A small knot of citizens followed behind. Catherine noted Ned among them, along with his pock faced companion Ned was carrying a bucket filled with manure. He offered the bucket to his companion, whose ravaged face glistened with perspiration. The man dipped his hand into the bucket and heaved a lump of manure at the cage. It hit the top of the cage and splattered onto Minneseewa’s face. She did not wipe it away. A constable stepped forward and took the bucket from Ned.
Hurrying as fast as he could to keep up with the slow moving parade was Magistrate Woolsey. As he came abreast of Catherine, he stopped, his face red, and his chest heaving from exertion.
“So you can see,” he said, gesturing toward the soldiers and their prisoners as they passed.
“Indeed, I can,” Catherine said. She pointed to Margaret. “Was there any need for so much iron on the poor girl?”
“Why look at her face,” Woolsey replied.
“I am.”
“She would not be taken easily,” he said.
“Would you? With a rope awaiting your neck?” She turned toward the cage. “And that? I suppose she, too, fought for her liberty.”
“She did. They both did, from accounts I have heard. They are to be held in the jail, under closer guard this time. And I must ask you, Catherine, since he is so firmly implicated in this matter, where is your savage?”
“He is no more mine than yours,” she said. “And as to where he is, I cannot say.”
Woolsey pointed at Wequashcook.
“We have his comrade, as you can see for yourself. And it won’t be long before we have him.” He put his hand on Catherine’s shoulder. “Understand me. I take no pleasure in these proceedings, and I will do what I can.”
Catherine looked into the face of the man she had known so many years, and recognized his good intentions while also appreciating the limitations of his perceptions. Still, his temperament was gentle so the anger he had flashed a little while before was unnatural to him. She removed his hand from her shoulder and nodded.
“We will talk later,” she said. “I must see to the girl.”
She walked out from the onlookers and placed herself parallel to Margaret. The marchers halted in front of the jail. The drummer stopped beating his instrument. Jailor Drake, his eyes red, and his face unshaved, and his shirt clumsily stuffed into his breeches, waited in front of the door. The lieutenant walked stiffly toward him.
“Are you ready to receive the prisoners?” he asked in a voice loud enough to be heard by the crowd. Drake nodded, turned around, and opened his door. Waters motioned to the drummer who brought his sticks down in a staccato beat, and the soldiers paced toward the open door. When Margaret reached the doorway she stumbled to her knees. Catherine helped her stand again. Margaret looked at Catherine as though she did know who she was.
“If it please, you, Mistress Williams,” the lieutenant said, “step back and let us conduct our business.”
“I will be watching,” she said, as much for Margaret’s benefit as the lieutenant, whose face reddened for a moment.
Margaret struggled into the doorway, but the log was too wide and she had to stop.
“Jailor,” the lieutenant said, and Drake stepped forward. He grabbed the log, and yanked it back out of the doorway, bringing Margaret back outside. Then Drake turned the log so it would go straight in and he shoved Margaret toward the door. She turned to him, her bruised face darkened with anger.
“I’m in no hurry to get back into your stinking hole, you know,” she said.
Catherine reached out her hand to reassure her with a touch on her shoulder, but the lieutenant interposed himself.
“Please, Mistress Williams, let us be about what we have to do.”
“Yes, Catherine,” Woolsey, said. The old man was breathing hard as he had had to force his way through the crowd that was now packed solidly in front of the jail. Catherine permitted him to lead her away. He took her a short distance from the doorway, but out of earshot of the lieutenant and the onlookers.
“You must tell me if you hear from him,” he began.
“I do not know where he is,” Catherine replied, “but I pray he is away free.”
* * * *
Massaquoit was not very far away at all. From his perch atop the meetinghouse roof, he watched. He, too, had heard the drums when they began to beat, and he had followed the sound to the beach where the shallop had just returned from Munnawtawkit to disgorge its cargo of English soldiers and their captives. He had seen the English woman first, noted the bruises swelling dark purple on her face, saw the desperate anger in her eyes as she dragged the heavy log through the surf and onto the beach. And he had seen Minneseewa in her cage, and he cursed himself for exposing them to the English instead of shielding them with his life. Rage had risen in his chest until he shook like one whose fever was beyond medicine. It could only be eased with blood, and it was with sadness profound as the waters beneath which his comrades now lay he knew he could only watch as Minneseewa was carried clumsily out of the boat in the cage, and as she was dropped once in the roiling surf, and as the English laughed while she was lifted up again, sputtering and spitting out the salt water she had swallowed.
And so he had moved behind the shelter of the forest edge to follow the procession in his impotent fury, not wanting to be captured, exactly, but not unhappy with the prospect of being seen and therefore provoked into a confrontation that would provide him the opportunity to close his hands around one English throat and squeeze until life fled with the man’s last, pained breath.
It did not take him long to figure out that the procession would proceed to the square where the English worshiped their god on one side and sliced the nostrils of their criminals on the other. And so he had made his way ahead of them. When he arrived at the deserted square, for all the citizens of Newbury had rushed to follow the drum, he saw some thatch lying next to the meetinghouse, which was going to be used to replace a section of the roof that had been singed by a spark from the chimney. He took a bundle and climbed up a ladder that had been left leaning against the wall by the thatcher, who had also gone to see the excitement. Once on the roof he covered himself with the thatch, and thus virtually invisible, watched the scene unfold beneath him.
