The Ransom of Mercy Carter Read online

  Jemima’s death already seemed remote. Six more captives had been killed since then. Eben hardly thought about them. To his shame, he thought about his stomach. They had had almost nothing to eat in three days.

  When he was not thinking of his sisters, he was remembering his mother’s hasty pudding, how she would add hot milk and maple sugar. Her baked beans. How she mixed in molasses and chunks of ham to make the most wonderful dinner.

  “And I will not forgive Joseph Kellogg for making a game of it,” said Ruth.

  Eben let Ruth yell. He didn’t mind being yelled at, but the others had lost patience with Ruth.

  The French had used Ruth’s house to shelter their wounded during the battle. Ruth’s mother had stepped across the bodies of her son and husband to nurse the bleeding French soldiers. Eben found this an act of Christian service beyond anything; maybe even beyond Christianity. Who could understand Mistress Catlin, saving the lives of those who had just killed her children? Minutes later, when Ruth was shoved out the front door and into the line of captives, her mother actually waved good-bye in the doorway, the only English settler left behind on purpose.

  “Listen to Sarah Hoyt!” cried Ruth. Her long bony face was twisted with anger and hunger. “She’s actually laughing. I despise her! It dishonors the dead to make friends with their murderers.”

  Eben’s heart broke for Ruth. Was that how she believed her mother had behaved? Dishonoring her dead?

  Ruth stormed over the snow to holler at Sarah, and Eben hoped Sarah would answer gently. But Ruth was caught by her Indian, who did not want the children’s play interrupted. Ruth attempted suicide. She lunged at the Indian, grabbing his knife from his belt.

  Eben ran forward, crying, “No! Ruth! No, she doesn’t mean it!” he shouted to the Indians. “Don’t—”

  But her Indian simply caught Ruth’s wrist in what must have been a painful grip and retrieved his knife.

  Ruth was willing to hate her own as much as she hated the Indians. But the Indians did not accept her hate. They respected her. No matter what Ruth did, they thought more of her. They had even named Ruth, using a special word to call her. (She didn’t come.) “Mahakemo,” they called her, and they enjoyed saying the word. It just made Ruth madder.

  It was amazing that Ruth would survive to kick and scream, she whose lungs had seemingly destined her for an early grave, while many who would be useful to the Indians, who would lift and carry and obey, were killed.

  It came to Eben that the Indians were not deciding who deserved life. They were deciding who deserved captivity. Being the property of an Indian was an honor.

  He just wished they were worthy of being fed.

  THEY MARCHED.

  “Ask your Indian his name,” Mercy said softly to Eben. “They like that.”

  So Eben patted his chest and said, “Eben.” Then he touched his Indian’s arm and said, “Who are you?”

  “Thorakwaneken.”

  Eben said it over and over until Thorakwaneken nodded and Eben supposed he had the pronunciation right.

  Mercy pointed to a squirrel sitting on a branch. “Thorakwaneken,” she said, “what is that?”

  “Arosen.”

  “Arosen,” repeated Mercy, and Eben echoed her. Arosen. Squirrel.

  Eben would rather have had that knife pierce his chest and kill him than live to acquire an Indian vocabulary, but it was something to do and it kept Mercy cheerful. Eben did not much care if he lived, but he could not bear the thought of one more girl dying.

  By nightfall, Eben and Mercy possessed a vocabulary of twenty-one words. They knew redbird, sky, rock, spruce, knife and the difference between wood and woods. They knew fire and foot and hand. So when Thorakwaneken took Eben’s pack, gave him a light shove toward the forest and said in Mohawk, “Firewood,” Eben realized he was being sent to gather kindling.

  For the first time on the march, the Indians were going to permit a fire. The prisoners would be warm and have hot food.

  “Go,” said Thorakwaneken in English, and then in his own tongue.

  Never had Eben been given an order he was so glad to obey. Moments later Joseph Kellogg was thrashing through the snow after him, breaking up fallen limbs and snapping off dead branches.

  Eben envied Joseph, whose older brother, father and two sisters were on this march. How lucky Joseph was that his family had been largely spared. Of course, Joseph had not been allowed near his father or brother, his sister Rebecca was kept entirely separate by her Indian, and Joanna, whose eyesight was so bad, he was not allowed to help either. Still. Joseph did not have to imagine their final hour.

