The Blind in Darkness

by Stephen Lewis

  “Perhaps you can instruct me,” Massaquoit said.

  * * * *

  After Phyllis had cleared the dishes, Edward had gone off to bed, and Ninigret left to build a fire against the chill evening air in Massaquoit’s wigwam, Catherine and Massaquoit sat next to each other at the table. Catherine fingered the button.

  “This places Lieutenant Osprey at the farm, as he says, but perhaps not when he admits.”

  Massaquoit nodded.

  “I am sure he killed the old man.”

  “Why do you so think?”

  Massaquoit held out his hand with three fingers displayed. “Indians, the boy, or the owner of that button. Those are the choices.”

  “We know Indians were attacking nearby settlements,” Catherine said.

  “Yes, but they did not kill this man.” He lowered one finger. “I found the boy. He had fled in terror. And I do not think he could kill anybody. He is not a warrior like Ninigret.” He lowered a second finger.

  “And I found him by following his tracks in the snow. First there were two sets of tracks. The second belonged to the man who also wanted to catch the boy but he gave up the chase. He is the one who lost the button. He is the lieutenant.” He jabbed his remaining upraised finger at the seat where Osprey had been during the meal. “But,” Massaquoit said, “I do not know why he did this.”

  Catherine smiled.

  “I do not disagree. And I can begin to provide a reason. I believe that Isaac Powell died protecting Thomas. Because he had also been having his way with him. The boy, not that dog, had bitten his hand. Then came somebody, you say the lieutenant, and Isaac is dead. The person who came after Thomas might now threaten his sister, for it is clear to me that she must be the key not only to Isaac’s death, but to Nathaniel’s as well. It all ties together. I see the knot. I have not yet unraveled the strands.”

  Massaquoit smiled.

  “And you would like me to keep an eye on her.”

  “Yes.”

  He rose.

  “You know I think you are right. There is something strange about Thomas.”

  “Yes. And his sister as well.”

  “Master Worthington seems hard set against them both.”

  “He is. And I fear that has cost him his son.”

  * * * *

  Massaquoit found Ninigret sitting by a small fire in the wigwam. The boy looked up, his face a sullen mask.

  “I do not like it here. It is worse than Niantic. We bring back two English to the English woman, and then another English comes and takes them away.”

  “Yes,” Massaquoit replied. “You can go home. But I was hoping you might help me just one more time.”

  Ninigret brightened.

  “Are we going to capture those two again?”

  “No. But if you come along with me, I will explain as we walk.”

  Ninigret was in his feet in an instant, his blanket about his shoulders, and outside the wigwam, all in one blurred motion. Massaquoit joined him.

  “Where we are going we might feel the spirit of a dead English?”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No. An English woman is living there.”

  “Is she not afraid of the spirit?”

  “I do not think so. But come we will see.”

  By the time they passed the Dunwood house, the moon was fully risen. They could see the faint glow of a candle in a window, and they heard a baby cry. They continued until they were standing on a rise within twenty-five yards of the Powell farm, which was in darkness. Massaquoit squatted. After a moment’s hesitation, Ninigret knelt besides him with a question on his face.

  “We wait and watch,” Massaquoit said.

  A breeze stirred, carrying to them a chill, a brief reminder of the winter cold. Ninigret shivered. He pointed to a freshly dug grave not far from the house.

  “The dead English is now in the ground, but I feel his spirit,” he said.

  “That is just the wind. The spirit waits in the house where he was killed.”

  An hour later, Ninigret was lying stretched on the ground, bundled in his blanket. Massaquoit heard voices drift toward him from the house. At first they were barely audible, but then they became louder and angrier. A figure came hurrying through the front door. Massaquoit jabbed his elbow into the boy’s ribs, and he started. The figure of a man lurched down the road to Newbury center.

  “He has been drinking,” Massaquoit said. “He will be easy for you to follow. See where he goes.”

