The Blind in Darkness

by Stephen Lewis

  Were he looking at the harbor today, however, as Catherine and Woolsey struggled through the drifts toward his house, he would see only one ship, the one that recently brought Thomas and Frank Mapleton from Barbados, its hold long emptied, the hull held in the embrace of several inches of solid ice as Newbury endured the worst winter in the young colony’s history. Catherine glanced at the ship.

  “The Helmsford is not leaving this harbor anytime soon, and I imagine it is an unhappy sight to greet Samuel Worthington’s eyes every morning, his ship useless to him until the spring.”

  “No doubt,” Woolsey replied, “and do you not your self await The Good Hope?”

  “I expect it has found mooring in warmer waters.”

  “That young man’s sister is on board, is she not?”

  “She may be.”

  “May the Lord help us find her brother beforetime, and well.” Woolsey said.

  Catherine ducked into a gust of wind, but nodded at her old friend’s piety, which she shared to an extent, but she also felt that the Lord’s hand was not going to guide the search for Thomas so much as young Nathaniel Worthington.

  Master Worthington was not looking either at his ice bound ship, or at his arriving guests, whom he had glanced at through his window. Instead, he stared across the room at a savage wearing a beaver hat, standing stoically in front of the pistol aimed at him by Lionel Osprey. Wequashcook’s eyes did not waver in as they focused on the muzzle of the weapon, not three feet from his face, while Osprey moved the pistol in small circles, as though too impatient to use it to hold it still.

  “No, Lionel,” Worthington said. “Mistress Williams and Magistrate Woolsey approach. We do not want to give them further cause to embroil me in trouble.” He looked at Wequashcook, and perhaps she can tell us, given her familiarity with the local savages, whether we can take this one at his word.”

  Osprey lowered his weapon, but kept it at his side.

  “I am not in favor of trusting this one, whether Mistress Williams vouches for him or not. Remember it is your son and his safety we are talking about.”

  Before Worthington could answer, there was a knock on the door, and a couple of moments later, Catherine and Woolsey were ushered into the room by a middle aged servant woman. Woolsey looked from Osprey to Wequashcook and then settled his gaze on Worthington

  “Samuel, what have we here?” he asked.

  “Why, a savage who has come to offer his service leading Nathaniel and his company after the other savages that killed old man Powell and took Thomas into captivity.”

  “You do seem to know a good deal more than anybody else concerning the circumstances of these unfortunate occurrences,” Catherine said.

  “Indeed, Mistress, indeed I do,” the merchant replied. “But to the point. Know you this savage.”

  “Why that is William,” Woolsey said. “He is a praying Indian.”

  “Aye, I’ve seen him at meeting, although I am not at all sure how much he prays,” Worthington said with an edge to his tone. “That is not my question, which is, do you know the man well enough that I may safely trust my son’s safety to his hands.”

  Wequashcook removed his beaver hat.

  “I speak for myself, and this,” he pointed to the scar on his scalp, “speaks for me.”

  “And how is that?” Worthington asked.

  “You seek the man you call Matthew, but who calls himself Massaquoit, do you not?”

  “We do.”

  “It was his hand that did this to me,” Wequashcook replied.

  Worthington looked at Catherine and Woolsey.

  “Know you anything of this?”

  “No,” Catherine replied, “Matthew does not tell me much of his friends. Or his enemies. Nor do I inquire.”

  Worthington paced back and forth for a moment, his brows furrowed.

  “My son is anxious to find his friend Thomas, more for the sake of his betrothed, I believe, than the lad himself, who truth be told, we found to be an unhealthy influence.”

  “If you cannot convince yourself to trust your son to William,” Woolsey said, “no-one would fault you for keeping him home and let others, more used to these matters, pursue Thomas and his captors.”

  “The boy is adamant,” Worthington said.

  “Aye, that he is,” Osprey added, “and we too are very anxious to recover Thomas. Is that not right, Master Worthington?”

  The merchant turned a grim face to his man, and then nodded.

