Flight of the Sparrow

by Amy Belding Brown

  “Maninnapish! Quiet!” Weetamoo’s voice is as hard as the slap that follows. Mary does not see the blow coming and cries out, rocking back as she clutches her face.

  “Go!” Weetamoo points with the air of a queen. Mary ducks to avoid another blow and lifts the basket, fastening the strap obediently across her forehead. Her anger gives her new vigor. She moves along the trail with determination, as if she has a destination other than the next camp. It is late morning before she realizes they are traveling east. Back toward Lancaster.

  • • •

  Slavery makes for an angry heart, the Devil’s breeding ground. Mary recalls the biblical command that the slave must cheerfully obey the master, but she cannot make herself cheerful, cannot force herself to a Christian resignation. She is all resistance, chafing at her duty. Her heart is a cauldron. She wonders if this is what Bess Parker experienced when she was bound out. What Bess’s enslaved son now experiences, wherever he is. She does not understand how anyone could require a slave to be cheerful.

  Despite her defiant heart, she does all that Weetamoo asks, tries to satisfy her every whim. She finds that physical labor offers its own solace. When they set up camp, Mary throws herself into the tasks at hand: rebuilding the wetu, tending the fire, fetching water and firewood. When there is nothing Weetamoo requires—and there are many long hours of idleness—she takes up her needles. There has never been a servant more industrious in any English household.

  Yet the dreadful ache in her stomach makes her so restless that she can knit only a few rows before agitation drives her to her feet. She walks constantly up and down the camp, and then into the trees. Her gaze sweeps back and forth inspecting the ground, and when she spots a decayed chestnut, she leaps forward and plucks it up as if it is her true redemption.

  One day she finds three chestnuts and seven acorns. She eats the chestnuts and one of the acorns, despite its bitterness, then slips the others into her pocket. On the way back to the wetu she gathers sticks to feed the fire, for the icy edge in the air tells her it will be a cold night.

  When she pushes back the deerskin flap, she is startled to find the wetu filled with people. Weetamoo’s sister is there with her children and several other women Mary has seen before. Many more are there whom she doesn’t know. They lean close by one another on the skins, legs stretched toward the fire or folded beneath them. A young man plays a flute and nearby a girl dandles a stick doll.

  She sees James sitting near the fire. A warrior barks something Mary does not understand, and she squeezes all the way inside and lets the flap drop. Smoke scours her throat. Standing, she searches for a place to sit, but there is not a spare inch of space. Everyone seems to be talking. Two warriors dip their bowls into the stew pot of broth, which Mary knows is little more than hot water. She feels a wave of vertigo, and to prevent herself from falling, she clutches one of the hanging mats. This is beyond the light-headed hunger she has carried for weeks now. Perhaps it is the acorn she ate. Or the pipe smoke that now chafes her tongue, making it raw and sore. Still holding the kindling, she sinks to her knees.

  A man shouts at her. Her brain swirls like water in a disturbed pond. Someone pushes her shoulder. She raises her head.

  “Mauncheake!” the man says. “Quog quosh!” He makes a cutting gesture with his hand.

  “I am ill,” Mary gasps, and then surprises herself by saying the Indian word that means very weak. “Sawawampeage.”

  A babble of Indian words rise around her. A woman slides a hand under her arm and helps Mary to her feet. “Netop,” she says. “You must leave.” Her English words are tainted with harsh, heathen inflections.

  Weetamoo, who is holding her whimpering babe to her breast, speaks from the far side of the fire and for a brief moment Mary thinks she will defend her. “Weetompaog,” she says, gesturing to indicate the gathering. “My friends.” But instead of smiling, she glares.

  “I do not understand,” Mary says.

  Then James speaks: “She wants you to know we have many here tonight. There is no room for you.”

  It takes a moment for his meaning to penetrate her smoke-infused brain. “But where am I to go?” Her voice is mournful but there is no answer. She becomes suddenly aware that everyone has stopped talking. Her question—her tone—has struck exactly the wrong note. Indians do not look kindly on weakness. She begins to shake and her shoulders sag. The woman who spoke to her opens the flap and begins to pull her through the doorway.

