The Dumb Shall Sing

by Stephen Lewis

  “Wait here,” he said. “I will just go ahead and inquire.”

  Catherine pulled her arm free from the magistrate’s weak grasp.

  “I can do that as well as you, and it is my place, more than yours.”

  Master Davis turned toward them. He was standing in the morning sun, and sweat had plastered the wisps of his white hair protruding from beneath his skullcap against his cheeks. Catherine tried to read his face, but it wore, as it always did, its ministerial mask so that no matter what the occasion, birth, death, wedding, or funeral, it offered its grave expression stating to the community that God was represented in the person of the minister. It was the look he had had on his face when he sheltered the soldier’s musket from the rain, and it had softened only for a moment then when he had let the rain splash against his flesh, and for that brief second, Catherine recalled now, he had almost seemed like an ordinary man. His customary expression, though, announced that human grief or joy were both but misunderstandings of God’s purpose, which was to be accepted on faith as right, no matter what the circumstance. The minister nodded at Catherine and then turned back to Josiah.

  “Remember,” he said, “‘For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth,’ Hebrews, 12:6. He shows His love most when he afflicts us most harshly.”

  Woolsey caught up to Catherine.

  “How goes it with your wife, Josiah?” he asked.

  Catherine steeled herself for the answer.

  “As Master Davis says, the Lord’s will be done.”

  “We have prayed over her all night,” Master Davis said. “And we will continue so.”

  Catherine let her breath out and sighed.

  “I must go in to her,” she said.

  “Do you intend to help us pray Mistress?” Master Davis asked. He placed himself between Catherine and the door.”

  “Did not our Lord send his disciples to heal the sick?”

  “Are you then a disciple?” the minister asked.

  Catherine pressed close to him, so that their bodies almost touched. She stared hard into his eyes until he turned away and withdrew just enough to let her pass into the house.

  She stopped in the doorway and turned back to him.

  “You do remember what happened when Pharaoh ordered Shiprah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives to kill the sons of the Hebrew women?”

  Minister Davis did not respond. Some expression behind his mask struggled to emerge, but Catherine was not sure when it was one of anger or embarrassment.

  “The midwives feared God more than the Pharaoh, and so they did not do as they had been commanded; ‘Therefore God dealt well with the midwives,’ Genesis 1:20. I do God’s work,” she said, and walked into the house.

  “You will not find a baby Moses inside, I warrant,” Minister Davis called after her.

  Catherine did find the infant girl sleeping in the cradle at the foot of Mercy’s bed. Sarah rocked the cradle with the toe of her foot while her eyes remained fixed on the uneven movements of her mother’s chest. Catherine squeezed the child’s arm and then sat down on the bed. Mercy’s complexion was still frighteningly pale, but her breathing was easy. Catherine ran her hands over Mercy’s forehead, which felt cool, and then under her shift over her belly and onto the comfrey poultice, which was still in place from last night.

  “Will my mother live?” Sarah asked.

  “She is a strong woman,” Catherine replied. “I have every hope for her.”

  “Master Davis prayed all night,” Sarah said, “and I have been praying too, except for the few minutes that I fell asleep. I tried so hard to stay awake so I could keep praying.”

  “I am sure God hears you,” Catherine replied. She took a small vial out of her pocket. “Give your mother as much of this as she can swallow at once,” she said.

  “What is that?” Minister Davis’s deep voice filled the room.

  “Just a syrup of licorice root.”

  The minister opened the large Bible he had been carrying and leafed through the pages until he found the psalm he wanted.

  “God is our refuge and our strength,” he intoned, and Catherine found her lips shaping the words along with him. Sarah repeated, too, but a half beat behind, her face contorted in concentration. Minister Davis looked up at her, and then slowed down so she would be able to follow more easily.

  Catherine bowed her head, eyes closed, until she could no longer hear his mellifluous tones. She held Mercy’s hand and let her thoughts find their own path to her God, to thank Him for Mercy’s life. After a while, she heard the covers of the great Bible shut, but she continued her private meditation while the minister walked out of the room.

  * * * *

  Massaquoit had sensed the presence of somebody outside of his wigwam, and so he had sat still. He felt vulnerable without a weapon, and he tensed for a charge against the intruder. Then the stale smell of an old man’s perspiration wafted to his nostrils, and he relaxed a little. Even unarmed, he was not afraid of an ancient white man. The smell weakened after a few moments, and then he heard the slow dragging of the man’s shoes in the dirt as he walked without completely lifting his feet off the ground toward the house. He heard the knock of the cane against the door, and then Catherine’s voice followed by one he recognized as belonging to the white man who had been on the ship, and who had also introduced him to Wequashcook. Still, although he believed the man meant him no harm, he waited until they left.

  When he was sure they were gone, he crawled out of his wigwam. The house was quiet, but a rhythmical thudding came from the garden where he saw Edward bringing a hoe down between the young stalks of corn. He walked over and watched. Edward glanced up when he felt Massaquoit’s eyes, and his fingers tightened around the shaft of the hoe, but he said nothing.

  “Your mistress says that I should help you,” he said.

