Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  Three times Conawago’s captive spoke the word before the old Nipmuc was satisfied. “Excellent. Before you start cutting each of the great Nipmuc logs, I want you to put your hand on it and say that word to honor the old spirits. Defy me, and the spirits will know. Your wells will sour, your grain will get the mold, your saw blades will break, and your oxen will go lame. And every board you cut will split.” He pushed the man’s head up, then jerked it toward him. “Do you understand the words of this old Nipmuc?” he growled.

  The man nodded through the puddle of peas and gravy on his face. Conawago released him, and he backed away, wiping away the remains of Conawago’s meal, then stormed out the tavern door.

  Conawago, his eyes much brighter now, extended a hand toward the pitcher near Hayes. “I find myself suddenly thirsty. Might I try some of that ale, Solomon? And if you’re not going to eat your pork, I will make the effort.”

  They finished the meal without incident, Conawago joining in their discussion of the next day’s journey and the plan to push as hard as possible to the Connecticut River. No one gave evidence of the episode except for Ishmael’s rotation of his chair a few degrees so he could watch the still-fuming sawyers.

  After Conawago downed his second serving of berry pie, Sarah declared the meal complete and, rising, bid the company good slumber. As she and Munro moved toward the central stairway, however, they discovered that the Irishman who had confronted Conawago now stood by the entry with half a dozen new allies. The tavern keeper, sensing trouble, motioned Duncan and his friends up the stairway, but the angry sawyer shoved the man aside and stepped toward Conawago.

  “This be our town, damned ye!” he spat. His companions held barrel staves and other makeshift clubs at the ready. The innkeeper retreated to the large fortified cage in the corner of the chamber where his spirits were kept.

  “Quinsigamond,” Conawago replied with false cheer. “That’s the name of this place. I think that tells us all we need to know about the founders of this town.”

  As the sawyers at the table by the far wall stood to join their townsmen, the door opened behind them.

  “God’s grace to you, gentlemen,” Samson Occom’s deep voice boomed through the crowd. Several of the men, seeing his clerical collar, muttered polite replies, then stepped aside. Strangely, Occom seemed to stumble as he walked through the men, knocking a barrel stave to the ground, then a piece of timber, both of which he kicked away. He was doing what he could to disarm the men. Occom turned, tossed his cloak on the bench below the stairs, and faced the leader of the sawyers. “ ‘Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!’ ” he declared. “So the Good Book tells us. Psalm 133, if I am not mistaken.”

  “If he’s my brother, then I was born to a redskin whore,” the man growled. Bits of smashed peas still clung to his beard. “Don’t speak so of my mother!”

  Occom’s hand came up. A barrel stave seemed to have magically appeared in it. “ ‘Live in harmony with one another,’ ” the pastor recited as he tapped the club in his palm. “ ‘Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.’ Romans 12.”

  “Shut yer teeth!” the Irishman snarled. “Look at ye, red in your skin as well.”

  “ ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ ” Occom recited, “ ‘for they shall inherit the ale.’ ”

  Several of the crowd laughed, then seemed to lose interest and dispersed in amiable conversation. Occom’s words were having the opposite effect on Conawago. He leaned forward as if to rise, then felt Duncan’s tight grip on his shoulder. Duncan well knew that the old Nipmuc had little stomach for being defended by a man of the cloth. That Occom himself was a native of the same tribal lands, sharing more in common with Conawago than with anyone they had met in years, only seemed to add salt to the wound. Duncan caught Ishmael’s eye, making sure the youth was ready to help restrain his uncle if he rose to add his own fuel to the imminent conflagration.

  Suddenly Conawago eased. They watched in surprise as Solomon Hayes stepped out of the shadows behind them and approached the angry ringleader. A small ball appeared in the air before Hayes, and another, then a third. The contemplative tinker was juggling. He stepped between Occom and the fuming Irishman, then halted in front of a stout sawyer beside the leader as the balls went ever higher, past the high rafters of the chamber. Three balls went up into the shadows. Two came down. Two went up, one came down. As the man looked upward, Hayes bounced the remaining ball off his belly.

