Salem's Legacy

by Aaron Galvin

  I nod. “And what do they say?”

  “Little, with their words,” says Ciquenackqua.

  I grin, his speech comforting me as something Father might say. The sudden thought erases my brief respite, reminding me yet again of all that has been taken from me.

  Ciquenackqua moves to the opposite side of the bed, forcing me to acknowledge his presence rather than dwell on George. “What are we to do now?” he asks.

  “George wishes us to go on without him.” My chin dips. “But I know not what to do. We have so long planned to hear what Susannah would say that—”

  “No,” says Ciquenackqua.

  I look up.

  “George wished to hear her words. You did not.” Ciquenackqua lays his father’s club upon the bed that I might recognize the eagle talons grasping the wooden ball. “We did not.”

  George shudders in the bed, the pouch slowly rising and falling upon his chest, his breath raspy.

  “We came for vengeance and blood,” says Ciquenackqua. “Not words. This is the way of our people.”

  “And we will have it,” I say.

  “When?” he asks.

  The sharpness in his tone takes me aback.

  “We have lost more than a few days to George’s plan.” Ciquenackqua reaches for the necklace his father carved for him as a gift on his naming day. “The turtle is my manitous, its path slow and steady, but even the turtle leaves its shell to bite when needed.”

  The fire in his voice bids mine to rise also, willing me to take up my father’s dagger and make the war dance with Ciquenackqua.

  “I did not follow your brother through the lands of our enemies to hunt these white devils,” says Ciquenackqua. “I followed Red Banshee, the daughter of Black Pilgrim, and my friend. We have walked this path for months together, you and I. Do not wander from it.”

  “I cannot bring myself to leave George as he is now,” I say. “Not when we draw so near to the end, nor among these folk.”

  “Your brother is a warrior,” says Ciquenackqua. “As our fathers before us and we are now. Would you have George quit this hunt if you fell ill?”

  “No…” I say quietly.

  “Then see his wish carried out.”

  “I would,” I say. “But I know not what to do.”

  “You do,” says Ciquenackqua. “Your manitous did not choose you for meekness, but for your cunning and resourceful ways. Were Creek Jumper here, he would urge you channel the ringed-tail now. Use those of us in this home as your manitous would have you do.”

  I think on my vision and the many masks worn by the ringed-tail, the same masks Creek Jumper bid me take up and wear as my own person. The plan I have held since leaving my brother’s trade post burns in my mind alongside the pain I would deal Cotton Mather. The same torments he and his brood worked on my family.

  I lean toward George, my lips burning on the heat of his forehead. “Sleep well and rest easy, brother,” I say. “I go now to carry out your wishes, for better or worse.”

  I wipe my cheeks and steel my soul under Ciquenackqua’s stern gaze. Then I rise from my brother’s side, and leave the room with Ciquenackqua in tow.

  The scents of venison and potatoes from the Barron table remind me I have not eaten in three days. Both Barrons and Andrew eat of the dinner, the scraping from their forks and knives cutting against the howled winds outside.

  Betty watches Ciquenackqua and me, her face questioning.

  “Have the pair of you ceased conspiring?” says Andrew.

  “We have no secrets, Andrew.” I snap.

  “Then why not speak plain so Susannah and her mother might understand that also?”

  His tone sets my temper to rage, though I do my best to cool it quickly in keeping to the promise I made George. “We ride for Boston on the morrow,” I say. “George would not have us halt our plans on account of his illness. Indeed, he—” My voice catches in my throat. “He is not certain he will survive it.”

  Andrew places his fork down. “All the more reason we should wait. It would be wrong to abandon him now.”

  I cannot keep my lip from curling, feeling the mere presence of Susannah at his side emboldens Andrew. “We will go,” I say. “My brother does not wish us to further intrude upon the Barron household.”

  “His company is no intrusion,” says Betty. “The Lord bids us care for the sick and wounded. We will see him back to good health, if within our power.”

  My stomach turns at her last words. “No,” I say. “You will see us to Boston.”