  “I did not hear her say such a thing,” Edward replied, and then he brought the hoe down with unexpected vigor. He grunted as the hoe dug into the dirt now a foot from Massaquoit’s feet. Massaquoit understood the gesture and stepped back.

  “Yet, that is what she says.”

  “I need no help.”

  Massaquoit knelt down next to a cornstalk. Its green color was tinged with yellow, and he judged that by this time of the summer it should have been both more vibrant and maybe twice as high.

  “Next time you plant, you should bury dead fish in the hole with the seed.”

  Edward now looked up and stared at Massaquoit, his faced beaded with sweat. He swiped at the perspiration gathered in the corner of his eye.

  “And then I suppose I should drop a fishing line in the ocean and catch a loaf of corn bread.” He did not wait for Massaquoit to answer. Instead, he swung around, the hoe on his shoulder, and walked to the far end of the row of corn, muttering and snickering beneath his breath. Once he was as distant from Massaquoit as he could be, while yet remaining in the garden, he resumed his attack on the weeds, bringing his hoe down with renewed energy, as if to forestall any possibility of continuing the unwanted conversation.

  Massaquoit returned to his wigwam and squatted in the entranceway. He peered in and saw the pile of English clothes lying where he had discarded them in the far corner. The sun beat down on his back and felt good. The English clothes made him sweat without exposing his flesh to the sun. And his sweat pooled in creases of his flesh beneath the heavy cloth. He had decided that he would wear these clothes only when he had to, and today was not one of those times. Edward certainly did not care, and he was going into the woods where he did not expect to meet any other English, for he had a very different kind of appointment to keep.

  Half an hour later he sat on an overturned log in a clump of birch and pine trees on the edge of the beach where he had landed in Catherine’s custody just a few days before. He had taken note of this clump of trees at that time, as a place where he might be able to have a private conversation not far from where his comrade’s spirits still hov
ered above the waters where they had drowned. He wanted them to know that he had not forgotten them, and that he would figure out a way to take vengeance. He listened to the waves roil and swirl against the rocks that lined the shore, and he felt the breeze lift the perspiration from his flesh. He knew that the man he had come to meet was watching him from behind a pine tree not twenty feet away. He nodded in that direction.

  Wequashcook emerged from behind the tree and sat down on the far end of the log. He was dressed in doublet, breeches, and hose, as he had been the day of the service. His forehead glistened beneath the heavy beaver hat. He removed the hat and placed it on the ground between his feet. He ran his hand over the crown of his head, where the flesh was still raw from its imperfect healing.

  “Not so long ago,” he said, “when I put my fingers to this place on my head, they touched bone.”

  “Yes, and that is because my tomahawk lifted the skin off there. And that you are sitting here today, feeling your wound, is only because my hand respected your kinship with my wife, even though that reason alone should have driven my blade down through your head without stopping until it cut out your heart.”

  “I did not know the English would do what they did.”

  “Even if I believe that, you should not have trusted them when your brother’s daughter and her son were sleeping in that fort.”

  “I did not know they were there.”

  “For a man who prides himself on his wisdom, you seem to know very little.”

  Wequashcook shrugged, the color full in his cheeks, either from the sun or the memory of his betrayal.

  “But I speak the truth, if I did not know it at the time.”

  Massaquoit permitted himself a bitter little chortle.

  “It does not matter now. I am glad that I did not kill you. You can be of some use to me.”

  “Do you want me to explain the English god to you?” Wequashcook asked, with just the trace of a grin on his thin lips.

  “I want you to get me a boat, one sturdy enough to sail across the waters to the land they call the fish island.”

  “And where am I supposed to find this canoe?”

  Massaquoit stood up. He towered over the older man.

  “I will want it hidden here, in these trees. Do not take long. No more than, what do the English say? A fortnight at most.”

  Wequashcook reached down and picked up his beaver hat. He balanced it on his knee.

  “You are right to use the English words, because I am now English.”

  Massaquoit seized his wrist and held his hand up next to his own.

  “You do not have English skin, any more than I do.”

  Wequashcook pointed to his forehead with his free hand.

  “No, but I am English here. And if you will be wise, you learn to be English in your head as I have.”

  “The English have killed my wife, and my son, and my comrades.”

  “That is why you must become English.”

  Massaquoit threw the other’s hand down.

  “They do not think of you as one of their own. There will come a time when they will remember that you are an Indian, and they will do with you what they have done with all Indians.”

  Wequashcook shrugged.

  “I do not say you are wrong. Only that I do not see a better path.” He stood up and with a sudden motion, he drew a knife from a sheath hidden beneath his doublet. He pressed the blade against Massaquoit’s neck, and then he moved it up to his scalp.

  “The English like to trade. Sometimes they trade trinkets for furs, and sometimes they trade pots and pans, which we cannot make, for our money, our wampum, and then they trade the wampum for furs. And sometimes they are not so interested in animal hair, but the hair that grows on the head of those they think are their enemies.” He pushed the blade of the knife against Massaquoit’s flesh with one hand while with the other he grabbed a handful of hair. “Some day, and I don’t think it will be very long now, the English will pay me for your head.”