  “For the sake of my son, of course,” he said.

  Wequashcook, who had been standing with his gaze fixed on the space between Worthington and Catherine, now stepped toward the door.

  “If you do not want my services, perhaps you can hire Matthew.” He replaced his beaver hat and offered a quick nod of his head, that could have passed for a bow, if one wanted so to see it.

  “Stay a moment,” Worthington said.

  “I have stayed too long,” Wequashcook said. “But I understand your confusion. You cannot tell one savage from another, William from Matthew. I will watch for your English warriors to start out, and I will be there if you want me to guide.” He strode past Catherine and Woolsey and through the door, shutting it sharply behind him.

  Woolsey glanced at Catherine and she nodded.

  “Samuel I do not want to add to your difficulties at this moment,” he glanced at the closed door, which still held the attention of the merchant who was staring at it through half open eyes as though willing Wequashcook back so he could interrogate him further. “But,” Woolsey continued, “Mistress Williams came to me this morning with a grievous tale about an attack on her house yesternight by men in your employ.”

  “I know of no such attack,” Worthington replied.

  “And were not you not there last night, accompanied by him,” she pointed at Osprey, “with that very same weapon in his hand.”

  “To be sure, we were there, to put an end to the foolishness you had yourself incited.”

  “What business had you with Mistress Williams?” Woolsey asked, directing his question to Osprey.

  “Why, nothing at all, if it please you.”

  “Why came you then to her house in such a threatening guise?”

  “I attended Master Worthington. These are dangerous times.”

  “Feared you Mistress Williams, then?” Woolsey asked, and the question brought a smile to Worthington’s tightly pursed lips.

  “Surely not, even when she pointed that old fowling piece at me. But it was her savage we sought, and her savage that required me being armed, as any man can tell you.”

  “Just so,” Worthington replied.

  “And those lads,” Catherine said, “I suppose they were afraid, too.”

  “For that I cannot answer,” Worthington replied. “I sent them, to be sure, to see if you would be so kind as to inform them where your savage might be found.”

  “Need you send so many?” Catherine asked. “Do they not hear well, or speak well, are they halt or dumb or diseased in their faculties, that so many came on so simple an errand.”

  “I sent only Frank. He will have to answer for his companions.”

  “And his behavior at meeting?” Catherine demanded.

  “Why that, too, if it please you.”

  “It pleases me well,” Woolsey said, “and more if the lad answers to me on the morrow.”

  Worthington shook his head.

  “I intended,” the merchant said, “for him to make answer to me, as it is myself that act as his father, being as I am, his master.”

  Woolsey nodded.

  “So be it, then.”

  The door opened and Nathaniel took a hesitant step into the room.

  “Father,” he said, “I have finished my preparations and spoken with mother.”

  “If you can excuse us,” Worthington said. “The boy leaves at dawn.”

  “We must be content,” Woolsey said.

  He took Catherine’s arm and together they walked ou
t. Once outside, as they bowed their heads again into the cold wind, they saw a solitary figure standing next to a bare tree, his eyes, beneath his huge beaver hat, fixed on the house.

  “Will he lead them, think you?” Woolsey asked.

  “Yes,” Catherine said.

  “And your man?”

  “I do not know, but I believe he will be somewhere close.”

  * * * *

  And the next morning as Wequashcook led the company of English under the command of young Nathaniel Worthington out of Newbury toward old man Powell’s farm, Massaquoit was already there. The dead dog was gone, dragged off as the flattened channel in the snow indicated, by some hungry beast. The hands of old man Powell were also gone. But the tracks he had previously noted of two people heading off into the woods north of the house were still visible, as the snow had stopped falling and a frigid blast of arctic air had hardened the crust of snow, preserving all impressions in it, as though they had been etched in stone.