  “I will see you nowhere so long as Mary Warren be in your company,” says Betty. “I will not risk my shield.”

  I glance at Susannah in hopes of witnessing some lie in her eyes, or else a clue as to the shield her mother speaks of. Yet for all my passing thoughts on her girlish nature, Susannah has her mother’s gift for donning a stone face. She gives me nothing.

  “When will your husband return?” I ask Betty.

  “Who can say?” she answers. “The winter snow may keep him abroad, or else he may return tonight. I have no right to ask him of his business.”

  “She lies,” Ciquenackqua mutters in our native tongue.

  I keep my stare on Betty. “And what would your husband do, should he return to find…guests…in his home?”

  Betty’s gaze drifts to Ciquenackqua. “That would depend on the guests, I suppose, and what I would say of them.” She then looks on Andrew. “In truth, I do not suppose he should be pleased at the sight of any of you.”

  “Perhaps,” Susannah says quietly. “Perhaps if I spoke for them, Mother.”

  “Quiet, daughter,” says Betty. “Despite the favor you hold in your father’s eyes, he will be none pleased with you either now that this one has returned.” She turns her hard stare on Andrew. “Your father has already cast his judgment on such a proposal. He will not change his mind no matter how much you and Andrew might wish it.”

  Her disdain is not lost on me, though my mind wanders back to George. Leaving him unattended with no one I trust dampens the fervor I once held to reach our goal and claim our vengeance. With war raging in me on how to placate all parties, I call my manitous to mind and think how I might play to each person’s needs and wants.

  “Andrew,” I say. “You have been to Boston many times in your trading. How far till we reach the city?”

  “A day’s ride, perhaps,” he says. “If the weather be kind to us, though I do not suppose the weather will be, to judge by the winds outside.”

  “And Mather,” I say. “Do you know how to find him?”

  “No,” says Andrew. “I had not thought to search him out before. Still, we should have little trouble in finding someone who will know. He being a reverend, I suppose we should find him at church.”

  “You will not,” says Betty. “He turned over his pulpit near Christmas and it has been said he will not take it up again. Old age and illness keep him abed.”

  “He must call somewhere home,” I say, my mind recalling mine and Ciquenackqua’s village, George and Andrew’s trading post—both of them razed to the ground. “Someone will know.”

  “Aye,” says Betty. “There will be those who know where he lives. But you will not find anyone he trusts to allow you enter inside his home without conflict.” Her eyes glitter as she looks into mine. “Not without me.”

  “Your shield, rather,” I say.

  “Aye.”

  I step toward her. “And do I have your word, Betty Barron, that you will aid us if I banish Mary Warren from our company?”

  Betty’s head cocks to the side. “Aye,” she says, after a time. “I swear it.”

  “Good,” I say. “Then we leave at first light.”

  “Who leaves?” she asks.

  “All of us here, save your daughter and George.”

  Betty eyes me with suspicion. “You mean to leave Susannah behind? Truly?”

  “Aye, I would keep her safe from harm,” I say. “Who better to safeguard and quicken m
y brother than Andrew’s intended?”

  Susannah blushes at my words.

  The stern look Betty gives me warns she will not be won as easily.

  “Rebecca,” says Andrew. “Ciquenackqua should remain here also.”

  “No,” says Betty immediately.

  Andrew ignores her. “I attempted to sway his accompanying us before we left the trade post. I stand by that warning now.”

  Ciquenackqua glares at him. “No man tells me my place, or where I cannot go.”

  “That may be,” says Andrew, glancing at me for help in this matter. “But it does not change the truth of my words. Boston is no place for a native, brother. Not even one brave as you.”

  “I am a Miamiak warrior,” says Ciquenackqua. “We do not fear.”

  “I believe that,” says Andrew, walking to Ciquenackqua and placing his hands about our friend’s shoulders. “But I have seen how the fearful respond when one unafraid ventures into their company. For the shared love we bear this family”—he glances back to the table—“let you remain here and keep watch of George.”