  “Fire!” sang Joseph. “We’re going to get warm!”

  “We’ll dry out our moccasins,” agreed Eben, “and our pants and our blankets. We can warm our feet by the fire all night long.”

  “Do you think there will be food?” asked Joseph.

  “No,” said Eben. The French soldiers were gone, having moved ahead, fallen behind or taken another route. That still left three hundred to feed, and no Indian had gone hunting; they were too busy pushing their captives and carrying their wounded.

  Eben chose a long heavy forked branch on which to stack his firewood and dragged the burden back to the camp, where he found much rejoicing. The Indians, it seemed, had paused here on their journey south from Canada to go hunting before the battle. Under the snow were stored the carcasses of twenty moose.

  Twenty! Eben had to count them himself before he could believe it, and even then, he could not believe it.

  Eben was no hunter. If he’d gotten one moose, it would have been pure luck. But for this war party to have killed twenty, dragged every huge carcass here so there would be feasting on the journey home—Eben was filled with respect as much as hunger.

  The Indians made several bonfires and built spits to cook entire haunches. They chopped the frozen moose meat, and Thorakwaneken and Tannhahorens sharpened dozens of thin sticks and shoved small cubes of moose meat onto these skewers. The women and children were each handed a stick to cook.

  The men were kept under watch, but at last their hands were freed and they too were allowed to eat.

  The prisoners were too hungry to wait for the meat to cook through and wolfed it down half raw. They ripped off strips for the littlest ones, who ate like baby birds: open mouths turned up, bolting one morsel, calling loudly for the next.

  When the captives had eaten until their stomachs ached, they dried stockings and moccasins and turned themselves in front of the flames, warming each side, while the Indians not on watch gathered around the largest bonfire, squatting to smoke their pipes and talk. The smell of their tobacco was rich and comforting. The wounded were put closest to the warmth, and hurt English found themselves sharing flames with hurt Mohawk and Abenaki and Huron.

  One of the Sheldon boys had frozen his toes. His Indian came over to look but shook his head. There was nothing to be done. Ebenezer Sheldon could limp to Canada or give up. “Guess I’ll limp,” said Ebenezer, grinning.

  Thorakwaneken had taken four scalps. Nobody wanted to watch, but nobody could look away. With the flat of his knife, he scraped off the flesh from the underside until he had just skin and hair. He poked a row of holes along the edges of the skin. As calmly and carefully as Mercy would stitch a hem, he stretched the scalp and stitched it, loop by loop, to a hoop of willow wand. It looked as if someone had painted in a spider’s web and hung a horse tail from it.

  Every captive knew whose scalp had just been stretched but it seemed impossible; how could the farmer who had worn his brown hair long and tied in a double knot be part of the strange thing Thorakwaneken had just created?

  The relief of warmth and food made the captives talkative. Until now the Indians had permitted little speech, but tonight their anxiety seemed gone. Mercy asked Tannhahorens if she and Sarah could sit with Eben and he nodded.

  “You asked him in Indian!” said Sarah. “How did you learn?”

  “I’ve learned some too
,” said Eben. “I like having something to think about besides—” He stopped. The golden yellow of the firelight looked like his sisters’ hair.

  “You did your best, Eben,” Sarah said, and for a moment Eben thought Sarah was going to kiss him, but her kiss landed on the wind-chapped cheeks of sleeping Daniel, cuddled for the moment in her arms instead of Mercy’s. They sat watching as the Indians bundled small children in layers of blankets and tucked them in a row, close to the fires.

  “My theory,” said Eben, “is that being a captive is an honor for the strong and the uncomplaining.”

  Sarah and Mercy considered this.

  “Then why is Ruth alive? She complains all day long,” said Sarah.

  “But she isn’t sobbing,” Mercy pointed out, “and she isn’t actually complaining. She’s calling them names. She attacked her own Indian this afternoon, did you see? She was going to stab him with his own knife.”

  They giggled. It was scary to watch Ruth, and impossible not to. Instead of a blow to the head, though, Ruth was usually given food. It wasn’t a method anybody else wanted to try.