  “Mauncheake!” she whispers urgently. But Mary cannot make her feet move.

  Then James is in front of her. She wonders dully how he has moved from the fire to her. There are so many people it does not seem possible that he has been able to set his foot anywhere. But here he is, only inches away, his hair shining with bear grease. He has painted menacing black stripes under his eyes.

  “Go,” he says. “Go from this place before I run you through.” He raises his arm and there, two inches from her face, is the dark shine of his knife.

  She glances up into his eyes—the briefest of glances, like lightning—for she wants to see if there might be a trace of Christian compassion residing there. She sees only the gaze of an Indian.

  “Now!” he hisses.

  She obeys, bowing her head and reeling out into the dark.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  That night Mary sleeps in a shelter of her own making, like a rabbit in a burrow, safely tucked out of sight of night-wandering dangers. She wakes often because of the cold and the torment of her hunger pangs. In the morning, when she returns to Weetamoo’s wetu, she finds a tumult of sorrow. The men are gone and Weetamoo sits in a circle of keening women. She has torn the sleeves of her shirt and blackened her face with soot. Her babe, tightly swaddled in a blanket, lies dead on the ground in front of her.

  Though she has no affection for Weetamoo, Mary feels compassion. As she watches the circle of weeping women, she thinks of Sarah and Mari, and remembers feeling as if she had died with them, that her heart had been hollowed out, scraped raw, an empty husk. She nearly took leave of her senses, her sorrow was so great. She remembers wanting to mourn this way after Mari’s death, how painful it had been to contain her tears. Her face had ached for weeks.

  Mary suspects neither Weetamoo nor her family welcome her presence, yet she is loath to leave in case Weetamoo needs her for some task. And so she sits by, through the long mournful day, praying for Joss and Marie, whom she can only hope are still among the living.

  In the morning, they begin marching again. On the trail, Alawa shows Mary how to dress her hair to ward off the spring insects, and then explains how to tell directions from the sun. Mary calculates that they are heading northeast again, toward Lancaster.

  She sees warriors carrying those who, from weakness or illness, can no longer walk. Some have bound their bellies with cords. When Alawa explains that it helps to relieve their hunger pangs, Mary wishes she had a cord of her own. Most of the time they walk in silence, for hunger saps even the strength for talking. As they rest briefly at the top of a low hill, Alawa asks where Mary went when she was cast out of Weetamoo’s wetu. Mary answers bitterly that she made a shelter on the cold ground. She says that she had considered James a Christian friend but now is convinced he is in league with the Devil.

  Alawa gives her a strange look before she glances away to adjust the strap of her carrying basket. “You foolish woman,” she says. “Wowaus—James—protects you. He save your life.”

  “Saved me? He drove me from the wetu at the point of his knife,” Mary says. “He threatened to kill me.”

  Alawa shakes her head. “Did you not hear Weetamoo’s words? She would take your head and put it on pike.”

  Mary stares at her blankly.

  “He did not betray you,” Alawa says. “He is still friend.”

  • • •

  At midday murmurs of excitement pass along the
line, and Mary understands enough of what is said to realize there is a rumor abroad that Philip plans to negotiate with the English. His people are dying—many have already perished. She overhears a woman lament that the grandmothers and babes always die first, as if the spirits of war wish to strip the people of both their wisdom and their hope.

  They increase the speed of their march and set up camp for only a single night before moving on. Rain falls, turning the ground to mud. Mary thinks of the many years she planted her kitchen garden in this season, the pleasure she took in the cold slick of the earth between her fingers and toes. She wonders if Joseph is planting their fields.