  “Surely this fine and ancient town deserves a more noble army,” Hayes exclaimed. The stout sawyer gave an uncertain grunt as the ball bounced off him again; then, as his companions laughed, he grinned at the tinker. “ ‘How now, my sweet creature of bombast, how long is’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?’ ” Hayes said, dropping the ball into his pocket as Occom stepped back. “ ‘A goodly portly man, ’n faith,’ ” Hayes continued, “ ‘and a corpulent cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage.’ ”

  Conawago, watching with sudden interest, cast a knowing glance at Duncan. The itinerant trader and pot mender was quoting Shakespeare. “Henry the Fourth,” the old Conawago whispered in amusement. The rest of the tavern had gone silent, enjoying the tinker’s show.

  Hayes tapped the man’s prominent belly. “A sergeant if I ever saw one. Perhaps almost two!”

  As laughter rippled through the company, the tinker turned to the barmaid, the innkeeper’s daughter. “And every army needs its Helen, its Dulcinea, its Juliet.” With a quick motion, Hayes’s hand went above the woman’s ample cleavage and seemed to extract a bright red feather from her bosom. “Such fine plumage!” Hayes declared to the delight of the crowd. The barmaid gazed in surprise at the feather, then at her breasts, and burst out in laughter. Hayes lifted her hand and kissed it. “The finest hand I ever touched. ‘O Beauty, ’til now I never knew thee’!”

  “Henry the Eighth,” Conawago observed approvingly.

  Hayes made a twisting flourish of his hand before the barmaid. “ ‘Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty’!”

  “Twelfth Night,” Conawago said, now enjoying himself.

  “ ‘Who art so lovely, fair, so sweet that the senses ache at thee’!”

  “Othello, to be sure,” came Conawago’s whisper.

  Hayes winked and gave the woman a deep bow. Almost every tavern customer broke into laughter as, balancing her tray in one hand, the maid curtsied. The Irishman did not share in the amusement.

  “Ye do not buy our affections so lightly, vagabond,” the sawyer said, spitting the last word like a curse. “Worcester don’t take red beggars, and that’s the fact of it. And what are ye, just a damned roving tinker, not worth a nit to the world.”

  Hayes was unmoved by the man’s words or his glowering expression. He sighed and looked about with an exaggerated fear. “Shhhh,” he said. “You’re going to upset those ancient spirits my friend spoke of.”

  “The spirits be dead in the ground, like every good heathen should be.” As the big man glanced up at a strange rustling noise in the darkened rafters, Hayes put a finger to his lips, then rotated with the gesture as if to silence his audience.

  A high-pitched screech suddenly filled the tavern, sending tankards tumbling as several customers fled under tables or backed against the wall.

  “Banshee!” a man cried, and crossed himself.

  “Damned ye, Jocko!” an old woman yelled at the Irishman when the terrible piercing sound split the air again. “Ye’ve brought them out from t’other side!”

  The innkeeper darted out of his spirit cage, a heavy club raised in his hand, then hesitated as Hayes turned and bowed to what seemed an empty corner of the chamber. “Oh, wise and terrible one, we salute you,” the tinker called, then lifted a candlestick from a nearby table and raised it over his head.

  “Mother Mary, protect us!” groaned one of the men closest to Hayes. As other customers followed his gaze, they backed away, severa
l fleeing the establishment entirely. The old woman pointed a trembling hand to the rafter above Hayes. The tinker looked up, then gasped himself and took a clumsy step backward, stumbling into the bearded sawyer.

  The round pink face, framed by thick sable-colored hair, extended outward from the rafter, its body so obscured by shadow that the face seemed to hover in the air. Its bright, intelligent eyes solemnly surveyed the company. Through the stunned silence an urgent prayer was whispered and quickly taken up by others. One of the sawyers beside the Irishman turned and fled out the door, holding his belly as if he desperately needed a privy. Half a dozen men dropped to their knees.

  Hayes seemed to recover his senses and took a brave step toward the phantom. “Who?” the tinker asked in a trembling voice. “Who is it you seek, ancient one?”

  A small leathery hand materialized in the pool of light and pointed to the Irishman, who began to cross himself frantically. The hand seemed to beckon to those below. Hayes collected his courage and reached up, touching the phantom’s hand, then audibly gasped and turned toward the frightened assembly. A slip of paper was in his fingers. He extended it toward the Irishman, who vigorously shook his head, refusing to touch it.

