The Dumb Shall Sing

by Stephen Lewis

  “I did not finish telling you what I wanted to tell you.”

  “Go on then,” Catherine said, “and be quick about it.”

  “Before when I told you what I heard that girl say, I did not tell you what Ned replied.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that if my father knew what they were about, he would have them both whipped out of town at the end of a cart, he would. My cousin is very wayward. Mother used to say that, and father, too.”

  “But your father...”

  “He was never so happy as when my little brother was born. But as for Ned, as soon as he came home and saw the babe, and heard how my father talked about at last having a son, his face turned black, and black it stayed. That is why I think he did it.”

  “To do what child?”

  “Why to persuade that girl to kill my little brother.”

  Henry stood in the doorway and beckoned for the girl to join him.

  “There’s wood to be stacked,” he said, and then he walked away.

  The statement reminded Catherine of a question.

  “Ann, doesn’t Ned usually stack the wood?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he do so when the babe died?”

  “No. He was inside the house talking to that girl, like I said.”

  “Convincing her?”

  “Yes.”

  Catherine sensed Henry before she saw his figure again block the light in the doorway.

  “I was just on my way,” Catherine said. “Ann was asking me if I thought I could help her mother.”

  “There is wood to be stacked,” he said, and Ann followed him into the yard. Catherine waited a moment, and then she followed them out of the house. She saw Henry point to the fire wood that he had split. Ann nodded but then turned back toward Catherine. She said something to her father while pointing at Catherine. Henry shook his head and pushed her in the direction of the wood. Ann stepped slowly toward the stump on which the wood had been split. She bent down and picked up the first log, and then another, laying them carefully on the ground to provide a basis for the stack she would construct.

  Catherine ambled on the path leading away from the house. It passed within ten feet of the area where Ann worked. She hoped for an opportunity to hear what else the child might say, now that her father had gone off to attend to some other chores out in the field behind the house. But as Catherine approached, and slowed even more to provide the girl a chance to step forward, a figure emerged from beneath a huge maple tree that towered over the yard. The man looked at Ann, and then at Catherine, and walked so as to place himself between them. He stood looking at Catherine as she passed.

  “And a good day to you Mistress Williams,” Ned said.

  “Aye, it is that,” Catherine said, “and better still it will be when I come back with something to help your poor mother.’

  “My mother is in the grave, as you know very well, Mistress,” he replied.

  “And you know just as well that I refer to that poor woman in the house who is now your mother.’

  Ned glanced back at Ann and then toward Catherine.

  “Well, then, Mistress,” he said, “as you say, so must it be.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sun had been up for two hours now, and Massaquoit was worried. He and Margaret had followed the path, whose entrance had been announced by the branch in the dead log, and they had followed it to its end in a small clearing a safe distance from the road, and yet close enough to the shore so that they could hear the surf crashing against the beach. The clearing was screened from the water by a thin row of scraggly pines and one massive boulder that had been deposited on this spot eons ago by a receding glacier.

  Massaquoit had risked exposure by climbing to the top of the boulder so that he could search the horizon. From time to time, he though he saw a black speck riding the blue waves, but then it would disappear in the shadow of low lying black clouds darkening the eastern sky, only to reappear in a different place. He shifted his gaze away from the shadows and stared until his eyes ached and began to blur against the glare of the sun reflected off the water. He clambered down from the boulder and made his way through the pines to the perimeter of the clearing. He did not immediately enter the clearing but continued past it onto the path, which he followed all the way back almost to the road. This took some time but he would rather be forewarned if the English were anywhere near. He stood still and listened. At first, he heard nothing, and then the scurrying of small animals fleeing his arrival in their territory. From above, birds twittered and took flight. An acorn dropped at his feet, and he looked up to see a red squirrel on a branch of an oak tree. A chipmunk darted out from the underbrush and seized the acorn, which was almost too large for its mouth, but it managed to carry it off back in the low growing vegetation. Still, Massaquoit stood, and when he heard nothing else he was sure that the English were not approaching, for he knew that in their clumsy shoes and their careless ways they would make enough noise for him to hear them from a considerable distance and thus be able to retreat long before they came upon him.

  When he returned to the clearing he did not see Margaret, and he cursed himself for trusting that she would wait patiently for him to return. She had been jumpy all night as they waited for the dawn, and he should have realized that her nerves were stretched too tight to tolerate sitting alone in a forest clearing. The clearing was covered in a thin layer of pine needles and dead leaves over soft earth still moist from a recent rain. A moment’s inspection revealed the direction she had taken.

  He found her on the boulder where he had been not half an hour before.

  “It is not wise for you to be sitting up there,” he said.

  “Were you not here yourself not so long ago. Don’t deny it, for I saw you from behind those trees.” She pointed at the pines, and he was struck by the stark recognition that he had been so careless as not to have felt her presence staring at him, or to have heard her step following him. “I was very quiet,” she said, as though reading his thought.

  “Not so quiet, as I was not heeding,” he said.

  She pointed up the shoreline several hundred yards where the road from town reached the beach.