  “No,” Betty shouts. “He cannot stay. I do not trust a savage in my home.”

  I step toward her. “No more than I trust a witch upon the road.”

  Betty glares at me. “I am no witch.”

  “And he is no savage.” I return her stare.

  Betty seethes at my response, but she keeps her tongue.

  Ciquenackqua looks on me, his usual stern face now hiding little mystery of his pride and loyalty. “What would you have of me?” he asks.

  “Stand with me,” I say. “If you remain willing.”

  He nods.

  “Then we leave come the dawn,” I say.

  Betty strides from the kitchen into an adjoining room with Susannah quick to follow after.

  “Mother, please,” says Susannah, following her. “Can you not listen to them?”

  Andrew glances at me. “And I half thought I alone had the power to displease her mother so.”

  “I care little for her happiness. If she did as I bid her, there would be little need for any of this,” I say. Glancing around the room, my heart races. “Where is Mary Warren?”

  “She asked Betty’s blessing to visit the barn,” says Andrew. “I think she wished to be alone with her thoughts.”

  “And you allowed her go?” I ask.

  “Aye,” he says. “Was I wrong to do so?”

  “She is our prisoner,” I say.

  “Not ours,” says Andrew. “Yours.”

  I storm toward the front door and fling it open, braving the cold, finding night has overtaken the day. The winds whip at my cheeks and nose, pinching them with what feels like tiny needles pricking at my skin. The snow gleams in the moonlight and casts the barn as a foreign object to my mind—a dark, hulking thing in an elsewise brilliant, frigid world.

  I fumble at the door latch and lose hold of it. A gust aids in opening it, allowing me stumble into the barn.

  The dim, small light of a candle casts long shadows into the rafters further to the back of the barn.

  I close the door and latch it, then hear the rustling of straw.

  “Who comes?” Mary asks.

  “Rebecca.” I kick the barn side, knocking clumps of snow off the leather boots Andrew salvaged from the trade post fires.

  A horde of cats scrambles around me no sooner than I tread toward Mary, all of them mewling for scraps, a few near tripping me.

  Mary nestles in straw, her broad back lain against an even broader heifer. She gives me no kind word, nor even acknowledges my presence, her sight transfixed by the pale light of the candle, perched atop an upturned metal bucket so the wax drippings cannot catch the barn aflame should she fall asleep.

  A stallion neighs from the stables, frightening me for a moment. It kicks at doors holding it at bay.

  For a moment, I believe closing my eyes might transport me back to my brother’s trade post. A part of me wishes when I open my eyes again it would be no strange horse, but my father’s stallion—the majestic beast waiting for some little affection.

  But the stallion remains unfamiliar. And the candle flame, small and weak, reminds me near everything I held dear has been given over to fire and ash.

  I run my palm over its flames, culling its heat to stoke the embers in me rather than give over to the somber.

  “How fares George?” Mary asks.

  “He rests now,” I say, turning my attention to her.

  “Good,” she says. “The cold will not abandon his body so easily. I fear also the toll upon the road has dampened his soul.” Her voice breaks. “Aye, and the loss of Hannah.”

  My chin dips. “She were a goodly woman.”

  “Never in my life had I met one so kind as she,” says Mary. “In truth, I do not expect to witness such kindness again in my life. Nor after, if we are speaking plainly.” She shifts against the heifer. “I know myself as one bound for Hell. Still, I thank God for allowing me meet one of His angels for a time.”

  The many memories with my sister-in-law flood within me—the way Hannah balanced my brother’s calculative mind with her open and trusting ways, that she followed him into a life lived in the wilderness when few others would have done the same. All gone in an instant, due to the cowardice of the woman seated before me.

  “The others told you I were out here, no?” Mary asks.

  “They did.”

  Mary nods. “No doubt they believe I braved the cold to be shut of Betty’s presence.”

  “Is that not why you are here?” I ask.