  Hayes turned to the innkeeper. “Sir, if you will. My hand is shaking too much for me to read this message from the other side. But surely the spirits intend for us to do so.”

  The innkeeper tentatively accepted the paper, motioning for his daughter to hold a candle near as he stretched the paper between his hands. He read silently, his eyebrows arching as he looked toward the rafter where the spirit, now gone, had perched; then he stepped in front of his remaining customers, turning the paper for all to read as he recited its single word. “Quinsigamond,” he solemnly intoned.

  A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Several men repeated the Nipmuc word, like a vow. The Irishman retreated with an uncertain backward step, then turned and fled. The tavern keeper reached out to help customers to their feet and announced that the next round would be served gratis by the inn. The free ale eased the general anxiety, and soon men were grinning, passing around the spirit’s note, reciting it again and again, their eyes round with wonder. The ancient Indian spirits had visited them, not to punish them, but just to remind them of a sacred duty.

  Conawago, smiling for the first time in days, settled back into his seat. “Might there be some of that excellent pie left?” he asked no one in particular. The barmaid fussed over Solomon Hayes as he returned to his seat, setting an entire pie before him for the table, then bringing a pitcher of spiced wine. “There’s a hint of chill tonight,” she said. “I will put a mulling iron in the embers for you. Would be no trouble.”

  Hayes lifted her hand with a genteel smile and kissed it once more. “That would be delightful, lass. And I hope we did not give you too great a fright.”

  “Nay, sir. T’is the most excitement we’ve seen in this town in many a moon.”

  They sat a long time in idle conversation, sharing the spiced wine and passing around the hot iron to heat it, relishing in their temporary comfort that, if not quite contentment, was a least a welcome respite from a long day of worries.

  The innkeeper did not approach them until the rest of the tavern had emptied, and when he did, he brought a bottle of fine port, which he poured out into small sparkling glasses. “Prithee,” he said when everyone had been served, lifting a glass for himself. “This is my gift to you. T’ain’t seen my daughter smile so since her mother passed last year.” He drained his glass, then retrieved his heavy club and laid it on the table by Conawago. “T’was cut last year from one of those ancient oaks,” he explained. “I wish ye to have it, sir.”

  The old Nipmuc stared at the club for several long breaths, then slowly reached out to touch it. Emotion washed over his face.

  “Quinsigamond,” the innkeeper said once more. “I am going to paint the letters on the wall above my counter,” he declared. “I swear this to you, sir. And I wager there’ll not be many of those grand trees cut again in this town.” He filled Hayes’s cup again. The tinker looked up as the innkeeper hesitated. “I sailed in the West Indies in my youth,” he declared in a tentative tone. “Ain’t seen one of the little monks since we made port in Panama all those years ago, but I recollect the lovely creatures were fond of vegetables. I’ve got some tender new carrots in the kitchen.”

  Hayes appraised the man in silence for a moment, then made a low, clicking sound. Sadie dropped out of the rafters onto the tinker’s shoulder. She wrapped a long arm around Hayes’s neck, then shyly peeked around his head at the innkeeper, who greeted her with a half bow. “An honor to make yer acquaintance, sir,” he offered.

  “Miss,” Hayes corrected; then, gently easing the monkey off his neck, he raised his index finger twice. Duncan realized it was a hand signal. “Say hello to the kind gentleman, Sadie.”

  The innkeeper gave a heartfelt laugh as Sadie straightened and bowed back at him; then he excused himself to retrieve her promised meal.

  “I beg your forgiveness,” Hayes said to Conawago. “I meant no offense to your people.”

  “The evening was going badly,” the old Nipmuc replied. “If you had not snuffed that fuse so adeptly, there would have been an explosion. I take it in the generous spirit it was intended.”

  “Your skills are most impressive,” Sarah observed to the tinker. “You should be in the theater, not mending pots.”

  Hayes gazed out the darkened window as he weighed Sarah’s words. “I think it was the Bard himself who suggested that all the world’s a stage,” he replied at last.