He saw the same English boy he had fought with on the beach. He saw him dipping his hand into the bucket and hurling filthy handfuls of cow dung at Minneseewa, and he did nothing, but with each handful that splattered against the cage, he promised himself another act of vengeance, a finger snapped back, an eye gouged, a tongue pulled out, all performed without haste and with exquisite attention to the details of pain. He could only hope the boy would prove to be braver than he looked so that he would be justified in prolonging his agony.
* * * *
Catherine stood by Woolsey’s side as the door first closed behind Margaret, and then after a few minutes opened again to receive Minneseewa. A soldier cut through the ropes securing the sides of the cage, for in their haste to construct it, the soldiers had not fashioned a door. When one side was cut free, the soldier pulled it back and motioned for the old woman to walk out. She sat motionless.
“Pull her out, then,” Lieutenant Waters said.
The soldier reached to take her arm, but his hand closed around the cow dung that had dripped onto her there. He pulled his hand back in disgust, and then tried her other arm. He yanked until she half walked and half fell out of the cage. Two other soldiers pointed the sharp edges of their pikes at her and motioned toward the door. She rose unsteadily to her feet. A daub of manure was on her forehead and threatening to slide down her face, but she would not brush it off. One of the soldiers holding the pike scraped it off with the point of his weapon. Catherine could not be sure whether it was a gesture of generosity or contempt. Minneseewa seemed not to notice and she strode into the jail where Drake waited for her. The door shut behind her.
A few moments later, the door opened, and two soldiers led Wequashcook to Drake.
“W
hat is this?” the jailor said. “Another one? I’ve told the governor and anybody that would listen, I don’t have food for the two inside.”
“I wouldn’t worry, much,” Lieutenant Waters said, “you won’t have any of the three on your hands very long, if you get my meaning.”
“Aye, I do, but still they will be moaning for a bit to eat before then,” Drake grumbled, and pushed Wequashcook toward the open doorway.
“Keep a close watch on them,” Waters said. “And we will have a guard outside, as well. The governor was very particular in telling me that a jailor who cannot keep his prisoners won’t be a jailor long in this town.”
Drake shook his head and pointed at the wall where obvious gaps permitted the sun to shine in.
“I am not saying anything, but the governor might want to consider making a better jail as well as replacing the jailor.” He walked into his building, and slammed the door behind hard enough to cause the frame to shake.
Catherine watched the door close and then waited. The crowd seemed reluctant to disperse, as though disappointed the spectacle was over, hoping perhaps to see it culminate in a hanging. But soon, in ones and twos, people began to walk away, talking in low voices which occasionally rose to a higher pitch as the excitement of watching the captives taken to the jail was told over, each time with a new embellishment. When all but a few stragglers remained, Catherine strode to the door where Lieutenant Waters leaned at his ease between two soldiers who stood at attention with their pikes butt end on the ground in front of them. Catherine pulled on Woolsey’s arm.
“Come along, then, Joseph,” she said. “I need you to get me inside the jail so I can attend to that girl. I do not think the Indian woman will let me help her, but perhaps I can try. As for the Indian man, I do not know why he is here.”
“That is not a good idea,” Woolsey said. “The people are inflamed against the girl. And the savages as well.”
“I know. Come along, now.”
The magistrate did not move. Catherine leaned her face close to his.
“I now know the girl is innocent.”
“Know?”
“Yes. I spoke with Martha Jameson just yesterday. She told me something that assured me I was right about the girl.”
“What...” Woolsey began.
“Just trust me Joseph. In good time, I will tell you.”
He nodded and then he freed his arm from Catherine’s grasp and raised his hand to straighten his ruff, which was stained with perspiration and creeping up uncomfortably beneath his chin.
“Lieutenant,” he said, “a word with you.”
Catherine caught herself marveling at the sudden change of tone in her old friend’s voice, which now assumed in this public setting an assertive air that was at odds with the perplexed and uncertain tenor she was accustomed to hearing in their private conversations.
“Would you be so kind,” Woolsey said, “as to call the jailor so as to conduct Mistress Williams to his prisoners where she can tend to their wounds?”
“Pardon me for asking, sir,” Waters said, “but you can vouch for her, can you not, for we have reason to think that it was her savage what helped the girl escape.”
“Lieutenant,” Waters said, “remember who you are talking to and about.”
“I was just doing my duty, as the governor as instructed me to take special pains, is all,” Waters said. “On your word, then.” He knocked on the door. Drake appeared.
“You don’t have another one do you, lieutenant?”
Waters did not respond, but motioned Catherine forward. He stepped several paces back, as though to distances himself from an act he clearly thought inappropriate. She passed him and approached Drake, close enough so that she could smell his fetid breath.
“You will not be playing the hangman,” she said loudly enough for Waters to hear and to drive the jailor’s head back. “You have my word on that. And as for food for those inside, I and Magistrate Woolsey will make sure there is enough. You just be certain that it does not get mislaid.”
