by Aaron Galvin
“Wait,” I say to Bishop. “Creek Jumper, look at the marking on his chest.”
Our shaman peers close at the tattoo then converses with the brave.
“He claims the ringed-tail as his manitous,” says Creek Jumper.
Bishop cocks his rifle. “Then he be a tricksome bastard.”
“Perhaps,” I say to him, my gaze turning to our shaman. “But a wise man told me the ringed-tail wears many masks, and I should not mistake them for an evil nature.”
The smile Creek Jumper gives me is small, but there.
I step forward and pat the brave down, feeling for any hidden weapons. Finding none, I move back. “Ciquenackqua, bind this brave and take him to Bishop’s cabin.”
Ciquenackqua addresses my command quickly, and he tugs the bonds tight.
The hostage bravely gives no indication of the pain it serves him.
The look Ciquenackqua gives me upon finishing the task warns he disapproves of my decision. He pushes the hostage toward the cabin and follows after.
“Wait. I will go too,” says Creek Jumper. “I would learn more from this man.”
I think it wise he accompanies Ciquenackqua. Even before they reach the cabin, my friendly rival’s shoulders relax as Creek Jumper’s calming approach works its magic upon him.
“Yer keepin’ him alive then, lass?” Bishop asks.
“Aye.”
“You are a fool, girl,” says Mercy.
“Perhaps,” I say to her. “But you yet live because of it.”
I leave them both, not wishing to hear more doubts of my decision. My feet lead me to the trade post cabin where Andrew and George finish boarding the last of the windows. Inside, I find multiple rifles leaning by the window with shot and powder in easy reach beside them.
I look between the cabins, shielding my eyes from the fading sun’s rays. My brother’s wisdom is not lost upon me as I note the field of timber cleared, granting us easy sight of any who would cross into our domain.
A piercing whistle calls my attention, and the last hammer falls. George drops the tool inside the cabin. He exits to meet me in the yard, leaving Andrew behind to further stock it for war.
“Come back when the hard labor is finished, do you?” George asks.
“Aye. You know me too well.” I point to the cabins. “You think all is prepared?”
“We shall see come the nightfall, if Mercy spoke true,” he says. “How did your ranging fare?”
I look to the woods and Bishop’s cabin, wondering what tales or truths Creek Jumper may coax from the brave I captured.
“They will come,” I say.
“You found traces of them then?”
“Aye,” I say, though I do not mention the scout for fear of George also flying into a rage at my keeping such a hostage alive. “You said this would not be the first time you’ve warded off raiders. Where would you position us?”
“I have thought long on that.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I think it best we keep two to each cabin, allowing both persons inside to fire until the loaded rifles are spent, then one may shoot while the other loads. I built the post in such a way that with enough men, we could protect ourselves in all directions.”
“A sound plan,” I say. “Unless they break through us.”
“Aye,” says George tiredly. “And if we had two to spare in each cabin. I count only seven among us and of those seven my wife is not the best shot, nor Mary either from what she would tell.”
I think back on Mary slipping among the witches, slaying them in their sleep.
“She will make good of herself,” I say. “But keep her with someone of stronger resilience to stay her fear.”
“Aye, Andrew, perhaps,” he says. “I intend to stand with my wife in our home. That leaves you or Ciquenackqua to hold the lone position.”
“No, we can make do with two per cabin. Creek Jumper yet lives.”
George’s face pales. “What say you? He were dead when we pulled him from the horse.”
I shake my head. “His magic runs deep.”
“I pray he bestows it on all our heads then.” George chuckles.
“Aye,” I say. “Let us hope. I would have him and Ciquenackqua take the barn and guard against the shoreline. I will stay with Bishop.”
“You mean that you would keep your hostage close,” says George.
I fight to keep back my grin. “Do not pretend to know me, brother.”
He throws his arm around my neck and pulls me close. “I know that I am fearsome hungry, little sister. If I die this night, it will not be on an empty stomach. Come.” George pulls me toward his cabin. “Let us go and eat. Night falls upon us.”
I glance back to the trade cabin.
Andrew sits atop a keg barrel, his rifle in hand, eyes searching out the boarded window.
“I will be along,” I say to George.
My brother’s face sours at seeing my watch of Andrew. “Let him be alone with his demons, Rebecca,” he says. “I told him well what his actions cost us. Much as I would like to tell him more of my pain, I think he visits it upon himself twice over. Leave him to it.”
With a heavy heart, I follow George to his cabin. As I cross into his home, the scent of food warns I had been hungrier than first I realized. Hannah paces the floor while Mary sits at the table, ladling soup from her near empty bowl with crumbled remains of browned bread.
Hannah’s bowl sits mostly full, and I think my sister-in-law has aged since last I saw her. Tears stream her cheeks when she looks up and sees me in the door. She leaves the table of a sudden to embrace me in her own kitchen.
“Thank God you are safe, Rebecca,” she says.
“Aye,” I say. “And you.”
