Flight of the Sparrow (12 page)

Mary’s clothes lie in the snow in front of the wetu. She stares down at them, considering whether it will be safe to take them. She examines her skirt and jacket. The filth-encrusted skirt has been badly torn along the seam and the jacket shorn of buttons. Her hard English shoes are unharmed, but she has no desire to put them on again; the moccasins are soft and make her feet feel as if they are cupped in a huge, warm hand. She bends and roots through the pile until she finds her pocket. She ties it around her waist and starts along the path. After a few steps she goes back and retrieves her apron, stockings and shift, tying them into a corner of the blanket, unable to leave behind all the bloodstained tatters of her former self.

She wanders through the village, surprised to find she is not
uncomfortable without her jacket and skirt. The dress is surprisingly warm and the blanket is an efficient barrier against the bitter cold. She ventures down the path to the river and stands on the bank for a long time, staring out at the shadows of the trees on the surface of the snow-covered ice. There are several star-shaped cracks in the ice and a black circle of open water pushed up against the shore—a place where she has fetched water for Weetamoo. She feels as if time has slowed down since she was taken captive; she has more occasion to observe the world around her.

She makes her way down the bank and squats beside the water. Even before she lowers her hands into the river, she knows the icy cold will make her fingers ache. She unties the corner of her blanket and lets the stockings, shift and apron roll into the water. She takes a deep breath, plunges both hands in after them and begins washing the garments, scrubbing them vigorously between her numb hands. She pulls them out and twists them hard to wring the water from them and then slaps them against a nearby boulder. She works with a fierce intensity, determined to draw every drop of blood from the cloth. When she is finished, she ties the dripping garments back into the blanket and resolves to dry them by the fire in the wetu when chance allows.

It is dark when Mary returns to the wetu. Quinnapin is gone and Weetamoo is playing with her baby by the fire. Alawa greets her as a friend, as if she had not savagely ripped her clothes off a short time before. Mary wonders if her status among the Indians has changed along with her clothes. She feels confused and weary—and grateful when Alawa scoops a bowl of stew from the pot and hands it to her. They eat in silence, side by side, listening to the babe’s happy chortling as Weetamoo dandles him. Later Alawa makes a poultice of oak leaves and helps Mary apply it to the wound in her side.

•   •   •

M
ary washes herself every day, first at Alawa’s urging, and later because it makes her feel refreshed and calm. Slowly her wound heals. It no longer pains her to strap the pocket around her waist.
One day she puts on the apron. Alawa plucks at it and frowns, but no one tells her to take it off. The next day she rolls on her stockings and wears her shift under the deerskin dress. When Weetamoo sees her, she smiles and something in her face reminds Mary of her sister Elizabeth. She feels a brief wave of pleasure, followed by a sinking sensation. She looks down at her feet and sees that the hem of her shift is visible below the deerskin. Her cheeks burn and she tugs at the dress as if she might lengthen it. She knows she looks foolish but finds unexpected comfort in the strange assemblage of clothes.

Mary and Alawa spend much of their time working side by side. Gradually, they begin to communicate more easily. Alawa teaches Mary some Indian words. She asks Mary about her life before she was captured and Mary describes her children and sisters. She tells her about her childhood in Salem and Wenham and explains that she was born on the far side of a great sea.

When Mary asks about her childhood, Alawa tells her that she was born Mohawk and captured by Nipmuc warriors when she was very young. They sold her to a Narragansett, who sold her to a cruel English family in Plymouth Colony. They beat her and made her labor all day and late into the night, so one summer afternoon, when she was sent to fetch water, she ran away. One of Weetamoo’s warriors found her sitting under a tree. She recounts this all matter-of-factly, as if it is not surprising or out of the ordinary. But Mary is stunned; it had not occurred to her that Indians might capture and sell one another.

“So you are a slave as I am?” Mary asks.

“I was slave with English,” Alawa says. “But I not run from Weetamoo.”

Mary thinks of Timothy and her face flushes in private shame.

•   •   •

W
eetamoo’s wetu is daily filled with talking women, and sometimes Mary slips outside and sits with her back against the sturdy bark wall, shivering beneath her blanket. Everyone is
waiting for news of the Medfield attack. They are anxious for their men, worried they might not return. Their anxiety reminds Mary of the mood in Lancaster after the Indian raid in August, of the winter evenings she and her sisters sat sewing and talking. Yet it unnerves her to consider that Indian women might be so very much like Englishwomen.

She is surprised at how often Weetamoo leaves her to her own devices. She must realize Mary knows she cannot survive alone in the wilderness long enough to make her way home. Her disinterest grants Mary an uncommon freedom, and often little to do. All her life, Mary has been closely watched, and required to toil from waking to sleeping. She has been taught that idleness is a sin, and has long resisted its temptations. Yet, in her new position as a slave, she is often forced to it.

Slowly, Mary discovers in idleness a strange expansion of time and a growing awareness of the natural world. She begins to watch the flight of sparrows through the winter air and the dance of red squirrels in the trees. She notes the changes in clouds, the slant of sunlight as it falls on snow, the tight red buds of winter trees. All these things she has seen before, but only as background to her life’s duties. Now she begins to understand that trees and birds and clouds and animals have a significance of their own that is independent of human activity.

It is an astonishing thought. She has never heard anyone express such an idea before.

One afternoon, squatting in a small pool of sunlight that is all the warmth the season has to offer, listening to the calls of birds, she hears a shout in the distance. It is echoed by another, and then a third, and soon by an entire chorus of whooping shrieks. Alarmed, she gets to her feet.

All around her, women rush out of the wetus and hurry along the path through the village. Mary follows at a distance. She does
not wish to be observed, but is determined to discover the source and significance of the cries.