  “Would not those following us come from over there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied, “unless they found our path.”

  “Well, I have been studying that place, and have seen nobody.” She turned toward the water and pointed to a spot about a quarter of mile off shore. “But I have been watching that.”

  Massaquoit shielded his eyes and looked to where she was pointing. He saw the same black shape that had been appearing and disappearing before. Only now its shape was clearly recognizable. It was a canoe bobbing on the waves, climbing a crest and then sliding down into the trough, and with each second showing itself larger until he could see the lone figure in the rear switching his paddle from one side to the other.

  “Is that your friend, then?” she asked.

  “It is.”

  “It’s a good thing that the English are tardier than he is,” she said.

  “Yes, that it is. But they may not be so tardy as you think, so you had better come on down in case they show up before Wequashcook reaches us.”

  She sat down on the boulder and let herself slide. She landed in a heap at Massaquoit’s feet, and held her hand up. He helped her to her feet.

  “You heathen and your names,” she said. “How is a body supposed to remember such as that?”

  “The same way I can remember that you are Margaret Mary Donovan,” he replied.

  She permitted a small smile to curl her lips and she blushed slightly.

  “It is not at all the same thing,” she said.

  He did not respond. He did not have the time nor the patience to begin to teach her that strangeness was only a matter of perspective. It was a lesson he himself had only begun to learn, and that imperfectly. Instead, he looked again to the eastern skies where the
black clouds were accelerating toward them.

  “If the English do not catch us, we may get caught in that,” he said, pointing to the approaching storm.

  “And how far do you intend to take us?” she asked.

  “Not very far. To that island. It is called Munnawtawkit.”

  She strained to see what he was looking at.

  “Is that far enough away?” she asked.

  “I know a place on it where we will not be found, and where we can wait until it is safe for you to come back. And I have hunted and fished from there, and I know where food is hidden.”

  She nodded, apparently satisfied, and having no better alternative to offer, she sat down at the base of the boulder. He remained standing, looking first at the approaching canoe, and then at the clouds, and every once in a while, glancing at the place where the town road reached the beach. It seemed clear to him that the English army coming down that road would arrive at about the same time as the storm and Wequashcook in his canoe.

  The canoe arrived first, but just barely. Massaquoit waded out into the surf that was now roiling in the winds spinning out from the storm. Wequashcook had navigated these waters for many years, trading with both English and Indians, and sometimes even venturing far enough to the west to deal with the Dutch, but still he struggled to keep his canoe from tipping. Massaquoit, waist high in the waters, sought to keep his balance while steadying the craft and nudging it toward the shore. Within a few minutes they were able to ride one last wave into the white waters near the shore. Massaquoit shoved from his position on the side of the canoe, and Wequashcook paddled furiously on the other side, and the canoe bounced through the surf and grounded itself as the water receded. Wequashcook leaped out and they pulled the canoe onto the sand.

  “You are late,” Massaquoit said.

  “And you have no time,” Wequashcook replied. “I have seen the English coming down the road. They will be here in minutes.”

  “You are late,” Massaquoit said again.

  “And you are too stubborn to stay alive long. I was going to get a shallop for you, but the man had a change of heart, and I had to find this.”

  Massaquoit ran his fingers over the side of the canoe. It was a small dugout, a log which had been hollowed by weeks of controlled burning.

  “It still feels a little warm,” he said.

  “It is seaworthy,” Wequashcook said, “or I would not be here. Are you going far?”

  Massaquoit did not hesitate. He nodded and pointed to the distant horizon.

  “To the island they call Paumonok, the fish.”

  Wequashcook looked at the advancing storm clouds and then the horizon and shook his head.

  “That is a long way to go in a storm.”

  “Not so long with the English snapping at our heels.”

  Margaret emerged from behind the boulder and stared at the crude craft.

  “I hope you don’t think I am getting into that, do you?”

  “Only if you don’t want to hang,” Massaquoit said, and he pushed the canoe a few feet back into the surf so that he could float it out onto the receding waves. Wequashcook offered his arm, and Margaret allowed herself to be guided to the seaward side of the canoe. She clambered in and knelt down.

  “You will find another paddle there,’ Massaquoit said. He glanced back toward the road, and he saw the sun reflect off metal. “They are almost here,” he said.

  “When you are safely on Paumonok I will come find you,” Wequashcook said, and then he trotted with surprising speed for a man his age into the woods that bordered the shore and disappeared.

  Massaquoit shoved the canoe out and slid into it. He picked up the paddle. Just then the first musket shot rang out. He looked back to see the sand at water’s edge being lifted by the musket ball at the end of its trajectory. An English soldier bent over his piece, beginning the cumbersome process of reloading. He was well out of range, but his comrades were charging past him to get close enough for a meaningful shot.