  He hoped to obscure those tracks as he followed them, for he wanted to catch up to the people who left those prints by himself, and not accompanied by whoever else might be joining the pursuit. However, when he managed to snap off a thick, low hanging branch from a pine, which he intended to use as a sweep to cover the tracks behind him, a few futile passes with the branch soon convinced him that the tracks must remain frozen in place, guiding the steps of whoever found them, and he had no doubt that Wequashcook would find them if he chose to do the job for the English. On that point, Massaquoit did not attempt to predict, for long ago he had abandoned any confidence in deciphering the motives, and therefore the behaviors, of Wequashcook.

  The tracks were easy to follow, and they confirmed his first impressions. Two people had come this way at about the same time. The similar depth of the prints told him that, as they had been made and frozen in place under the same weather conditions. Still, it appeared that the smaller prints were outdistancing the others, and soon he saw why, for the larger tracks suddenly stopped and veered off to the left. The original pursuer, he of the large feet, had concluded that he could not catch the smaller, swifter individual, and had given up, making his way back in a large arc, as though he, too, aware of dead man lying in the house had no enthusiasm for coming close to the body.

  Massaquoit resumed tracking the one who had continued to flee. He breathed in deeply, enjoying the bite of the cold air in his lungs. It had been much too long since he had felt so comfortable with what he was doing. He had found deerskin leggings and a cloak of beaver skins in wigwam in the swamp and had exchanged them for the breeches and jerkin. For a moment, he let himself believe that the English had never set foot on his people’s traditional lands, and that he was again a Pequot sachem, pursuing a stag for its meat, and not a human to solve a mystery only to convince these same English to leave him in peace.

  For a long distance into the woods on a path formed by a declivity between two stands of pine trees, the tracks maintained a constant distance between them, telling Massaquoit that terror had given his human quarry considerable stamina to sustain a full running stride through what must have been the significant resistance of the snow which, at that time, would have been soft enough to permit the deep impressions he was now following. About a half mile into the woods, where the path narrowed to a mere foot and a half between the trees before disappearing where the two stands of pines merged, the distance between the tracks narrowed as the runner finally losing some of his fear, or the energy which it had inspired, slowed to a walk. Then, the tracks gathered by a fallen log where the path ended. Apparently, the boy, for that was who Massaquoit was quite certain he was trailing, had sat down to catch his breath and to gather his thoughts.

  Massaquoit, too, paused at this place, so that he could try to imagine what the English boy was thinking. He was not as used to hunting humans as animals, whose habits were clear. The deer would find the same way to the stream where they drank, or the young trees whose branches they could reach when the snow covered the land. But what was he to think of a terrorized English boy running from the butchery that had just occurred at his master’s house? He did not for a moment believe that the boy had killed the old man. The hole in the old man’s head from a pistol or musket, probably shot at close range, and the botched job of scalping brutality suggested a white man pretending to be an Indian, and as for that, he had a clue, he thought, in his pouch. No, the boy was running from whoever had shot that old man, then opened his head and cut off his hands leaving them for a starving dog to try to eat with teeth too old for the chewing.

  But where would that boy think to run? And then Massaquoit had the beginnings of an answer. The boy must have sought a place to hide when either he could run no longer, or when, sitting on that log, he must have realized the broad and obvious tracks he was leaving behind.

  Massaquoit gazed into the woods, which closed in front of him. There were no obvious signs of continued flight, no tracks or broken branches. It was almost as though, the boy had ascended from the log, and for a moment Massaquoit did gaze up through the trees as though he expected to see the English boy clutching to a high limb. The sun blinking back at him through the uppermost branches told him that it was late morning, and that he had several hours before he would need to find shelter for the night. Still, he kept looking up, for he felt a presence in that direction as though the boy’s spirit were calling to him.

  The path had ended at the log where the line of trees formed a tight arc. He started on the left side of the arc and studied each tree in turn looking for anything that might indicate that the boy had passed by. The snow between these trees was not deep, and in spots the frozen earth was visible. In one such place, he saw a vine seemingly ripped in two as though a foot that had caught in it had broken it in freeing itself. He could not be sure, but there seemed to be a footprint in the earth at that point. He noted this location, but then checked for other signs around the semi-circle of enclosing trees. Finding no better clue, he returned to the broken vine and brought his own foot through it as though he become tangled in it, and then he continued in the direction his step took, deeper into the woods.

