The Blind in Darkness

by Stephen Lewis

  Worthington’s sob filled the meeting house. Alice’s grief shook her body, and she embraced Felicity. Elizabeth approached mother and daughter and held out the babe who, in perfect innocence, opened its eyes from its nap and yawned.

  * * * *

  Nathaniel lay covered by the blanket while his family sat, heads bowed, on a bench in front of the table. Thomas was drifting in and out of consciousness. When he was awake, he moaned and tried to rise from his litter to approach Nathaniel. He could not be made to understand that his friend was dead. Catherine had dressed his wounds again. He would be well enough in a few days.

  He now awoke and sat up. His eyes were clearer, and he seemed more alert.

  “Nathaniel?” he asked.

  Worthington pointed to his son.

  “There. Dead.”

  Thomas looked at the still body and said nothing. Catherine watched him closely. She had expected an outburst of grief, and so his silence was puzzling. For the moment, she attributed it to the trauma of his wounds.

  “It would be well for him to be put into a proper bed,” she said.

  “Not in my house,” Worthington said.

  “Take him to mine, then,” Woolsey said. “I have more than enough room, and my servant girl can make him comfortable until Mistress Williams can see to him.” He motioned to the soldiers who had carried Thomas in to the meeting house. “Pick him up.” He did not wait for an answer, but walked to the door. The soldiers hoisted their burden up and followed. Worthington rose to his feet.

  “Aye, take the quick one, and we will take ours home.” He beckoned to Osprey who motioned to the remaining soldier to take one end of the litter. The lieutenant walked to the other end, but before he could start to lift it, Worthington gestured for him to stand back, and the merchant took his place.

  “I will carry my son,” he said. “I could not keep him alive, but I will tend to him now.”

  Alice flanked the litter on one side, and Felicity, carrying her babe, the other. Elizabeth began to join them, but at a scowl from the merchant she retreated to sit with Phyllis. The minister took his place at the head of the litter, and the small procession made its way to the door. Massaquoit opened the door for them, and Minister Davis nodded as he walked out. Osprey had followed some distance behind the others, as though unsure what he should do once his master dispensed with his services. Massaquoit held the door open, and Osprey, with a shrug, walked through it. After he was outside, Massaquoit started to leave.

  “Matthew,” Governor Peters called out.

  Massaquoit felt the hated English name as though it were a barb scratching his skin, and yet he stopped and turned back to the governor.

  “I do not see William, your friend.”

  Massaquoit shrugged.

  “I came here with the lieutenant.”

  “But William,” the governor prodded.

  “I did not see him.”

  “Was he not at the camp when Nathaniel was attacked.”

  “I was with the lieutenant, keeping watch. I cannot tell you more.”

  “I see,” Governor Peters said. He got up and made his way to the door, pausing in front of Massaquoit. “We will hear more of this, but this is not the time.”

  Massaquoit watched him walk out into the darkness. He had his hand clenched around the object he wanted to give to Catherine for safe keeping. He expected to hear the heavy door clunk against the frame as it was shut, but he did not. Instead, he heard a murmur of voices, one of them surely the governor’s. He thought he recognized the other, but he was not certain. He hesitated, then the idea struck him that it did not matter who the other person was, and further whether that person saw him deliver the object to Catherine. In a way, that might turn out to be a good thing. He approached Catherine and held out his hand.

  “Take this,” he said. As he spoke, he felt a cold breeze strike his back, and he knew the door had been opened wide enough for somebody to look in. He glanced toward the door, and then turned back to Catherine. He opened his hand and gave her the brass button.

  Then he walked down the aisle to the door, which was now almost fully shut. As he walked out, he heard footsteps crunching the crust of the snow, and he saw a short, squat figure disappearing into the shadows. He smiled to himself and walked off.

