Scar

by J. Albert Mann

  I load faster. What my foot lacks in strength I more than make up for with my arms. And if I am exhausted, I’m determined that neither my sister nor my mother will see it.

  Mary comes to the door of the cabin. Her corset is loose and the sleeves of her white shift are rolled up past her elbows. Her dark hair is pulled tightly up under her cap and her cheeks are bright red from the heat of soap-making. She watches me load. “You look tired today,” she says.

  Zounds! I cannot hide anything, living with two women. They are always looking straight through me. I miss my father. He would ruffle my hair like I was just a child and shout at the two of them to let me be. Even last year, when I was fifteen. But I never minded it.

  “I am not tired,” I scowl. “I’m actually full of energy on this beautiful summer day, Mary Elizabeth Daniels.”

  She laughs at me as she turns back to the iron cooking pot and her soap. Mary is a combination of both our parents. She has the drive and beauty of my mother and the comical spirit of my father. A happy and content girl who sees no reason why everyone else should not be the same. She also sees no reason, even though she is almost three years younger than me, why she shouldn’t tell me what to do and when to do it. I throw myself into my chair at the table and smile as broadly as humanly possible. I will not let women rule my life.

  “Eat,” Mary commands, as she places a loaf of rye bread, a tankard of bee balm tea, and a bowl of cornmeal mush in front of me.

  And I eat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SCAR

  THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1779

  I look over at the Indian. His breathing is ragged, but steady. I return to staring out at the dark edges of our circle of moonlight. Except for a warm trickle of blood running from my wound, nothing is moving.

  I should have run. I should have run for the river like the others. I can’t stop searching the woods surrounding us, hoping that I will see someone. But then I dread who that someone might be, and begin to fear any potential movement through the trees. Although after a brief moment of watching and listening, I again wish for anyone to emerge. Yet there is only darkness and the chirping of crickets.

  The Indian turns his head to look at me. He’s awake.

  “Are you thirsty?” I ask. The heat is unbearable. If it would just let up a little, I might be able to think straight. I roll over to search for the canteen and am met by a stabbing through my middle so horrible that my stomach rises right into my throat. I can taste the vomit. I stay on my knees, holding it back. Praying for it to pass. Slowly, too slowly, the pressure in my head and chest releases, the nausea falls away, and I’m able to look about for the canteen.

  Finding it, I crawl back to the Indian. He’s watching the night sky. I follow his gaze and am struck by how many stars are out. There is more twinkle than there is black sky, the same sky I left at home yesterday morning. But there’s no comfort up there. The brightness of the stars has always seemed cold to me. I frown and look back at the boy who has become my patient. The white light of the moon catches on the shiny scar running down his cheek … Scar. I will think of him as Scar.

  My father named everyone. He rarely called people by their given names, but instead by names he created. The more he liked you, the more names he’d forge. Even our cow had several, since she had both good udders and a quiet temperament. All of my sister’s names were of the soft variety: Lamb, Duck, Mouse. I also had many names, but most often I was Cluck, the sound made by our old rooster. My mother had the longest list of us all. But his favorite name for her was “my sweet Wag,” which always made my mother smile, for wag means “one with a mischievous humor,” which she is not.

  Kneeling, I once again help Scar raise his head to drink from the canteen. He barely sips at it before he lets his head fall heavy in my hand. “Come on, a little more, try again,” I rally. I know his disinterest isn’t good. I shake the canteen. We have plenty for tonight, but I’ll have to run down to the river at first light for more. I only drink a little, as if in solidarity with him, then close up the canteen and set it down by my side.

  But even with the throbbing in my belly pulling at me, I’m not ready yet to retire back to the hot hemlock needles. I spot the emptied knapsack and begin picking everything out of the leaves and dirt, and placing it back inside the sack. As I close it, I’m reminded of how neatly Dr. Tusten had packed it, and I wonder if I, too, will never open it again. I shiver, sending a wave of pain through myself, and I cry out.