  “But Eliza doesn’t fit your theory, Eben,” said Mercy. “She hasn’t spoken since they killed Andrew. If you let go her arm, she stops walking. Yet they’re patient with her.”

  “I admit Eliza isn’t brave,” said Eben. “She’s in a stupor. Maybe they respect her for caring about her husband so deeply.”

  Mercy had never liked thinking about Eliza marrying an Indian. But what was her own future now? Would she, would Sarah, would Ruth, end up marrying an Indian?

  The image of Ruth Catlin agreeing to obey an Indian as her lawfully wedded husband made Mercy laugh.

  “And they let Sally Burt live,” Sarah went on, “and she’s about to give birth right on the trail. They’re letting her husband walk with her, and he’s the only one they let do that.”

  Sally’s courage was inspiring. Eight months pregnant, big as a horse, and she bounded along like a twelve-year-old boy. She had even taken part in the snowball fight. “I’m having this baby,” she had said when Mercy complimented her. “It’s my first baby, I know it’s going to be a boy, I know he’ll be strong and healthy, and I know I will be a good mother. That’s that.”

  In Mercy’s opinion, Sally Burt was holding her husband up and not the other way around. If she could be half as brave as Sally Burt, she would be satisfied.

  At the crunch of footsteps they looked up, and then they stopped talking. Ruth was dangerous, not because of her habit of throwing things, but because every word she spoke was upsetting. They had begun to see that part of survival was staying calm, and Ruth could not be calm. Even the way she sat down next to them, flouncing her skirt and whipping her cloak, was angry.

  Nobody asked what she was angry about now. She probably felt they shouldn’t have eaten Indian meat.

  Sarah chewed thoughtfully on the end of her skewer until she had shredded the wood like a tiny broom. Then she poked it in the snow and drew aimless patterns. “Suppose we do live. Suppose we do get to Canada. Then what?”

  “I think we’ll be slaves to the French,” said Eben.

  “The French are Catholic,” said Ruth. “It’s probably better to be dead.”

  “Then slaves to the Indians,” he said, shrugging. “I’m already a slave to Thorakwaneken. I fetch his wood and cook his meat.”

  Sarah shook her head. “You’re not going to be a slave, Eben. Your Indian likes talking to you. I think he may adopt you.”

  “That is disgusting!” said Ruth. “Adopted by a savage? Can you imagine living like this forever? Eating like animals, sleeping in snow caves, sharing your fire with your father’s killer? We must pray for ransom.” Ruth took her position as oldest and wisest. “Eben, never speak another syllable in that savage language. You and Mercy should be ashamed. How many dead did we leave in Deerfield? And you bounce alongside their murderers, saying, ‘Tell me the word for “squirrel.” ’ ”

  Eben hung his head. Mercy’s cheeks stained red.

  “Ransom,” said Ruth. “That is the word you must cherish. An English word and an English hope.”

  Sometimes the governor of Massachusetts was allowed to pay the French to get a captive back. It took months or even years, with negotiators traveling back and forth, bearing gifts or making threats. Because of the war, Boston jails were full of French prisoners and sometimes those men were exchanged.

  But it puzzled Eben that the Indians would make such an effort. Why walk all the way from Canada to Deerfield in this terrible season, suffer hunger, lose brothers, take the immense trouble to carry a hundred captives back to Montréal—just to sell them home again?

  He decided not to say that he thought ransom was unlikely.

  “Oh, stop it, Ruth!” said Mercy, outraged. “You are the one who is selfish. The Indians saw Eben kill one of their warriors. You remember the killing you saw. Well, they remember the killing they saw. Did you think the Indians were joking when they said they would burn somebody alive? Do you think they will pick somebody on a whim? They will choose Eben. Thorakwaneken must come to like Eben and we must help that happen. Eben must have allies, not more enemies.”

  Ruth’s stabbing finger dropped to her lap.

  Whether or not anybody was burned, the men still faced suffering: the gauntlet, a quicker form of torture in which a captive ran between two lines of Indians who clubbed and beat him. Anybody in the Indian village who had not gone to war participated in the gauntlet. It was their job to hit hard enough to avenge the dead. A captive might reach the end of the gauntlet and he might not. The Indians didn’t care.