  Chapter Eight

  This time Wequashcook was waiting for Massaquoit in the deserted camp in the swamp. The weather had warmed, and the melting snow had penetrated the top layer of soil, turning it into muddy slush. Massaquoit saw a thin spire of smoke rise from the wigwam, and he slogged his through the mire toward it. Wequashcook acknowledged his presence with the slightest lifting of his eyes and then resumed his position huddled about the fire, his blanket pulled over his head. The skinned body of a bony rabbit roasted on a makeshift spit above the fire. Massaquoit tossed the beaver hat toward him.

  “Without your hat your are like the turtle with his head covered by his shell,” he said.

  Wequashcook now raised his eyes and stared steadily at Massaquoit.

  “I am thinking that I would crawl into a shell if I had one.” He put his hat on and pulled it down over his ears. “It is not much to warm a head that might soon be at the end of an English pike or sitting on a post somewhere.”

  “That is why I have come to see you. So we can both keep our heads, although if it comes to that I will not seek a shell. The English will find out my head does not come cheap.”

  “Ah,” Wequashcook shook his head, “still the warrior, when that time has long past.”

  “No, not a warrior. Just a man. Like you were once.”

  Wequashcook stabbed the rabbit with his knife and removed it. He sliced a piece of its flank and held it out to Massaquoit.

  “He was very thin, already dead and frozen when I found him, but his meat will still taste good to a hungry man.”

  Massaquoit waited for the charred flesh to cool, and then he bit into it. It was chewy and sour tasting and yet he savored it, for as usual he could not remember when he had last eaten a full meal. Wequashcook watched him eat, and then sliced off another piece for himself. For several moments they worked their jaws around the tough flesh without attempting further talk A piece of the stringy meat caught between Wequashcook’s teeth, and he pulled it free. He looked at it, as though contemplating whether to try it again, and then tossed it into the fire where it sizzled and then twisted in the flame.

  “Tastes bad,” he said. “It must have been an English rabbit.” He offered another slice of meat. Massaquoit took it.

  “I have something to tell you,” Wequashcook said.

  “I hope so. I have gone to much trouble to hide your hat from the English after finding it outside of the tent where that young man was killed.”

  “You do not think that I . . .”

  “No. I do not think you would be so stupid, but I wonder that you were so careless.”

  “I felt it come off and blow in the wind toward an English soldier. He did not see it, and I waited for a chance to retrieve it. But then other soldiers came running and I slipped away. Before I did, I saw you and the lieutenant.” He paused, and then a sly smile formed on his thin lips. “I was confident you would recover my hat for me. You have had an interest in it in the past.”

  “Yes. It seems that when you misplace it, it is up to me to find it and return it.”

  “That is because you are the cause that I wear it. Maybe we should say we are brothers.”

  Massaquoit shook his head.

  “I do not think so.” He waited. “You have something to tell me?”

  “You must find the young English, the one who tried to fight you in the meeting house, and then the one I saw later carrying a torch with his friends and come looking for you at your English woman’s house.”

  “Why must I find him?”

  “Because I saw him look out of that slit in the tent.”

  “Out?”

  “You see what I am talking about. Yes, out. Then he squeezed th
rough the opening and moved some distance away, so it would seem he joined the others when they came running. It was at his feet that my hat was taken by the wind, but he was not looking at the ground. His eyes were on the tent and then behind him at the other English. He was in that tent when the English were attacked.”

  “And you just happened to be outside.”

  Wequashcook’s face darkened.

  “Put aside your suspicions while I tell you a plain tale.”

  “Speak, then.”

  “You know that the English boy, the one they call Thomas, the one you brought back into the English camp, was staying with the English officer in his tent.”

  “Yes. The English seemed very desirous of getting him back.”

  “The English officer’s father hired me to bring him back, and you, too, if I could.”

  “You were very ambitious.”

  Wequashcook shrugged.

  “It is better that I came after you, then the English alone, or with some other guide.”

  “You are traveling a good distance from the tent where you lost your hat.”

  “Not at all. For I felt I must see to the English officer’s safety. If I could bring him back to his father, I would then be able to do business with the father. Once Thomas was in the tent, I was never far away. The English did not seem to care. They felt I was on their side for having brought the boy back.”