  Scar looks up. I scoot back to him with the knapsack. His breathing sounds wet. It’s not a pleasant sound, and the more I listen to it, the more it seems to fill the quiet woods.

  “Everything’s fine,” I tell him. But my voice is flat and I don’t even believe myself. I pick pieces of dead leaves out of his scalp lock and tuck the frock around him. He winces when I move nearer to his wound.

  “Let me check it.” I lift a corner of the frock. I can see a small dark spot soaking through the middle of the dressing. “I’ll rewrap it in the morning. By then the bleeding will have stopped and I’ll clean it out well and put fresh linen on it.”

  His eyes seem to say something. It’s the same look that my father’s eyes held when he watched me struggle with my schooling. Does he understand me? The Indian turns his head back toward the sky.

  “Try again to drink,” I tell him, and move for the water. I see him shake his head no. I smile. He does understand me. The Indians we trade with often speak English. And since the Mohawk have been living cheek-by-jowl with the Colonists for over a hundred years, many of them speak it well. “We’ll wait on the water,” I say, swallowing a groan as I half fall, half roll to the ground next to him. “We should be careful with it, anyway, because I can’t get us any more until morning.”

  This time he doesn’t respond, but lies as still as a turtle on a log in the sun, under my father’s frock.

  That frock … My father had been away up north, fighting with General Gates at Saratoga, and had been gone for three months when I saw him walk out of the woods wearing that frock. It was the color that caught my eye, a faded blue, like the sky on a cold winter’s afternoon. I screamed for Mary and my mother, and at the same time, took off in my lopsided gallop to greet him. He dropped his load and ran toward me. When we came upon each other, my father jumped into my arms, and under the surprise of his great weight, my legs gave out and we tumbled off the path and into the long grass. I remember shouting at him that he could have smashed my good foot under his large backside. And he just laughed and took my head in both his hands and placed a big wet kiss on my forehead. I told him that he looked like a fat blue sow. That had him howling with laughter. His face was so red and his frock so blue.

  And I laughed with him, despite my anger. I had missed him.

  I miss him now.

  When he returned from Saratoga, he talked of nothing but freedom and revolution. My father was a great Patriot. My mother was not. She kept her head bent over her knitting or ironing—working even harder than she usually did. It was November, two years ago now, and there was plenty to do with winter coming on. While my father split wood and spun his stories, she stayed far away, collecting chestnuts, drying beans and peas, and plucking goose feathers. She hated this talk.

  Mary and I loved it. My father’s tales would whip up his spirit like cream in a butter churn … the declaration of our independence, the battles, the bravery and honor.

  Lying here, home and that November day seem so far away.

  As does my father.

  I can’t believe that only two days have passed since I grabbed his frock on my way out of the cabin. How foolish to have gone back for it when I could smell how close the danger was. But I couldn’t leave it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE FROCK

  TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1779

  I swallow a mouthful of corn mush and look up at Mary. She’s looking back at me. We both smell it.

  Fire.

  Before I can even drop my spoon, my mothe
r is rushing back into the house with her arms full of bed linen. We know what to do. We’ve been fearing this day. We make for the door, bumping into one another.

  Mary and my mother shoot out of the cabin. But I stop short, clutching at the door frame to keep myself from falling over … the frock.

  Turning and flopping onto the planked floor, I drag my father’s hunting frock out from under my mother’s bed and stumble back to my feet. In one leap, I’m out the door and loping after my mother and Mary.

  We make for the woods to the east of the cabin. The three of us, white-faced and winded, meet at the laurels. After the Indian raid on our neighbors up in Peenpack last October, I dug a wide, shallow ditch in the center of where the laurels are thickest. At the bottom of the ditch, I placed a knife in a leather sack and covered it with dirt.

  My mother jumps into the ditch and pulls Mary in with her. I tumble after them, and toss the frock to my mother.

  “Why did you bring this?” she asks.