  Massaquoit leaned his weight against the stern of the canoe, but the waves beat it back almost as fast as he could push it out. He could hear the confused and excited voices of the English soldiers as they gathered on the beach. Their muskets started to fire one after the other, explosive pops followed by the dull plunk of the balls hitting the water. The soldiers had not yet gotten the range, but they were getting closer. The waves flattened for a moment, and Massaquoit raised himself into the canoe. He could now make out individual voices coming from the soldiers. “Get the Indian, first,” one said. “Be careful not to hit the girl,” another said. Massaquoit understood their intent. A musket ball thudded next to his arm.

  “Paddle for your life,” he said to her.

  Margaret picked up the paddle and slapped it down into the water in a motion that provided more splash than propulsion. Massaquoit leaned into his paddle, but the canoe

  made slow progress against the wind driven tide, and the soldiers were getting dangerously close. Musket fire exploded from the shore, now, in an increasing crescendo rolling over the water like muffled thunder. Massaquoit looked behind him, and he saw the thin wakes left in the water by the spent musket balls. The soldiers were now directly in line with the canoe and they were wading into the water, well within range. He could hear the English yelling to each other.

  “Paddle,” he yelled to Margaret.

  She dug her paddle into the water, to better effect now, but he feared they were out of time. A musket ball thudded against the side of the canoe, lifting a sliver of bark. He looked again at the pursuing soldiers. He saw that they were wearing, as usual, their steel corselets, and they were having some difficulty wielding their clumsy matchlocks as they were rocked by the waves that were increasing in strength as the winds picked up. They would not be able to advance too much further into the water. He needed to find a way to put some more distance between them before one of them got lucky with a shot. He could think of only one way to buy a little time. He leaned toward Margaret to make sure she understood what he said.

  “Do not be alarmed. I am about to fall into the water, but I will be right next to the canoe.”

  “Why, that’s a fine thing,” she said. “And what am I supposed to do while you take yourself such an untoward swim.”

  “Keep paddling. That is all. They will not shoot you. They want to hang you, not shoot you. They will happily shoot me so as to capture you. I will be only one more dead Indian. You will be an entertainment and a lesson for them as you swing at the end of a rope. Now paddle!”

  She did, digging her paddle furiously into the water. Another musket ball thudded against the side of the canoe. The soldiers were at the extreme end of the range of their weapons and they were having difficulty raising their shot the last couple of feet into the canoe. Massaquoit waited until he heard several musket explosions in succession, and then he stood up. He heard a lone shot and then he felt the ball graze his right arm with enough force to spin him around. He tottered and slid into the water. As he fell, he heard the cheer go up from the English soldiers. He let himself sink into the water, but he kept his left hand on the side of the canoe. He worked himself behind the canoe. The water was just deep enough so that when his feet touched bottom his head was several inches below the surface. He planted his feet and shoved. He felt the canoe move and he pushed again. He floated up just far enough to lift his nose out of the water for a breath, and then he sank again, dug his feet into the rocky bottom, and threw his weight against the canoe. He lost his grip. He swam underwater until his lungs ached, and then he sought the surface. He gasped for breath and blinked the salt water out of his eyes. His vision was blurred, and all he could see were the waves, and the lowering black clouds. He spun around, and he could make out the figures of the soldiers still leveling their weapons, and he could even see the flash from the exploding powder. He floated to the top of a cresting wave, and then he saw the canoe, eight or ten feet ahead of him. He swam toward it. Margaret was still pad
dling. He reached for her paddle and stopped its motion. She looked down, startled.

  “Why, I thought to have seen your dead body floating,” she said.

  “Not just yet,” he replied.

  “Well, then, you might want to get back on board. My arms are about to fall off. I don’t think I can stroke one more time.”

  The soldiers had stopped firing, having finally understood that the canoe was now out of range.

  “Lie down in the canoe,” Massaquoit said. “Carefully.”

  She did not move.

  “Do it,” he said, “or you will join me in the water.”

  She let herself slide down onto the bottom of the canoe. He swam to the back and grabbed the sides as far toward the front as he could. The canoe rose and fell with each wave, and he used this motion to help him pull himself slowly forward. The canoe rocked from side to side and he stayed still until it settled. He waited for the lift of another wave, and he pulled himself over the aft of the canoe as smoothly as possible. Again it rolled, and almost tipped, but righted himself. His stomach was now resting on Margaret’s face, and he could hear her sputtering beneath his weight.

  “Do not move yet,” he said.

  He managed to gather his legs into a kneeling position and lifted his torso up.

  “Now,” he said. “Get up, slowly.”

  She did. He picked up his paddle and saw that it had a piece gouged out of it by a musket ball whose impact he had not felt. He dug it into the water and leaned into a powerful stroke.

  “Your paddle,” he said. “Do not think I am going to do this by myself.”

  Margaret, however, was staring at her hand, which was covered in blood. Then she lifted her hand to her face. Some of the blood transferred from her hand to her cheek. She felt her cheek with the fingers of her other hand, and then gazed in horror at the blood on her flesh.

  “I will die,” she said.

  “It is my blood,” Massaquoit said. He pointed to his arm. She stared dumbly for a moment, and then she nodded.

  “It’s a good thing, then,” she said, and picked up her paddle.