  * * * *

  Catherine was not surprised when the young man knocked at her door, and then stood there, concern etched on his face as he tried to explain that his wife had need of her services.

  “Aye, Master Rowland,” she said to him. “I know well your Felicity’s time has come. You have not left her alone?”

  Daniel Rowland shook his head, and in so doing dislodged a chunk of snow that had been clinging to the broad brim of his hat.

  “Goody Blodgett is with her, even now.” The young man stopped, as though too embarrassed to go on.”

  Catherine put her hand on his arm.

  “Your wife’s father’s quarrel is with my dead husband. None of it touches Mistress Worthington and me.”

  He shook his head.

  “Nay, but it does. My wife’s mother will not come to her daughter, and Master Worthington insists that Goody Blodgett tend to her.”

  “And yet you are here.”

  “Felicity speaks only of you. She cannot be content with Goody Blodgett.”

  “Then I must reward her faith,” Catherine said.

  The young man’s face relaxed into a half smile.

  “You are coming then?” he asked.

  “Indeed. And shortly. Fear you not, but haste you back to your wife and tell I follow you.”

  Daniel offered only an embarrassed nod before turning his back and bowing his head against the wind, which was redistributing the top inch or so of newly fallen snow. Catherine closed the door and lifted her midwife’s bag from the peg on which it hung. She probed the bag’s contents, and not finding what she sought, she raised her head with a perplexed expression on her face.

  Phyllis, who already had her heavy cloak on and the birthing stool in her arms, put the stool down in front of her.

  “Well,” she said, “and what do you not have th
at you are sure you will need?”

  “Mistress Rowland is a delicate woman,” Catherine replied. “I tended her leg when she bruised it falling from her bed. That was when she was no more than six or seven years old, when my John and Master Worthington still spoke to each other, at least in the way of business.”

  “A bruised leg you say,” Phyllis murmured as though that ancient hurt explained what was missing from the bag that Catherine still held.

  “Yes,” Catherine continued. “A bruised leg, but it was not a grievous hurt, and yet the child would scarcely sit to let me apply an ointment to relieve her pain.”

  “I see,” Phyllis said, and now her expression brightened as she did understand the connection. “You will be wanting the feathers,” she said.

  “Indeed, I do,” Catherine replied.

  Phyllis took the bag from her mistress and plunged her own, strong fingers into it, withdrawing her hand after a few moments clutching three ragged, gray feathers that had been plucked from a goose John had shot some years ago.

  “Good,” Catherine said, “lay them on top of everything else in the bag, so please you, as I do think we will have immediate need of them.”

  The Rowlands lived in a modest house on a new way that branched off the main street that transversed Newbury Center. The way was exceedingly narrow, no more than ten feet separating the four houses, two on each side, that faced each other across it, and the constant snows of this winter had collected in this passage. An opening wide enough to accommodate one person had been burrowed down the middle of the way, and the snow had been beaten down to varying heights in paths leading to each of the houses, the depth determined by how frequently the residents had chosen to brave their way through the huge drifts. The snow in front of the Blodgett house was hardly packed down at all, as that family had apparently spent a considerable amount of time inside. The footsteps of Goody Blodgett were clearly visible on the surface of the snow that was still at least four feet high in front of her door. Her steps, therefore, had left deep impressions. Leading to the Rowlands’ house, on the other hand, the snow was packed down and solid to a height of only a foot and a half or so, and it bore the muddled traces of many feet, evidence of the activity in that household as it prepared for the birth of the first child. Catherine pictured young Rowland, pacing back and forth in that area before summoning the courage to ignore his powerful father-in-law by seeking her aid. She let her breath explode into the frigid air. Phyllis, who was plowing through the drifts a few steps ahead, balancing the birthing stool in her arms, turned to look at her.