  I don’t answer. I just start digging for the sack. Pulling it from the dirt, I yank at the drawstring with stiff fingers. Mary grabs it from me and unties the laces and hands it back. Then she drops onto her knees at the top of the ditch and begins searching the woods with her eyes. “I can’t tell which direction the smoke is coming from,” she whispers. “Can you, Noah?”

  I slice through some of the larger branches near us with the knife, too busy to think about the smoke. My mother is gathering the branches piled on the side of the ditch that I’d already cut as part of my weekly chores.

  “Maybe it’s just a fire, maybe there aren’t any Indians coming,” Mary says.

  I wish it were true, but I can feel them. Or at least I can feel my skin prickling. My mother knows they’re coming, too. She lays my father’s frock on the ground and pushes Mary down onto it and begins covering her with laurel.

  “Mother,” I say, turning to hand her branches, “should I make for the fort?”

  She doesn’t stop burying Mary to answer.

  “Mother,” I repeat, but I’m interrupted by the shouts of men.

  Mary whimpers.

  “Don’t worry, Mary, they won’t find us. Close up your ears with your fingers and talk to Father,” I tell her.

  There was a time when we didn’t fear Indians. But since four of the six nations of the Iroquois joined the British, they’ve become a vicious enemy. Last October’s raid taught us this. On a beautiful fall day, with the sky the color of blue iris and the leaves of the beeches a brighter orange than the tip of a well-tended fire, they whipped through our neighboring settlement, burning everything in sight and murdering anyone who got in the way.

  Their cries grow louder. My mother grabs my arm, and the two of us huddle down with Mary in between, covering ourselves with the remaining branches. Just before I bury myself in laurel, I see them come out of the woods north of the cabin. At first my eyes just catch movement through the trees. But then I see the red of war paint.

  The whooping and hollering flattens my body against the earth. I can feel Mary shaking. I move closer to her. The smell of burning wood settles into the ditch with us. I know that it’s my home that’s burning. One Indian in particular shrieks above the rest. It sounds as if he’s standing ten yards from us. Mary’s body shakes even harder and I’m afraid it will rustle the branches. I move my hand over the dirt slowly to find hers. She grabs my hand. Her nails dig into my skin. I can feel her fear. I can smell it.

  “Mary.” I say it so softly it comes out like a puff of air. “Mary, put your nose down to Father’s frock. Can you smell him? He’s here with us. They’ll leave soon. It won’t be long.”

  Mary begins to sob. I can’t actually hear her crying, but can feel it. I know that movement well. For weeks after Father died, she would come to my bed at night, like when we were small, and slide in next to me. Clutching at my nightclothes, she’d cry silently so that my mother wouldn’t wake. Her body rocking back and forth without making a single sound.

  There is a loud clap and the three of us jump in unison under our branches. The Indians roar with glee. The roof of our cabin has collapsed. I hear a single voice. He barks out orders in English to search for our animals. I’d released the cows and pigs this morning to forage.

  “Mother, I must run to alert others,” I whisper. She doesn’t say a word, even though I know she heard me. “Mother,” I repeat, “they’re busy gathering the animals. At least allow me to warn the Van Ettens.” The Van Ettens are our closest neighbors, living just northwest of us. South of the Van Ettens, and directly west of our farm, are the Van Fleets, who live halfway between us and Van Auken’s Fort.

  “You know I can make it in less time than it will take them to find the pigs.”

  She says nothing, although she has spoken … silently.

  I can hear the cows bellowing, complaining loudly about having to move in the midday heat. It sounds like many of the men have gone on ahead, leaving a few behind to drive the beasts. Mary’s breathing slows. She thinks we’re out of danger; they’re leaving. But I want to be sure. We’re safe here, and I feel we should not come out of our hole for quite a long time. Maybe even wait for early evening.

  Mary interrupts my thoughts. “They’re leaving, Noah,” she whispers.

  “Be still, Mary,” I squeeze her hand and she relaxes a little.

  I settle more comfortably onto the dirt and stare off through the branches at the treetops and the small amount of sky that I can see. What a strange view of the world this is, lying in a ditch covered with brush.

