to enter the frigid water, but Tannhahorens lifted her as if she weighed nothing and set her ashore, dry and safe. “Thank you, Tannhahorens,” she said.

  They handed Ruth over as well, but Ruth did not thank them. “How could you?” she said to Mercy as the march went on. “How could you thank that man for anything? He killed your family.”

  As THE DAY WORE ON, Mercy ceased to worry about Eliza, who seemed able to walk steadily even if she had lost speech and hearing. She ceased to worry about Jemima, who was just going to cry forever. Instead she began to worry about Eben. It was not the pack on his back that was hurting Eben.

  Sarah Hoyt, who was Eben’s age, tried to comfort him. “Eben, do not despair.” She talked softly, to avoid Ruth’s notice. Ruth was not a comforting person.

  Eben shrugged.

  “We will get there,” said Sarah. “Wherever it is, whatever it is, we will stay together and we will get there in the Lord.”

  “No,” said Eben. “I have sinned.”

  They had all sinned and they were all paying for it. A mile later, Sarah said, “Tell me the sin.”

  “Pride. I was so proud of myself for saving my little sisters.”

  Eben’s little sisters were beautiful. Mercy adored them.

  Molly and Mary and Hittie hadn’t left their house in months. Englishmen were not hunters. If they accidentally found deer or turkey, of course they shot it for dinner—or tried—but they were farmers, not sharpshooters. Indians, however, could hit anything, far away or close up. Mistress Nims was not about to let them pick off her daughters.

  Mercy’s restrictions had never been that harsh. Inside the stockade, at least she had been able to go from house to house, from barn to woodpile, and to meeting on Sunday.

  Patiently, obediently, the little Nims girls stayed in, week after week. Too little to weave, because they couldn’t manage the loom, they could knit and they could sew. They were the only girls in Deerfield ever to stitch samplers. Nobody else had the time to do it or the mother to insist.

  “What happened, Eben?” said Sarah.

  “When I woke up, the attack had begun. My mother was downstairs screaming that the Indians were at the window. I put the girls in the cellar to keep them safe,” he said to Sarah and Mercy. “But the Indians fired our house. My sisters burned alive.”

  “Oh, Eben,” whispered Sarah. She took his hand and they walked on together. “You did not set the fire. Do not hold yourself guilty.”

  Poor Eben! thought Mercy. No wonder he believed the Indians when they threatened burning us alive. It happened to his sisters.

  Mercy prayed that smoke had taken Molly and Mary and Hittie; that they never felt fire. The story affected her feet; she could not seem to walk as fast, nor find the energy to care.

  “I want to go home,” said Jemima. “How many days of this? I can’t do it.”

  Mercy drew a deep breath. “Jemima, stop crying. They hate it when you cry. And we don’t know how long it will take. But Sarah’s right. We can do it.”

  Jemima stood staring blankly at a horizon endlessly replacing itself with more hills and more wilderness. She had been crying for hours now and had given up wiping her nose. Her hair had gathered in filthy hanks and she stumbled blindly like Joanna.

  They came to a snowy hillside as steep as a tilted plate, down which a hundred people had already slid or fallen. Older children slid down on their stomachs or backs. Eben wriggled out of his pack and gave it a shove downhill. It made a channel in the snow. Joseph’s three toddlers let go of the rope and whooshed down, giggling.

  “I’m a sled, I’m a sled!” shouted Daniel, tumbling down the hill and bumping into Sarah Hoyt’s ankles. Sarah fell over and a dozen children piled on top of each other, laughing, and had to be sorted out and turned upright by Indians.

  “Come, Eliza,” said Eben, reaching for her hand, but she neither heard nor saw, so he put his arm around her waist and the two of them skidded down together. At the bottom, several boys started a snowball fight. Eben made snowballs for each side, handing them out as fast as they could be thrown.

  “I can’t go on,” said Jemima dully. She let go of her pack.

  Mercy forced herself to take Jemima’s hand and pull her on. “You have to try, Jemmie. They will tomahawk you if you don’t.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Of course you care.” Mercy picked up Jemima’s pack. She could carry it in her arms, it wasn’t that heavy. She’d still be able to lift Daniel when she got down to him. “I’ll carry this for you, Jemmie. You carry yourself.”

  But Jemima did not move.

  Mercy linked her arm through Jemima’s to haul her forward, but Jemima would not or could not go.

  They were the very last English at the top of the hill.

  It was suddenly terrifying and eerie: children playing at the bottom as if this were recess from school; parents far off, on their leashes; and Mercy and Jemima, left behind.

  Jemima’s Indian appeared at their side.

  He had been one of the braves carrying a wounded warrior, but his warrior had died that morning. All day he had walked apart, paying no heed to Jemima that Mercy had seen. He continued to carry the body. Mercy did not know if he planned to take it home to Canada to bury or if he could
not yet bear to part with it.

  Now, quite gently, he separated the two girls, taking Jemima’s pack away from Mercy. “Carry boy,” he said to Mercy, pointing down the hill at Daniel. “Go.”

  Mercy met the Indian’s eyes. They both knew Jemima had told the truth. Jemima could not go on. And if everybody walked north and left her behind, what would happen? Jemima would be meat for predators.

  So when the Indian said again, “Go,” Mercy skidded down the hill, but she could not miss the cracking thud of stone against bone.

  The tremor that had destroyed Jemima, partly destroyed Uncle Nathaniel and was quivering inside her brother Sam invaded Mercy’s heart.

  I will be brave, she told herself. I will stay strong.

  Lord, Lord, Lord, she said to Him. She had never needed Him more, but in this cold white wilderness, she could not feel His presence.

  The snowball fights ended.

  The sledding stopped.

  The march went on. Nobody could help Mercy. Everybody had their own trembling legs and hearts to deal with.

  Tannhahorens appeared by her side. He had covered his ears and shaved head with a great scarlet muff of a hat. In his long blue coat, he was astonishing, like something out of a Bible story. With mittened hands, he lifted Daniel from Mercy’s back, giving the little boy another bite of hard bread and setting him on his shoulders to ride high and comfortable, the way Eunice Williams was riding. Then he took Mercy’s hand to keep her from falling as the march went up yet another hill.

  Chapter Four

  The Connecticut River

  March 2, 1704

  Temperature 10 degrees

  Eben saw his sisters’ smiles etched in the snow and their hair in the weeping branches of the willow. Yet he was not the captive possessed by rage. It was Ruth who stomped and fought and spat. When Joanna took the hand of her mother’s killer, Ruth trembled with anger. “I won’t forgive Joanna!” Ruth said in Eben’s hearing. “She suffers from blurry eyes and maybe she didn’t see it happen, but she’s been told!”

  Eben said nothing.

  “I can’t forgive Mercy either,” said Ruth. “How could she just walk away and let them kill Jemima?”