  As she walks, she tries to remove all thoughts of food from her mind, yet it is impossible, so great is her hunger. She is struck by how much of her life was dedicated to the getting and preparing of food. From early morning until near dark she labored with food, milking the cow, gathering eggs from the hens and ducks, churning butter, pressing cheese curds into their molds, kneading bread, sowing and weeding her kitchen garden, chopping onions, boiling meat, cutting turnips, slicing sausages into pies. Her mind conjures up pottages and cheeses, leek soups, fruit pies, sweet stews of pork and apples, bread and bowls of crusty cornmeal mush. Her mouth fills with spittle and her stomach roils. As she walks, her eyes constantly examine the trail for nuts and scraps someone else has dropped. Yet she finds nothing but acorn husks.

  One evening warriors kill a deer, causing great excitement in the camp. Everyone gathers to watch as they open the animal and begin to strip off the meat. There is a whoop of delight when one warrior lifts out an unborn fawn and holds it high for all to see. They divide the food and Mary is given a small strip of meat the size of her finger. Later Quinnapin startles her by pressing a wedge of the fawn’s shoulder into her hands. She thanks him with a pretty curtsy, a gesture that is difficult to execute in her Indian dress. When he laughs and calls for others to watch, she obliges him by curtsying again. A group of men and women gather around her; one of the women tries to imitate her but stumbles and falls on her knees, laughing. Mary demonstrates again, and then Alawa takes up the game. One after another they mimic her, even Quinnapin himself. A mischievous impulse prompts her to mimic them and, giggling, she begins to dip and stumble. Their laughter rises around her; soon everyone is laughing and bobbing up and down in mock curtsies.

  Afterward, Mary feels depleted, but happy. It is as if a tap had opened and a heavy, dark liquid flowed out of her, leaving her many pounds lighter, more alert. She roasts the fawn piece on a hot stone, watching closely lest someone steal it. The meat is tender; even the bones are soft enough to eat. She is careful not to eat too quickly, for she knows how easily she could provoke her stomach into rebellion by overfeeding.

  Weetamoo orders that a pouch of the slain deer’s blood be boiled over a fire. Flames snap loudly in the wood, drawing people close. When the pouch is boiled, Alawa removes and divides it. The black jellied blood reminds Mary of the blood puddings her mother used to make; she savors her portion. The faces of the people look like ghosts as they eat.

  Dark clouds boil up from the west, covering the sun. It rains all night. It is a cold, hard rain. Weetamoo tells Alawa and Mary to raise a bark wetu, and they rest comfortably dry, though many lie in the mud, their blankets pulled over their faces. In the morning, Mary sees them moving through the camp, wet and bedraggled, though those who wore hides instead of linen enjoyed some measure of protection.

  The next day they begin to boil tree bark with the few groundnuts they have collected. Mary overhears an old man telling a hideous tale of killing captive children and roasting and eating them. She thinks of poor Joss and Marie, and it is with some effort that she tries to assure herself that this Indian’s words are mere entertainment, that his intent is but to plague the captives. Yet the story chills her.

  They continue on their way. Each morning they rise and lift their burdens and walk east. Each night they set up camp. One bitterly cold evening, Mary comes across an English youth not much older than Joss, who sprawls moaning on the ground, wearing nothing but a shirt and waistcoat. Nearby lies a papoose, naked and shivering in the cold. The babe is clearly dying. His eyes, nose, and mouth are caked with dirt. Mary picks him up, wipes his face clean with her sleeve, and tries to warm him against her body. He groans and quivers and she thinks for a moment how sweet it is to hold a babe again. Then the child convulses once and lies still in her arms. She tries, but cannot revive him. Dark clouds boil up above the trees on the horizon and the wind comes up. A few snowflakes tumble in the trees. She puts the papoose back on the ground, wishing she had some scrap of cloth with which to cover his poor naked body, but she has lately lost her apron so she cannot even tear a strip from that for a shroud.

  She turns her attention to the youth, and tells him he must get to a fire at once. He looks up at her, blinking, trying to focus. He shakes his head, and in a choking voice tells her he has the bloody flux and cannot stand. Something in his tone reminds Mary of Joss when he malingered. She finds the flint in herself to insist, “If you do not heed me, you will perish where you lie.”