  “And you saw something?”

  Wequashcook shook his head.

  “I heard first. Three voices, at first not very loud, but then getting louder. Thomas and the officer.”

  “And the other?”

  Wequashcook closed his eyes in concentration as though he were again hearing the voices.

  “I cannot be sure. It was higher than the others, almost like a boy. I came closer and knelt at the back wall of the tent. Their voices were muffled by the canvas of the tent and the wind was picking up and blowing in my ears. I pressed my ear against the tent wall. Then the voices stopped and something came hard against the tent. I was knocked to the ground. When I got up I heard grunts and from time to time one or the other of them fell against the tent wall causing it to bulge out at that place. I was going to run to the front to see if I could stop what was going on, but before I could a knife blade came slashing through that tent wall, not more than a hand away from my face. Then that English soldier poked his head out. I threw myself on the ground when I saw the canvas part, and he did not see me. After a few minutes, he ran out the front, and circled to the back of the tent. All the noise had finally awakened the English soldiers and I heard their feet crunching across the snow. That is when I ran away.”

  Massaquoit pulled the rabbit from the spit. Only a pitiful thin slab of flesh remained on one flank. He ripped it in half with his fingers and gave one piece to Wequashcook and bit into the other. When he was done chewing, he licked his fingers.

  “You have not told me,” he said, “what words you heard, or what you saw.”

  “I could make out only one or two words. Names. Maybe the same, maybe not. Sounded like ‘Thomas’ and then maybe the same name longer. I do not know who spoke it. Maybe both. For I heard it more than once.”

  “And did you see anything in the tent before the English soldier ran out?”

  “I looked through the slit for only a second, just long enough to see Thomas with a knife in his hand, bleeding from his arm and his leg, and the officer lying on the ground. The English soldier was standing over both of them.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I thought it wise to put some distance between me and whatever was going on in that tent, for you know as well as I that the English would blame us even when they kill each other. And as I made my way away, I almost ran into that young English soldier. I am sure he recognized me, but he did not try to stop me. He ran to the tent, looked in through the slit, and then went around to the front as other soldiers arrived.”

  “He will have an interesting story to tell,” Massaquoit said.

  Wequashcook nodded.

  “Of course. That is why I am here, eating rotten rabbit talking to you.”

  * * * *

  The Newbury cemetery sat on the crest of a low hill behind the meeting house. The hill was just high enough to provide an unobstructed view of the harbor just beyond the Worthington house. A huge maple, reaching over a hundred feet and spreading almost half that distance, occupied the side of the crest closest to the water. As a founding member of the community, Master Worthington had made clear his intention that his family, when the time came, would be interred in front of that tree, perhaps thinking that he and his descendants would therefore always be near the harbor that had provided his family with its substantial wealth.

  It was toward the meeting house and the cemetery beyond where a grave had been newly dug in front of that tree that a procession of townspeople now headed. They followed the coffin, a box crudely fashioned out of pine, balanced on four poles held beneath it. On either side of the poles supporting the front of the coffin were Lionel Osprey and Frank Mapleton. The rear of the poles were held by Master Worthington and Daniel Rowland. It was a terrible day to be outside for any purpose, as after a brief warming spell, a sharp cold along with a mounting snow storm had begun to blow in off the water from the northeast. Worthington, who had waited impatiently for an opportunity to bury his son had summoned Minister Davis as soon as the ground had thawed on the first warm day and the funeral was planned for two days hence. However, on the appointed day, the weather turned sharply cold again, and a steady snow once again filled the air so that Catherine, just a few paces behind the coffin could barely make out the features of the pallbearers. Minister Davis, at the front of the line of mourners, had disappeared into the white wave driven by a frigid wind. Woolsey held onto Catherine’s arm, not so much to guide her steps as to help him with his own as they trudged along. Immediately in front of her walked Alice and Felicity. Felicity, still weak, clung to her husband’s arm, but she had already refused her mother’s suggestion that she return to the warmth of her fire.