  Ninigret nodded and waited until the man, moving slowly and stopping for rest from time to time, had gone a safe distance ahead, and then he started after him, walking behind the tree line that edged the road. Massaquoit watched him dart between the trees until he lost sight of the boy in the shadows. He turned back to the house. For a short while there was no sign of activity, no candle light in a window, no noise, or movement of any sort, and yet he sensed a presence. He wondered if he were feeling the spirit of the dead farmer, and although he had told Ninigret that the chill night breeze was only the wind, he was beginning to doubt that conclusion.

  Then the squeaking sound of a badly hung door being forced past its frame rose from the house. Massaquoit stared hard in the direction from which the sound came. A figure of flesh and bones emerged from the house and headed down the same road as the other had taken toward Newbury center. The figure wore a long, dark cloak. The garment covered most of the figure’s head and descended almost to its feet. A thin band of blond hair was just visible where the cloak ended. The person walked quickly, but unsteadily, veering from one side of the narrow road to the other. Massaquoit watched it disappear into the shadows. There was only one road to the town center, with occasional paths branching off to farms or isolated houses. Ninigret and the man he followed would not be far ahead. Massaquoit trusted the boy would be able to observe both, since it seemed clear that the second person would soon overtake the first. He decided to brave the spirit of the old farmer, which he knew still hovered about the house, and see what he could discover inside.

  The front door had been left ajar. Massaquoit entered and sensed the spirit. Still, he made his way in to the front room where he had found the body of Isaac. In that room the spirit presence was very strong. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Just enough light from the moon coming in from the one window on the side of the house enabled him to study each object, the table on which sat two mugs smelling of beer, the two chairs, a narrow bed with its linen in disarray, and the remains of a dead fire in the fireplace. When he was certain that he had seen all there was to see he walked to the rear of the room to open a door that led to a narrow storage area.

  In it, between a rusty shovel and dirt encrusted rake, and next to a nearly empty barrel that still held scraps of salted beef, was a chest. Massaquoit scraped out the meat and dropped them into the pouch he wore about his waist. Then, he lifted the lid of the chest, but it was too dark for him to see what was inside. He ran his fingers down the sides and felt cloth bunched into piles on the bottom. He pulled the chest out of the storage area to the window in the front room where the moonlight illuminated its contents. He knelt and lifted each item in turn, and as he did so, his eyes opened first with wonder and then with a dawning recognition.

  * * * *

  Ninigret returned within the hour. Massaquoit was back on the rise outside of the house. The boy came hurrying toward him, apparently anxious to report what he had seen.

  “There were two,” he began. “The first man was having great difficulty walking. He stumbled and fell a number of times. I do not think he would have noticed if I had walked besides him, but I stayed behind the trees.”

  “And then along came the second,” Massaquoit said. “I saw that one leave the house.”

  Ninigret nodded.

  “Halfway to town, the second one overtook the first. All I could see was a little yellow hair. They walked together. I followed. When they approached the town square I stopped behind the last
tree before the square. There is a house there where the English go to drink their beer. They went inside. I waited. They did not come out, and so I returned.”

  Massaquoit squeezed the boy’s arm.

  “That is good,” he said. Ninigret smiled, just for a moment, enjoying the praise, but then, as though ashamed of his boyish weakness, his face formed itself into its usual sullen mask.

  “What do we do now?”

  “We wait. One or both may return.”

  And one did, only she did not look like the ones who had left the house a couple of hours before. It was well after midnight when a lone figure, wearing a cloak loosely about her shoulders came up the road. Massaquoit and Ninigret observed Thomasine walk into the house and close the door behind her.

  “Is that the second one you saw?” Massaquoit asked.

  Ninigret did not immediately respond.

  “I cannot be sure,” he said after a while. “I thought it was a man with a cloak over his face. I am sure only of the yellow hair.”

  Massaquoit nodded at the beginning of a confirmation of what he seen in the trunk.

  They waited the remainder of the night, taking turns, one sleeping, one watching, until the sun rose. A rooster crowed in the distance, and a hog came out from beyond the house and started to root, pawing the ground with its front hooves and burying its flat snout in the dirt. Every few moments, it would lift is head and eat what if had uncovered.