  He moans and rolls on the ground. Annoyed, she bends and puts her shoulder under his arm and raises him to his feet. Together they move through camp as she searches for someone who will take him in. Mary asks one Indian after another for help, but they all refuse. Finally, one old woman points out a wetu at the far edge of the camp.

  “Wowaus,” she says. “English. Go there.”

  James’s wetu. Of course. Mary hesitates, recalling how James drove her from Weetamoo’s wetu, but the youth’s suffering brings her to her senses. Summoning her strength, she presses on, wondering if James will again threaten her with his knife.

  Night falls and it begins to snow in earnest; the wind howls through the trees, driving the snow straight at them in long horizontal slashes and gusting so powerfully that Mary staggers. Once, the youth stumbles and they both fall to the ground. Mary struggles to pull him again to his feet, knowing they both risk freezing if they stop moving.

  Both are shuddering with cold when they reach the wetu. Mary lifts the door flap and pushes the youth inside. He collapses on the earthen floor as James rises from his blankets, taking up a club as he stands. He wears only a loincloth and Mary looks away as she speaks.

  “Please,” she gasps, falling to her knees, “I beg you as a Christian, let this boy lie here by your fire.”

  James does not answer, but plucks a blanket from the ground and wraps it around himself.

  The youth tries to rise but cannot. He is wracked with tremors; his naked feet and legs are blue with cold. “He has the flux,” Mary says, trying to push herself to her feet and staggering from weakness. “He has been cast out of his wetu.”

  James frowns. “Then why do you ask me to take him in? His captor will hunt for him and be angry if he finds him with me.”

  “Please,” she says. “He will die without help.”

  “What is he to you?”

  The question takes her by surprise. She has not given any thought to the boy’s circumstance or situation—only to his condition. “He is nothing to me—save a fellow sufferer,” she says. “Please. Can you not find compassion for him, even though you feel naught for me?”

  He gives her a long look, with that penetrating gaze that has so often unsettled her, before turning his attention to the youth. He places a thick mat of skins next to the fire and together they carry him there. James covers him—tenderly, she thinks—with a heavy bearskin. Mary stands aside as he offers him a bowl of thin broth. When the boy is unable to eat it himself, James turns to her.

  “You are his protector,” he says, pushing the bowl and a crudely shaped spoon into her hands. “It is your duty to feed him.”

  And so Mary kneels beside the boy, whose name she still does not know, and patiently feeds him broth until he falls asleep under her ministrations. Then she puts down the
bowl, sinks back on her heels. She feels a wave of vertigo and drops her head into her hands.

  “You are weary,” James says. “You must sleep.” She looks up to find him sitting on a mat gazing at her.

  He gestures to the furs stacked on the platform. “This storm will last the night. It is warm here and you will be safe.”

  Her heart begins to beat too fast. She knows she should not stay a moment longer. Yet she cannot bear to leave.

  A gust thumps against the sides of the wetu. The wind shrieks and rattles the door flap. “You will stay,” James says firmly. He rises, hangs another hide over the doorway, securing it tightly so no draft can enter, then pulls two more hides from the pile on the platform and gives them to her, gesturing for her to lie down. She is too exhausted to refuse. She rolls onto her side and pulls the heavy furs over her, relaxing into the warmth. She hears the ragged breathing of the youth, and is aware of James moving quietly around the wetu. Later, he lies down a few feet away. She hears him murmuring Indian words in the darkness and wonders if he is praying. His voice seems to come from a great distance as she drifts into sleep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mary wakes in the middle of the night. She lies on her back, looking up at the smoke hole, wondering for a moment where she is. Then she remembers. The wind has died away, but she knows from the rapid ticking sounds outside that snow is still falling. She sits up and slides from beneath the furs to check on the youth. Low firelight plays over his features. He is still insensible, but when she puts her hand on his brow, it is cooler than it was a few hours before, which tells her that his fever has broken. She slips outside.

  Snowflakes drift down, catching on the tatters of her cloak and in her hair. Shivering, she makes her way into the trees. Her moccasin-clad feet make no sound. She squats behind a rock and relieves herself.