  The procession had started from the Worthington house, worked its way to the town center, and now paused before the meetinghouse. Minister Davis walked to Master Worthington’s side.

  “What think you?” the merchant asked.

  The minister looked up through the snow to the lowering gray sky.

  “Let us proceed directly to the grave side,” Minster Davis said.

  “My thought as well,” Worthington replied, “but keep you in mind what I have said to you.”

  “Have no fear,” Davis said. He resumed his position at the head of the procession, and the mourners, who had stood uncomfortably huddled against the wind, now moved in a straggling line, around the meetinghouse and up the gentle slope of the hill toward the burial ground, which at this early period in Newbury’s history contained no more than a dozen graves.

  Eventually, Nathaniel’s grave would be marked with granite in a manner commensurate with his father’s wealth and social position. But all that waited to receive him today was a fresh and jagged scar in the brown earth standing out in stark contrast to the abiding crust of snow. As the procession neared the new grave, the sound of shovels scraping frozen earth rose into the frigid air. Snow hurled up from the grave blended with that which was pelting down. The sound and motion stopped and the sexton, a burly man of about forty, red faced and sweating in spite of the cold climbed up out of the newly dug hole, followed by his twelve year old son, thin as his father was wide, both of them fairly covered in wet snow that clung to their cloaks and the wool hats pulled down almost over their eyes. They has been laboring to shovel out the new snow as fast as it fell so that Nathaniel’s cold body would not be received by the even colder snow. Now, they hoisted their shovels to their shoulders and retreated beneath the maple a respectful distance from the grave as Minister Davis took his place and prepared to speak.

  The pall bearers made their way past the minister to the grave
’s edge. As their hands were occupied with holding the poles supporting the coffin, they could not shield their faces from the driving snow, and thus they proceeded rather like moles in a burrow, feeling their way with their feet over the uncertain ground. The sexton, sensing the possibility of an embarrassing and dangerous misstep by one or the other of the pall bearers beckoned to his son and they hurried back to stand next to the grave, the father in front, and the son on the side toward which the pall bearers were edging. Lionel stood firm, but Frank Mapleton’s foot slipped at the very edge of the grave, and only the sexton’s stout arm and quick reactions prevented all from tumbling in. For a moment, Frank leaned awkwardly against the sexton’s chest while maintaining his tenuous hold on his corner of the coffin. The sexton pushed against him until he straightened, and then added his own strong hands to the front of the coffin, while his son grabbed hold of the rear, and all then managed to slide the clumsy box into the grave.

  The wind had picked up and now howled through the branches of the maple across the otherwise barren field of the cemetery. The mourners shook against the cold and huddled toward each other for protection. Worthington looked toward the minister.

  “Begin, if you will, Master Davis.”

  The minister pressed his hands together, and lifted his head. As he did, a sudden and strong gust rushed against him, and he stepped back, almost losing his balance. He steadied himself and looked again at Worthington.

  “Go ahead, I say, from Samuel. I will have those words spoken over my son.”

  Minister Davis nodded, but his eyes looked past the merchant to a figure emerging from behind the maple tree. Worthington followed his glance.

  “He has no business here,” Worthington said. “Osprey.”

  The lieutenant was already in full stride toward the tree where stood Thomas, leaning on a cane fashioned from an oak branch to support his injured leg. He did not move as the lieutenant approached, but shifted his eyes back and forth as though torn between his desire to witness the interment of his friend and his fear of the merchant’s wrath as expressed in the threatening posture of Lieutenant Osprey. Osprey raised his hands as though to seize the young man, who cowered behind his arms crossed in front of his head, as though expecting a blow. But just as the lieutenant lunged, he stopped and dropped his arms to his sides, his eyes looking past Thomas. Thomas uncovered his head, looked behind him in the same direction as the lieutenant, and then he retreated behind the tree and disappeared into the falling snow. Osprey returned to the knot of people.