  “In some small manner, aye. The larger truth be I wished to sit alone with my thoughts and take in the quiet.” Her shoulders sag. “I know not the last time I were truly left alone to do so.”

  The wind whistles beyond the barn’s wooden boards, shaking several.

  “It is hardly quiet here,” I say.

  “It suffices.” Mary strokes the heifer’s back. “As a girl, I often wondered what it must be like to live as a hermit. But even then, I knew hermits must have courage to withstand both the wilderness and the isolation. In truth, I should have been content to live in such a barn as this. I ever enjoyed those chores most whilst living with the Proctors. No cow or swine ever mocked nor threatened me. They sought only food and care. Nothing else.”

  “Hannah once said the same of my brother.” I grin.

  Mary does not. “George, perhaps. Food and care alone never sated any man I had personal dealings with.”

  “Then they were no true men,” I say.

  “No, they were not,” says Mary, her cheeks tightening. “But you did not brave the cold to speak of the ghosts in my past. You came to learn if I were still here, or else if I broke my word and ran off.”

  I settle down into the straw in front of her.

  “Aye,” I say quietly. “Those were my first thoughts.”

  “Were our situations reversed, I suppose I should think the same,” she says. “I have given you no reason to trust me.”

  I will the words George would ask of me to come out. “And yet you earn it even now.”

  Mary snaps her gaze from the candlelight, her eyes interrogating me.

  “The others said you were in the barn,” I say. “And here I find you. I know not how long I spent at George’s side, but you could have been gone from here by now if you wished.” I open my arms to her. “And yet you remain.”

  “Where else am I to go?”

  I lean closer. “To Boston with me?”

  Her face pales. “I have told you George cannot travel.”

  “He bid me keep on without him,” I say, noting her face darken at my words. “I leave at first light with Betty and the others.”

  “But not Susannah,” says Mary.

  “No,” I say. “She will stay.”

  Mary scratches her cheek. “And were that your plan or Betty’s?”

  “My own,” I say, though her question takes me aback. I look long on Mary’s face, studyi
ng it for any trace she might have clued to my true plan. “George counseled me trust the Barrons.”

  “And yet you cannot.”

  “No…”

  “Then you are wiser for it.” Mary grimaces. “Did neither of you entertain the notion I should keep watch over George and Susannah?”

  “I need you at my side,” I say.

  “Are we speaking truths still?” Mary chuckles. “Say rather Betty does not trust me alone with her daughter.”

  “Perhaps not.” I grin at her for gleaning such truth of the situation.

  Mary plays with a bit of loose straw. “And what did Betty promise you in return for her daughter’s safe keeping?”

  “Why should she have promised me anything?” I ask.

  “Because you venture into the lion’s den,” says Mary. “And you would have a lioness lead you there.”

  “Should I take a lamb instead?”

  Mary’s face tightens in study of me. “What could Betty have promised to make you waver? Aid, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  I flinch.

  Mary grins. “And did she say more of the form this aid would come in?”

  Her confident and mocking tone surprises me, one I have never heard from her lips. Still, the glint in her eyes be one I have seen before—the same I saw when the pair of us slipped among Mercy Lewis’s followers and dispatched them from this world.

  “She promises a shield,” I say.

  “A fitting reference.” Mary chuckles. “Did she tell you the name of this shield, or the part he played in Salem?”

  “He?” I ask.

  “Aye, if he yet lives and I judge her rightly,” says Mary. “She would lead us to Samuel Sewall, brother to the man her father sent Betty to stay with in waiting out the poison of Devil’s powder.”

  “You know this man well then?”

  “Aye, I should,” says Mary. “He were one of the judges during the Salem trials and his ties to Cotton Mather be little secret.”

  My lip curls at his name. “You think she leads us into a trap then?”

  “Perhaps,” says Mary. “Betty were ever cunning as Abigail. I have little doubt the years have dulled her mind. And she said herself this very night she would do anything to protect her daughter.”

  I think back on Betty, and my dealings with Mary, my feelings hazy on which Salem sister to trust, if either.