In the center of the village a circle of women is singing and shouting. The women laugh and sway as they sing. They raise their arms joyfully. Their song is wild and disharmonious, but Mary feels strangely moved. She finds herself swaying at the edge of the circle in time to their music.

Slowly she begins to understand what she sees and hears. The women are echoing the shouts of returning warriors. The attack on Medfield has been successful. The Indians have killed many English. They have brought the scalps to prove it.

Mary stops moving. The truth lies like a stone in her heart. She pictures the bloodied snow of her yard, Elizabeth’s body lying broken before the door, her skirt in flames. Again she hears William’s screams as war clubs crush his skull.

In shame, she leaves the circle and the singing to return to Weetamoo’s wetu and its solace of shadows. She cannot stop trembling.

CHAPTER TEN

At
dusk, Weetamoo orders Mary and Alawa to attend the celebration in the center of the village, where a great fire pit has been dug, filled with logs and surrounded by stones. The fire is roaring, wood snapping and flinging embers high past flames that rise to the full height of a man. The scent fills Mary’s nostrils, reminding her of her burning house.

Men and women mill about and cluster in small groups, talking. Children chase one another, laughing, as they dart in and out among the adults. Four men sit around a drum of tanned deerskin stretched over a huge wooden hoop. They beat it with sticks, striking together so the drum makes a deep rolling
boom
each time, one that rings in her ears and thrums in the soles of her feet. Warriors bob and writhe in a circle around the fire, striking the grotesque poses she witnessed the night after her capture. Many are shirtless, despite the cold. They have painted their faces and chests in strange patterns of red and black. A group of women stands near the circling, singing; their strange undulating chants make Mary’s skin prickle.

Alawa clears away snow near a tree and invites Mary to sit
beside her. Mary cannot draw her gaze from the dancers. Their wild joy bewitches her. She sees the man who first captured her and the one they call Monoco. Then Quinnapin steps into the circle. He seems almost regal to Mary, his movements at once graceful and commanding. The longer she watches, the more enchanted she is by the dancing. The drums beat on into the night and she feels her own heart echo their rhythm.

Some men dance for so long they stagger and collapse when they leave the circle. One falls as he dances. His friends quickly carry him away. After a time Mary finds her own shoulders swaying to the drumbeat. Dismayed, she closes her eyes and beseeches God to rescue her from this captivity before her soul is unalterably corrupted.

She hears Alawa say something and opens her eyes. The English Indian is standing in front of her. He is naked, except for a breach clout and a pair of leggings. A black feather is stuck in his hair. His face and chest are painted in jagged red designs. He kneels, and reaches into a pouch hanging from a cord around his waist. He draws forth a book and holds it out to Mary.

“Take it,” he says, dropping the book into her lap. “It may bring you some comfort.”

She looks down, but does not touch it.

“’Tis a Bible,” he says. “The spoils of battle. I bargained hard for it.”

She feels a terrible confusion—gratitude and longing mixed with caution. Did he fight in the battle? Did he slay English soldiers? She wants the Bible but fears what taking it might cost her. “What do you want for it?” Her voice is hoarse.

She detects a flicker of irritation under the paint. “I want nothing. It is a gift.”

She picks it up and opens it. It is, indeed, a Bible, cunningly made, covered in leather, the pages nearly as white as the snow that lies around them. “I thank you,” she says, glancing up to meet his
eyes. “It will be a great solace.” She looks away, for her face is suddenly warm.

Alawa jumps up, takes her arm and tugs her to her feet. The Indian says something to Alawa in a language Mary cannot understand.

“Be diligent and wise and they will not harm you,” he says to Mary as Alawa releases her.

Mary nods. She feels Alawa standing behind her, watching.

“I am most grateful,” Mary says. “But tell me, please—may I know your name?”

He hesitates for only an instant, and she senses he is studying her, looking for some sign of sincerity in her face. “Wowaus,” he says. “But you will find it easier to call me James. ’Tis my English name.”

“James,” she says. “’Tis a good name. The brother of our Lord was James. You are a Praying Indian.”

He nods. “I am also called the Printer.”

“Printer?”

He nods again, smiling this time. “I was a printer’s apprentice.”

She knows that Praying Indians are farmers—and poor ones at that. From what Mary has seen, most are little more than beggars. “I have not heard of any Indian taking up a trade.”

“You do not believe me,” he says. She realizes—too late—that she has insulted him. A poor payment for his kindness.

“I meant no offense,” she says. “I was merely surprised.”

“There is much about Indians that will surprise you—if you but open your eyes.”

She is stung. She looks down at the Bible in her hand. “Will I be punished if they see me reading it?”

He shrugs. “I think it is of little importance to them.”

“Thank you, James,” she says, reaching toward him this time, and then quickly withdrawing her hand, for she is afraid that if she
touches him, she will not want to let go. “Thank you for everything.”

He nods once more and turns away. She watches him leave, watches the muscles in his shoulders and calves as he moves into the shadows, until all she can see is his silhouette against the fire.

•   •   •

T
he Bible is a comfort. Mary keeps it in her pocket, thankful that it is small enough to be stowed there. When chance allows and Weetamoo’s attention is elsewhere, she takes it out to read. It is her hope and consolation—a raft she can cling to as she tumbles in a pagan sea. She thanks God for James; she tells herself that the Lord sent this kind man to watch over her, like a guardian angel. These thoughts help her to forget the troubling feelings that invade her in his presence.

She does not see him for some time after he gives her the Bible. The more days that pass, the more she finds herself longing for another encounter. She knows such feelings are wicked, yet it is a comfort to know he is somewhere in the camp.