  “I, too, am hungry,” Ninigret said.

  Massaquoit reached into his pouch and pulled out the salted beef. He divided the scraps evenly and gave Ninigret his portion. He put a scrap into his mouth and began chewing. The meat had the texture of leather, well cured, and a very strong salty taste. But it felt good going down into his stomach. Ninigret watched for a moment and then he too began to eat.

  “We will wait here,” Massaquoit said, after he finished his first piece. “To see who else comes, or follow her if she goes out again.”

  They ate in silence. And then they waited.

  * * * *

  By the late afternoon, Ninigret’s impatience was visible. He could not remain still. Several times he had sneaked to the house, crawling on his belly through the mud where the hog now lay. Massaquoit did not try to stop him. He was sure that the woman inside would still be sleeping off the beer from the night before, and besides the boy was being careful enough, approaching the house from its blind side, where there was no window, and then working his way around past the closed front door to the other side. There he peered through the window for a while, and then returned the same way he had come. Each time he offered Massaquoit the same report.

  “She is in her bed. She hardly moves, but I do see that she is breathing.”

  And each time, Massaquoit had the same answer.

  “Then we wait until she rises, or someone comes.”

  After his last return, Ninigret paced about. Massaquoit looked past the boy, and then he grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down until they were both lying flat on the ground. Ninigret began to protest, but Massaquoit pointed up the road toward town. Two figures approached, one short and wide, the other a little taller and thinner. They took no precautions about being seen until they were within a few yards of the path that led to the house. Then the shorter one motioned the taller one to continue while he took a position behind a tree.

  Frank Mapleton approached the house in a crouch. He headed directly toward the window through which Ninigret several times had observed the sleeping woman. He stood up next to the window and peered in for a few moments. Then, without bothering to resume his crouching position, he trotted back to Osprey, who stepped out from behind the tree. The two conferred for a few moments, and then began walking toward the house. Osprey had his pistol out. Mapleton carried a thick club.

  Massaquoit motioned for Ninigret to circle the house. The boy moved off, running with his body almost horizontal to the ground. Massaquoit watched him cross an open space and then find the cover of the trees. He then crawled down the rise on his belly through the dried stalks of dead weeds that rose a couple of feet. He made no more noise than a snake slithering through tall grass. The weeds stopped in the front yard where the hog, sensing the intrusion, was rising slowly to its feet and staring with its close set eyes at Osprey and Mapleton. Massaquoit waited until he was sure that Ninigret must have had enough time. He rose to his feet and roared as loudly as he could as he charged toward the two. They turned toward him, and Ninigret leaped out from his position at the side of the house.

  Osprey raised his pistol at Massaquoit. Massaquoit darted to left and right. It would be a very difficult shot. The lieutenant decided not to spend his one bullet on an impossible target. He screamed at Mapleton and pointed him toward Massaquoit. Frank raised his club and Osprey hurtled toward the house. Ninigret threw himself at the burly lieutenant, but Osprey shoved him aside and entered the house. Ninigret rolled in the mud outside the door and then recovered his balance and got to his feet.

  Massaquoit charged Mapleton. The boy waited until the last moment and then swung his heavy club at Massaquoit’s head. Massaquoit leaned away from the blow and ducked, but still the club thudded against his shoulder, knocking him to one knee. Mapleton lifted the club again.

  “This time, you savage bastard, this time,” he said, his eye wide with anticipation of his heavy weapon crashing down on Massaquoit’s skull.

  Massaquoit made as though to rise to his feet, but as Mapleton started to swing the club, Massaquoit instead rolled into the boy’s legs. Mapleton staggered and the momentum of the club caused him to turn so that he was half fallen with his back to Massaquoit. Massaquoit jumped up and brought his fist down hard on the back of Mapleton’s neck, and the boy collapsed, dropping his club. A shot rang our from inside the house, and then two bodies locked together rolled out of the door. Massaquoit seized the club.