Drake stood silent and Catherine entered the jail. Once inside, she blinked in the half light of the front room. Drake shuffled by her and made his way to the door on the back wall of the room.
“She’s in here,” he said. “And this time in here she will stay,” He lifted the latch. Catherine walked by him and into the room, which was even darker.
“Do you have a candle?”
“Yes, for me. She don’t need one in there, mumbling her prayers she is.”
“She might not, but I do.”
Drake muttered something inaudible, but he picked up a candle from his table and lit it with a brand from the fireplace. He handed it to Catherine.
“I will be in the dark myself before long,” he said.
“I will replace this one for you with three,” Catherine replied.
Margaret sat huddled in the corner, her beads drawn tightly around her hands. She looked up when Catherine came in. Catherine knelt by her and ran her fingers over the bruises on her face. Margaret winced.
“I will be back with something for these hurts,” she said.
“You are taking great pains for a dead woman,” Margaret replied.
“No, I am taking pains to make sure you stay alive.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Massaquoit lay on the roof of the meetinghouse until the crowd was gone, Lieutenant Waters had walked off, and only the two sentries, looking very bored, stood in front of the jail. Then he crawled backwards to the rear of the building and climbed down the ladder he had left there.
He had taken due note of the three prisoners, and now he needed to sort out his impressions. Of course, he did not have to analyze his response to seeing Minneseewa in the cage being pelted with cow dung. That sight incited a rage that was as understandable as it was necessary to control so that he did not permit his anger to lead him into a stupid or self destructive act. He was, however, strangely moved by viewing Margaret in chains, for as he now understood, he saw in her another victim of the English. And then, and most troublesome for him, was the spectacle of Wequashcook’s scarred head and expressionless face as he too was led into the English prison building. He did not know whether Wequashcook was genuinely also a prisoner or was being shown as one to mask his duplicity. For that reason, Massaquoit had stayed long on the roof, even as the sun began to bake him beneath his covering of thatch, and as giant black flies seem to find his face an inviting target. He waited to see if Wequashcook would emerge out of a back door after the other English went home. He did not, and Massaquoit was left to ponder how to fit that piece into the picture that was forming, however inchoately, in his mind.
He brushed off the thatch that clung to his chest and permitted himself the pleasure of scratching the swelling left on his cheek from a fly bite. He was standing at the rear of the meetinghouse which was separated from the edge of the forest by only a narrow clearing of felled trees which had been planted into a garden for the benefit of Minister Davis. He was hungry. He had not eaten anything since the night before last on the island. He shook his head at the thought that it seemed like he was always hungry, that as long as he lived near the English he would have an ache in his empty belly. He examined the pole beans, and picked two handfuls. He started to lift the longest bean to his mouth, but then thought better. He would wait until he was in the shadow of the trees where it was cool, and he could eat in peace. Then he listened to the argument that was developing between his head and his heart.
* * * *
Magistrate Woolsey was waiting with Phyllis in the front room of Catherine’s house when she came back from the jail.
“I hope you forgive me,” he said, “but I must talk with you. Phyllis has been so kind as to make me comfortable here.”
“What is it then, Joseph?”
“It is the governor. He has summoned a grand jury for tomorrow morning. He says the grand jury will find a true bill in the morning, that a petit jury will find the girl guilt
y in the afternoon, and that the hangman will have her by nightfall.”
“Indeed, does he,” Catherine said, although her anger thickened her tongue so that she found it difficult to form the words.
“Indeed, he does. He says the girl’s escape from jail and her desperate fight to remain at liberty prove that she is guilty.”
“I suppose he would have preferred confession, contrition, and repentance. I wonder what he would do in the same circumstance, unlikely as it is for a magistrate whose back is spared the whip to ever face the gallows.”
“Catherine,” Woolsey began, but he stopped himself.
“You would like to say that I go too far.”
“Yes.”
“Or maybe not far enough.” She looked at Phyllis as though just remembering she was still there. “Do you not have a vegetables to gather for dinner?”
“Edward will be bringing them in,” Phyllis said.
“He needs help,” Catherine replied, and Phyllis stood slowly to her feet and turned reluctantly as though she were being made to leave a party that she had been attending, uninvited, for never before had she seen her mistress so combative, even with her old friend Joseph Woolsey.
After she left, the magistrate stood up, as though to leave.
“I must attend the governor,” he said. “I was hoping you would tell me something I could carry back to him to dampen his enthusiasm for a hanging.”
“And just why is he so anxious, do you think?”
Woolsey reddened.
“I think it has less to do with the girl than with you. He has said as much to me, that he does not value the Jamesons, that he feels that Henry has abandoned his stewardship of the family, and that his wife has now entirely lost her wits. He was angrier than ever I saw him when he learned that your Matthew helped the girl escape. When I told him the girl was with child, he said he would issue a writ de ventre inspiciendo to impanel a jury of matrons to make sure she was not lying to save her life, and if he cannot have Matthew, he will have the girl, although the truth is he would like to see them dance together at the end of a rope.”
The Dumb Shall Sing Page 18