  Eben wondered about his courage. Could he stay on his feet and endure the blows? Or would he be another Jemima and give up?

  IN THE MORNING, they divided what was left of the meat—not much—and marched another mile. Every step, they could hear wolves howling, and Eben was afraid and also surprised. Wolves did not normally gather in packs as large as this must be. Nor did they usually howl so much by day.

  The English bunched together, keeping close to the Indians. The Indians were armed, but would they protect their captives from wolves or just laugh if stragglers fell?

  The mothers who were still alive (ten killed so far on the trail, by Eben’s count, never mind the ones killed in Deerfield) were uniformly exhausted. They were used to labor every day of their lives. But they were not used to marching, and almost all had had babies recently. They lacked the strength for the grim pace and the Indians lacked interest in helping them.

  If you were near your mother, or anybody else’s mother, you had to be prepared to witness her death, and no one could ever be prepared for that. So the children avoided their mothers. Today, appalled by the new threat of wolves, mothers tried to summon their children, but the children did not come.

  They burst out of thick woods to find what could only be the Connecticut River. Low banks edged a frozen expanse that formed a smooth road north.

  Eben would have loved to farm here. Even hidden by snow, this was beautiful country; it was a sin for this land to lie vacant. God expected men to use their talents, not bury them, and He expected land to be used, not buried beneath trees. Every field of corn, every fence and gate, every ax against a tree: These turned wilderness into England.

  Eben plotted the English town that would rise here, seeing property lines stretching down to the water, choosing the low hill on which a meetinghouse would be built.

  At the river’s edge waited another whole band of Indians, surrounded by yapping dogs and empty sledges. It had not been wolves howling at all, but sled dogs.

  It was as amazing as the twenty frozen moose. The planning that had gone into this journey! Eben felt there must be some strategy here; some background to the attack on Deerfield that he could not yet understand.

  If the attack had been meant to keep the English from taking more wilderness, surely the destruction of Deerfield was enough. But maybe not. Maybe the true horror for Massachusetts would
be lost children. Maybe it was children the Indians wanted.

  But then why bring all these adults?

  Perhaps so the Indians could litter the path with bodies, like words on a page spelling, Get out! Leave our land!

  Then why bother with moccasins and moose meat?

  Had the Indians anticipated riches and wealth? And so the sleds were not for carrying children but for carrying gold and fine guns and silver plate? But nobody in Deerfield was rich. You went to the frontier because you were poor, not because you were rich. Surely the French would have known that.

  “Munnonock,” said Mercy’s Indian.

  Eben did not know the word or any of the syllables in it.

  Mercy frowned, trying to work it out. She shook her head at Tannhahorens.

  He pointed at her. “Munnonock,” he said again. His voice lingered on the m’s and n’s, humming like a bee, and then, hand on his chest, he repeated his name, “Tannhahorens,” and pointed at Mercy. “Munnonock.”

  Mercy had been given an Indian name.

  Eben shivered. Names had power. It occurred to him that the real name of this eleven-year-old had a terrible power: Mercy. The Indians might show mercy to her and she, in turn, might show mercy to them.

  Ruth said sharply, “Do not answer. You are English. Your name is Mercy Carter. Scorn him.”

  “Ruth, that isn’t fair,” said Sarah. “Tannhahorens owns her. She has to do as he says. Mercy, ignore Ruth.”

  Mercy had not even heard Ruth. She heard only the syllables meant to drag her, or tempt her, into another language and another life.

  Munnonock.

  EACH INDIAN SLED was made of curved wood, like a shallow, flat-bottomed spoon. Along the upper rims were lacing thongs. Strung out in front of the sleds were the eager straining teams of dogs.

  For the most part, the wounded had died or were now walking on their own. Only a few had to be wrapped in furs and placed on sleds. The heaviest plunder was repacked and tied in with them: brass pots, iron pans, carpenters’ tools and fine long guns.

  The Indians decked a sled with their own furs and the stolen quilts of the English, and into the sled they tucked Eunice Williams, who was seven, a beautiful child with black hair and eyes and very rosy cheeks, and two golden-haired three-year-olds: Waitstill Warner and her cousin, Mercy’s Daniel. Eunice was in charge and she had a wonderful time. They played I See This! and they played Count the Trees.