  Osprey disengaged himself from Ninigret and tossed his pistol aside. He pulled a knife out of his belt and stabbed at the boy. Ninigret evaded that thrust, but as he backed off, he stumbled against the hog, which had stood its ground as the humans about it fought. Massaquoit reached Osprey just as the lieutenant was bringing his knife down on the exposed chest of Ninigret. Massaquoit managed to deflect the blow, but the blade still caught the boy’s arm, and his blood spouted. He fell onto the back of the hog, which was now sufficiently disturbed to move on with a streak of Ninigret’s blood on its haunches.

  Before Osprey could lift his arm again, Massaquoit brought the club down on his wrist. He yelled in pain and dropped the knife. Ninigret picked it up. Massaquoit drove the end of the club into Osprey’s soft belly, and the officer fell back into the house, gasping for breath. Ninigret leaped on him with the knife in his hand.

  “No,” Massaquoit called out. Ninigret started to bring the knife down, but then let his arm relax and drop to his side. He stood up, but kept his foot on Osprey’s neck. The lieutenant’s face was red, and he was still struggling for breath. Massaquoit motioned for Ninigret to go back out to Mapleton. Then he walked to the fallen officer.

  “You should have shot when you had a chance,” he said.

  Osprey lifted his upper body and tried to get up. Massaquoit brought the club down on the side of his head. He measured the force of the blow. He did not want to kill the man. Not just yet. The club bounced off Osprey’s skull, just above the ear, and he slumped to the floor. Massaquoit waited. The officer did not move. Massaquoit stepped over him and went into the house. He picked up the lieutenant’s pistol.

  The woman lay on the floor moaning. She was wearing only a shift, and it was stained red where her blood was seeping through from the wound just above her knee. Her face was white. She looked up at Massaquoit, and then fell back to the floor and lost consciousness. Massaquoit ripped off a piece of her shift and tied it as a bandage around her wound. He watched as the makeshift bandage reddened with blood, forming a widening circle. When the red circle stopped enlarging, he picked her up and pla
ced her on the bed.

  Outside, he found Ninigret sitting on Mapleton’s chest with the knife blade pressed against the boy’s throat. He went back inside to the storage area and found a length of heavy rope. He took it out, and tossed it to Ninigret, who bound Mapleton’s hands behind him. Massaquoit dragged out Osprey, and took the other end of the rope. He rolled Osprey over, and tied his hands together with the free end of the rope. Mapleton rose to his feet and took a couple of tentative steps as though to try to run, but the lieutenant’s dead weight served as an anchor to stop his progress.

  Massaquoit pointed to Osprey.

  “When he recovers, I will make him understand that he is to stay here.”

  Ninigret looked toward the interior of the house.

  “And the woman?”

  “You must go to Mistress Williams and tell her to come here to tend to that one.”

  Massaquoit sat next to Osprey, who was beginning to stir. He held the knife ready to convince the lieutenant that it would be in his best interest to do as he was told.

  “Go on,” Massaquoit said. “The woman might rouse and decide to run.”

  Ninigret trotted off down the road. A few minutes later, Thomasine did get up and stumble toward the door.

  “Mistress Williams is coming to tend to your wound,” Massaquoit said. He rose so that his body blocked the door. “Go back to your bed and wait.”

  Thomasine looked down at Osprey, and then to the pistol, which lay in the mud a few feet away.

  “He tried to kill me. That Indian boy saved my life.”

  “He is a good boy,” Massaquoit said. “Now go you and lie down.” He picked up the pistol.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Catherine and Phyllis hurried up the road behind Ninigret. Both women were scant of breath as they turned onto the path leading to the Powell house. At the rear of the rise on which Ninigret and Massaquoit had watched the house was a large oak standing by itself. Osprey sat on one side of the tree, Mapleton the other. Their hands were still tied behind their back with one piece of rope. Another length of rope had been attached to that one, and then wrapped around, and tied to, the tree so that they were effectively tethered. The tree’s trunk was of such thickness that neither could reach the knot that fastened the second rope to the first. Massaquoit sat in the doorway to the house. Ninigret trotted ahead. Without getting up, Massaquoit handed the pistol to Ninigret. He motioned to Osprey and Mapleton.