  I can smell our house still burning. Will anything be left? All our clothes and bedding will be gone, along with my father’s small library of hymnals. My mother’s Bible, too.

  My mother reads her Bible as often as she can. She started after Father died. The night he passed, she picked up that book and started to read. I figured she was looking for answers. How could a strong man catch a cold, and a week later, be dead? And how were we supposed to live without him? She must not have found the answers right away, because she kept reading. I didn’t like it. My mother never needed help with anything.

  I can feel Mary’s body moving evenly. I turn my head to look at her. Her eyes are closed, and whatever thoughts are in her mind seem far away from here. She looks sweet. I watch her for a few minutes, and then I think of someone else … Eliza Little.

  I start to sweat. Is the Littles’ farm close enough for them to have heard the Indians’ yelling? How could they not have heard? And, just like us, they must have smelled the fire.

  There is a light snap. My body goes rigid. Someone is still out there.

  My eyes scour the small amount of the world available to me. My ears work so hard that they ache from the lack of sound.

  I see his feet.

  My mother sucks in a small breath—she sees them, too.

  Oh, Father, please help us, I chant in my head. But I worry that whoever is out there might be able to hear my thoughts. I stop.

  I can see his moccasins clearly now. They’re highly decorated, with white glass beads sewn to the ankles and each lace ending in a red tassel. He can’t be more than five feet from us. Is he looking for us? Maybe he’s looking for one of the pigs, or maybe he was lagging behind and got lost. Perhaps he’s trying to decide the right way to go. Mary rests peacefully, while the sweat pours out of me like a river in springtime.

  The knife. I feel it next to my thigh. I don’t want to move in case the branches make any rustling noises. I want that knife. I can’t reach down now, but if he begins to check our laurel branches, I’ll grab it, dive out, and stab him. Maybe I can kill him before he kills me. I just hope that I can move fast enough after having lain so long in this ditch.

  I’ve never killed anyone, although I’ve slaughtered many a pig. My father was an expert hunter and trapper, but he hated the slaughtering. Somehow he felt that hunting and trapping was different, more of an even game than walking over to the sow pen with an ax. My mother was actuall
y the expert when it came to sticking the pig. I should hand my mother the knife. I know she wouldn’t even hesitate if it meant keeping Mary and me safe. I can kill him, I tell myself. I can do it.

  If I don’t kill him, he’ll surely scalp me, just as the Tories and Indians did to old Philip Swartwout and his two sons that day last October. The thought of Mary at the mercy of the owner of these moccasins heats my blood, and my muscles strain to break free of the ditch … to use the knife.

  It’s as if the moccasins feel my readiness, because they begin to move away. I keep watching the spot where I last saw them until my sight darkens from the effort.

  I drop my head to Father’s frock and breathe deeply. I can smell him perfectly. “Thank you, Father,” I whisper.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SOMEHOW I CAN CHANGE MY FATE

  THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1779

  Scar cries out from the middle of a deep sleep. I shoot up, only to collapse back to the earth with my guts on fire. What a pair the two of us are. I would laugh, if it weren’t for the fact that it isn’t very funny.

  Scar is silent again. I sink into the forest floor, the throbbing of the ball ebbing with every breath. I have to keep my wits. I’m in better condition than Scar and must be the one to fetch water, and perhaps a little food, in the morning. I should start to think about how I’ll move him, too. We can’t stay in the woods forever. Maybe I’ll find some of our men down by the river. Maybe I’ll find some of Scar’s. Before I can really think about this, Scar cries out again.

  I roll over and push up off the ground, managing to climb to my knees. Hunching over to keep from disturbing the musket ball, I scoot toward him. He’s calling to someone in his language. Words fly out of him in short, loud bursts. It sounds like he’s trying to explain something. I can’t make out anything he’s saying.

  I lean over his face and try to bring him back to me. “Scar, Scar, it’s Noah,” but this is ridiculous, of course he doesn’t know my name or the name I made up for him. His strange words come faster and his hysteria grows.