“Mary has told me all that befell you in the wilderness,” says Hannah. “How you both came to such an end, I…”
“All will be well again in time, sister,” I say. “We yet live.”
Hannah places her hand gently to my cheek. “Aye. That we do.”
“Come, wife,” says George, placing his arm round her waist. “Let us eat.”
“Aye, husband.” Hannah wipes her tears away, then hurries toward the kettle to ladle George and me steaming bowls of stew.
I sit beside Mary at the table and reach for a hunk of brown bread, tearing an end off for myself. We eat in meager silence and speak naught of the looming threat. The stew burns my tongue, but warms my throat and insides as I swallow.
Several times, George and Hannah cast furtive looks upon one another. My brother finishes his first bowl and leans over to kiss her brow before filling his bowl again.
“Why must it come to this?” Hannah asks, her voice breaking. “Why does God punish us so?”
“Because you welcomed me into your home,” says Mary quietly.
I look up from munching a bit of bread, and find Mary stares into her bowl.
“Trouble has followed me ever since my days in Salem,” she says. “Me fleeing from one place to the next. If I had stayed…stayed but one time and allowed Mercy and the others have their vengeance, then perhaps none of this should have occurred.”
“These witches do not come for you alone, Mary Warren,” I say. “The Mathers have searched for us many years on account of our blood father.”
“Aye,” says Mary, her gaze happening upon my brother. “I-I thought to tell you all when first I saw your face, George.”
“Why?” He asks.
“You look so much like your father,” she says. “In truth, I near thought you a ghost risen from my past to torment me. I warned my husband we should leave, but he would not hear it. Not with the last year’s winter approaching. Forgive me, for it were fear of my husband’s hand that kept me silent then.”
Mary shakes her head, sniffle back her tears.
“And when I spent time among you, learned of your great kindness here in this very kitchen, I…”
Hannah reaches out to take Mary’s hand in hers. “It is all right, Mary.”
“You will make them right tonight, Mary,” I say. “By standing with us.”
“A-aye,” she says. “That I will.”
I smear the last bits of stew upon the remaining bread and swallow it whole, wiping my lips with the back of my hand as I stand.
“You wished to know why the Mathers have hunted you all these years,” says Mary.
I pause and look from her to George, all of us in surprise at her words. “Aye.”
“Their legacy,” she says. “In all my years of serving men, even those of humble origins are concerned with the name they leave behind. All wish the acts they have done will live on. I saw my master John Proctor hang for his when he would not give the lie we asked of him. He cared more for his legacy than his own life. If such a man as he cared for his own name, what do you think men as powerful as the Mathers would do to keep theirs in good standing?”
“I do not understand,” I say.
“Any who defy them are put down,” says Mary. “Aye, even their allies. Look you to Salem and you will see it true. Most who played a part in bringing Salem to its knees paid with their lives. The Putnams are long dead, even their daughter Ann who were one of my Salem sisters. Did you know she asked forgiveness for her part in Salem?”
“No,” I say.
“Aye,” says Mary. “Told all who would listen she believed those we accused were innocent. She died not many years after that confession. I heard others claim her death of strange circumstance, but I know it were at the Mather's bidding. She called the trials into question with her plea and were silenced for it.”
Mary looks up from her bowl. “Oh, she were not alone in being quieted. The same could be said of my other Salem sisters also. They killed Susannah Sheldon not long after the trials ended, aye, and Martha Sprague too, though she changed her name and went into hiding as I did. I knew then they would never stop hunting for me. I, the one who betrayed their cause most.”
“Not the most,” I say. “Our blood father did that.”
“Aye,” says George. “And now I think him all the wiser for it.”
“I do not,” I say. “Sarah often mentioned your god believes men reap what they sow. I say our blood father earned his death.”
“How can you say that?” George asks, his voice cold and hard.
“Because I face truth.”
George rises from the table. “He was our father, Rebecca, whether you like it or no.”
“No,” I say. “A true father keeps his children safe and does naught to bring them harm.”
“Husband,” says Hannah softly, reaching for him.
George pulls his hand away from her. “Then let you speak more truth, sister. These witches hunt Priest for his name also.”
My cheeks redden at his tone.
“The same man you name father brought these witches after him”—George steps closer—“and on Sarah and your village.”
I slap him without thinking then feel his hands upon my shoulders as he lifts me from the ground.
“Stop it, George!” Hannah screams. “Stop it!”
George flings me aside as his wife beats upon his back. He ignores her, glaring at me on the floor. “I will not have you speak ill of our dead father,” he says. “I have tolerated your hate for him all these years, but I will not suffer it any longer.”
Tears sting my eyes at my brother’s words, seeing him in such a state as I have never before seen.
“Like it or no, he gave us life, sister,” says George. “And it were a good one until these witches stole it from us. Let them and that malicious Putnam convince you otherwise, but I knew our father’s heart.” His voice quivers. “Whatever they say of him, he were a good man to us and would dote on you still if not for their scorn.”