  “I saw you writing something when the commotion started,” Sarah said, clearly amused to be part of Hayes’s conspiracy.

  “And when you stumbled against the Irishman, you dropped that little red feather onto his shoulder,” Duncan observed. “Was it a signal of some kind?”

  Hayes stroked the rich hair on Sadie’s head and nodded. “A little game we play sometimes. Point out the bright feather. And my little girl long ago learned to screech at my signal.”

  The innkeeper returned with a plate of raw carrots and fresh peas still in the pod, which Sadie eagerly consumed, making low, purring sounds of satisfaction between bites. As she ate, her host watching in great delight, Duncan touched the innkeeper’s arm. “A question, sir. Do you know the wheelwright Josiah Chisholm?”

  “The old ranger. Of course. A good, solid man if ever there was, though not beloved by the government, some might say. If you are here on his other business, pray keep it quiet. There are those in this town who correspond with the governor, seeking his favor, if you get my drift.”

  Conwawago leaned forward. “Not entirely, sir.”

  “I don’t make a habit of speaking of my neighbors. My custom depends on everyone in the town feeling comfortable in my establishment.”

  “But we are just passing through,” Duncan pointed out.

  “Chisholm is a devout and honest man. That’s what counts, I say. Loyal subject or nay.”

  Conawago lowered his voice. “Do you suggest he is not fond of the king?”

  “He goes to Boston every few weeks. When he returns, we have meetings in the night, sometimes in my back room.”

  “But an innkeeper needs to be an obedient subject. You are beholden to the government for licenses and such.”

  “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, the Good Book tells us. The king is a long way from our little hamlet and shouldn’t have his hand in every breath a man takes. I like to think of our meetings as a community improvement association. There’s talk of organizing a pageant after the harvest.”

  “But others might call them the Sons of Liberty.”

  The innkeeper did not disagree. “We started meeting in the days of that damnable stamp tax. Only later did we hear the name of the Sons. Came from a Whig in the Parliament, I hear. Talk about irony, eh?” The innkeeper gazed into the eyes of each of those at the table, as if assessing them, before continuing. “The wh
eelwright is a gentle soul, with the strong back of an ox, but his strength sometimes seems to hang by a thread.”

  It was Sarah who broke the confused silence that followed. “You mean his is a troubled soul.”

  “Aye. There is sometimes torment behind his eyes. He was a ranger for Major Rogers, and my cousin from Rhinebeck, along the Hudson, wrote me that he was one of those who busted the heads of tenants for the great lord Mr. Livingston.”

  Duncan chewed on the words a moment. “Why did you feel reason to ask your cousin about him?”

  “There’s splits within the Sons—factions, ye might say. Most of the leaders are wealthy gentry. There are those who say they are just using us for their personal gain, that some invest in liberty the way they might invest in a cargo of rum or tobacco. I wanted to be certain we could trust him with our secrets and trust his offer of militia training to the local Sons. My cousin says he is an honest man of stalwart heart.”

  “Secrets of the Sons, you mean,” Duncan whispered.

  The innkeeper poured himself a cup of the spiced wine. Sadie, who seemed to be a creature of uncommon intuition if not downright wisdom, sat cross-legged before the man and extended the last carrot to him. He spoke his answer to the primate. “Those boys in Boston stir the pot of rebellion thinking it is just how they get the attention of the king, but sometimes I think we may be on a path toward a real fight. If so, it’ll be the blood of a thousand villages like this that gets shed.” He looked down into his cup. “When my wife was sick for weeks afore she passed, she started having terrible nightmares of blood on the fields. I told her it was just all the old stories of the Indian raids. But she said no, it was always brother fighting brother.”

  Duncan sipped at his own cup. “Weapons?” he asked. “Your secrets are about weapons?”

  The innkeeper sighed, looked around the chamber to confirm that it was empty, and explained. “The king maintains arsenals in several towns in the New England colonies, usually manned by invalids and old soldiers ready for pensions. Their inventory counting would never pass muster in the lowest of village shops. Some arsenal guards just sleep away their watches; others gripe about the meager count of their pension to come and accept a coin on the side. Our militias are expanding, but most just carry sticks instead of muskets.”