  Massaquoit had stood silently, knowing that these words were merely taunts and not preludes to actions. Now he took Wequashcook’s wrist again in his hand and squeezed hard enough to convince the other to drop the knife. He picked it up, tested the blade with his thumb, and then handed it back to Wequashcook.

  “I do not think you would dare betray me a second time.”

  “No,” Wequashcook agreed, “I would not, at least not until you had so betrayed yourself that I would have no choice. I will get you your boat. That, and the wound on my head, will be payment for guiding the English to the fort where your wife and child were killed by them. I freely admit my guilt in that. But it is also true that they lied to me. They said they would surround the fort and request a surrender. I had gone along to negotiate that surrender. I was trying to prevent exactly what happened there.”

  “That is a fine story,” Massaquoit said, but then he remembered how he and his comrades had surrendered on a promise of their lives being spared, and how they had been tossed into the sea one by one. “It may be the English lied to you, as it may be you are lying to me now.”

  Wequashcook shrugged.

  “You must choose who you will believe.”

  “I choose,” Massaquoit said, “to believe nobody.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The meetinghouse was crowded. The building held, it seemed, every man, woman, and child from Newbury, and possibly a number from the neighboring villages. All were there to hear the Irish servant girl accused of murdering the newborn infant of Martha and Henry Jameson.

  A table had been dragged in front of the pulpit, and behind it sat Governor Peters and Magistrate Woolsey. Both of them wore their full, dress ruffs, as if to assert their privilege under the sumptuary laws to wear elaborate clothes forbidden to the lesser citizens. The air hung hot and heavy in the meetinghouse, and both men sweated heavily. Woolsey fanned himself with his fine, leather gloves while the governor just glared through the beads of perspiration that dripped into his eyes. In front of each on the table were paper, ink, and quill to take notes of the testimony presented to them.

  As if by habit, the people of Newbury had seated themselves on the benches in the same way they would have done for Sunday church service. Catherine, therefore, found her accustomed seat in the front row. Woolsey nodded at her, but his brows were furrowed with worry. Catherine had already confided in him her firm belief the girl might be guilty of a number of indiscretions and acts of naiveté, but she was not a murderer. Woolsey’s worried expression told Catherine that he had reason to believe that her guilt had already been established at least in the mind of his colleague, the governor, a man known for his stern temperament and quick, if not always sound, judgment.

  Seated on a bench that had been pulled up close to the magistrates’ table were the Jamesons, Henry, Martha, Ned, and Ann, the oldest daughter who seemed always to be at her mother’s side. Catherine was not surprised to see the adult Jamesons since they were going to accuse Margaret. But sitting next to them was Matthew Drake, and Catherine could only wonder what he might have to say in these proceedings. There was always something in his manner that told Catherine that he could not be trusted, that he could be bought. She could only guess at the nature of the bargain he had made.

  Margaret sat alone on a stool directly in front of the magistrates. She looked steadfastly down at her feet. Catherine heard a barely audible clacking sound. She leaned forward and saw that the girl’s lips were moving in silent prayer as her fingers counted the wooden beads of her rosary. She wanted to tell the girl that this act of Catholic devotion would not sit well with her Puritan accusers, but there was no way to communicate with her just now, and in any case, the girl looked like she needed comfort provided by the beads.

  Governor Davis cleared his throat until Margaret looked up. When she did, he motioned her to stand. Then he looked toward the Jamesons, and Henry Jameson also got to his feet.

  “Margaret Mary Donovan,” he said, pausing be
tween her first and second names, a combination common enough in her native Ireland, but quite exotic in Newbury where single given names, usually Biblical, were much more common, and where “Mary” still recalled “Bloody “ Queen Mary, the bitter persecutor of the Puritans in old England before the more tolerant Elizabeth, and thus was not a name often bestowed on the grandchildren of those Puritans who had suffered under the Catholic queen. “You stand accused of infanticide, of willfully killing the babe, recently born to Henry and Martha Jameson, left in your charge. This proceeding is a hearing to determine whether sufficient evidence can be offered to justify trying you on this charge.” He motioned for her to sit down. “We will first hear the statements of those who accuse you. Then you can answer as you like.”

  Henry offered a quick bow of his head toward the magistrates, and then he raised his arm to point at Margaret.

  “That one was a maid servant in my house these past six months. I bought her time from a settler since gone back to England, who did not find our climate hospitable, and as my Martha was pregnant and I thought to provide her some help I took the chance to take this girl into my house and to trust her with my family. If I had known the blackness of her heart, I would never have done so.”

  “Yes,” the governor interrupted, “but we need to hear the specific act you accuse her of.”

  “Why,” Henry said, “she murdered our babe. That is what I accuse her of doing. And I can tell you all you need to know about that.”

  “Then please do,” Governor Peters said, and he settled back to listen.

  “Why, then, as your honor pleases,” Henry said. “The girl using the black arts of her papist religion killed our babe.”

  The governor’s face tightened in frustration.

  “What exactly did she do?”

  “My wife, newly delivered of the babe was too exhausted to tend to it, and so she left it in the care of the girl, which was right and proper of her to do. And the girl mumbled strange words over the babe.”