I pick myself off the floor.
Mary sits quiet at the table, not daring to look any of us in the eye.
I glance back at George. “Brother, I—”
“Father loved you, Rebecca.” George sputters the words as tears fall naked down his cheeks. “You most of all, though I should have done all I could to please him. I never hated you for it, as Sarah did, but let you speak no more ill of our father, sister, or God save me I will thrash you for it.”
George’s words sting more than any blade I have ever been cut with. Hannah embraces him, and his shoulders tremble at her touch.
Not knowing what to say, I run from their cabin and out to the barn, falling upon the loose straw to weep what tears my body kept back. My mind unlocked and memories flooded of the man I once knew and called Father.
I think of the life before and the old words. The familiar prayers we offered up in times of need. Two words haunt me more than any other, and yet they are the only two I can think to utter now.
“F-forgive me,” I cry to his soul. “Forgive me, Father.”
-16-
I know not how long I lay in the straw, but night surrounds me when I rise. I leave out of the barn and find smoke yet rises from the chimneys of all the cabins. The fire burning in the middle of the yard intrigues me most.
Mercy remains bound to a post near the fire, she seeming asleep.
Ciquenackqua sits near her. His gaze rests on the flames, though he looks back at me as I approach him.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask.
“Bishop needed rest, and I needed peace.”
“As do we all,” I say. “But we must make ready now. None can know the hour when Mercy’s witches or Two Ravens and his men will attack.”
Ciquenackqua nods, though elsewise I gather he has not heard me at all. “You dance well,” he says finally. “Before we left for war, I asked the grandfathers how is it a squaw may dance better than the son of Whistling Hare. Do you bring me their answer now, daughter of Black Pilgrim? That I might know it before I die.”
He looks me full in the face, all his proudness gone.
“I bring no answer,” I say to him.
“I know you saw me in the woods that morning,” he says. “I thought at first you came to mock me.”
“I thought to,” I say in earnest. “But recognized you banished yourself to the woods for such a matter rather than risk mockery.”
“Aye,” he says. “And from my father. Do you come to mock me now?”
“You will hear naught of that sort from me, son of Whistling Hare,” I say, sitting beside him. “Do you think yourself the first to practice the dance, alone? I myself have done so many times.”
He thinks me tricksome, to judge the look on his face.
“Why should you need practice?” he asks. “You dance better than any I have ever seen. Even than your father.”
My words catch on my tongue. I think back on Ciquenackqua’s movements. It strikes me he did not imitate Father, more that he danced in a way to mirror my own.
“It is a woman’s grace she should move better than men,” I say.
“Why?” he asks. “What need does a girl or woman have to make the war dance?”
“The same reason as you,” I say. “I would make my father proud.”
Ciquenackqua’s chin dips. “At least you saw it from him that night. I shall never see it from my own now.”
I glance up to the stars above. “You do not think he looks down on you? Led you to find me in the wilderness that we might come here together?”
“I think he would be ashamed I ran from the battle.”
“I know this may be small comfort,” I say. “But at least he thought you worthy to accompany him.”
Ciquenackqua grins at me, then frowns when he sees the necklace I still wear.
“I remember when Father gave that to me.” He picks up a pebble, rolling it in his hands. “Said that he
crafted a shell every year on the day of my birth. All so he could give it to me when I learned my manitous.” He tosses the pebble into the fire. “Even that did not please him.”
“But you saw the great snapper,” I say.
“No,” he says. “A pair of painted turtles only, one small and the other large. Both crawled from the river, but the larger hid in its shell when a white man approached. The smaller bit the white man and scared him off. Father later asked me tell everyone both turtles were snappers. Slow creatures, but with powerful bites.”
I reach for the ends of the necklace and untie it, rubbing my fingers across the shells a final time before handing it over.
“No,” says Ciquenackqua. “I cannot take it. My father commanded me give it to you that I might learn wisdom. That I should think before I speak and act.”
“You have learned that lesson now,” I say, insisting he take it. “Let you wear it as a reminder. Not of the lesson, but the care and time your father took in carving the shells.”
Ciquenackqua takes the necklace from me. He rolls the shells in his hand, listening to them clack together. “Father said I could learn much from my manitous. See the raised edges on this side of the shell, and the smooth on the other?”
He holds the shells before the fire that I might better know his meaning.
“Father said we men are like this also. Each of us having our sharp and gentle sides.” He grins. “I never understood the sharp in me until I saw him fall at the river. Now my spirit rages in wonder if I should ever feel the gentle side again.”
He dons the necklace and ties it off, his fingers flipping each shell to ensure the smooth sides touch his chest.
“Father told me he often regretted his own nature,” says Ciquenackqua. “That he struggled with acting first and thinking later. He wished me different.”
“And so you are,” I say. “You are the little turtle that bit.”
“No,” he says. “Even when I woke from the dream fast I knew that I were the larger one. The meeker.”
“You are the larger—”
