The Captive Bride

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Just until tomorrow,” he said, and then a worried look crossed his face. “You shouldn’t be here, Rachel—and neither should Mercy. The savages around here are stirring up trouble, and when it comes, nobody will be safe—not man, woman, or child.”

  She laughed and squeezed his arm playfully, “Oh, you’re getting to be a regular prophet of doom! Besides, all Indians aren’t ‘savages,’ as you call them. Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing.”

  They had a pleasant day together, and that night they sat up long after Mercy went to bed, talking and laughing. He finally got up, and as she walked with him to the door, he suddenly stopped, turned and said earnestly, “I want to marry you, Rachel.”

  She stopped, taken aback by the suddenness of it. For one moment she stood there, then she said quietly, “All right, Jude.”

  He took her in his arms, kissed her more gently than ever, and said, “I love you very much, Rachel! Very much!”

  Then he released her and walked out of the room quickly, as if he did not trust himself. Rachel stood there, leaning against the wall, thinking how different life would be shortly, then she went to bed and slept a dreamless sleep.

  The next morning she arose and was fixing some gruel for Mercy when she heard the first cries. Puzzled by the voices, she put the skillet down and started for the door. When she opened it she saw a wagon loaded with women and small children careen wildly around the big oak tree in the yard. A bearded man leaped from the driver’s seat, and seeing Rachel, yelled at her, “Get these women into the house!”

  “Indians are coming!” a young woman carrying a baby answered, looking over her shoulder. “They’re killing everything in their path!”

  Rachel’s heart turned to ice, and she deposited the child in the house. Running back to get another, she saw Jude running from the barn with his musket. “Is it Indians, Isaac?” he yelled.

  “They’ll be here in thirty minutes, Jude,” the man answered, his face grim. “They wiped out the Hendersons and the Potters and God knows how many more! My boys is coming—there they are now—but we’ll be hard put to it, Jude!”

  “We’ll have to fort up in the house,” Jude nodded. He turned and saw Rachel, then came to her. His face was pale and set as he said, “Do what you can to help the women and children!”

  “I can shoot, Jude!” Rachel cried. “Grandfather taught me that.”

  “Good,” the older man nodded. “We’ll need everyone who can fire a gun. I got a load of ammunition and some extra muskets in the wagon!”

  Two boys aged about fifteen came running up, completely winded, and their father, whose name was Trowbridge, said, “John, I want you and Luke to load every musket we got. Come on, now, we got precious little time!”

  They all began hauling the muskets and ammunition inside the house, and for the next fifteen minutes Jude and Trowbridge organized their little force as well as they could. There were four women, all of whom could load a musket, each situated so the shooters could reach the freshly loaded firearms easily.

  “They’ll be here soon,” Trowbridge said. He looked around at his wife and children, then said, “Let us give ourselves into the hands of God.” They all bowed their heads and he prayed a short prayer, then said urgently, “Me and my boys will take the downstairs, Jude. You two take the upstairs. You ought to be able to keep ’em off up there, but they’ll be trying to pot you first.”

  “Come on, Rachel!” Jude said, climbing up the ladder leading to the loft, when he placed her at one of the small windows. “They’ll have to cross that clearing to get to the house, and we can stop that—at least until it’s dark.”

  “Do we have any chance at all, Jude?” she asked quietly.

  He came to her, put his arm around her and they stood there in the quiet. “I don’t know, Rachel,” he said softly. “I been told all my life that God is able to do anything. Maybe He can get us out of this but I have to tell you, it’s a mighty small chance.”

  “I thought so.”

  “I—I’m glad I asked you to marry me last night, Rachel,” he said. “You know what I thought about all night?”

  “What, Jude?”

  “I thought, That Rachel—she’ll make a better man out of me!”

  He kissed her quickly, and she said, “I hope we have a life together, but if we don’t—at least we found each other.”

  Just then a shot rang out; he wheeled and, picking up his musket, laid it on the sill and aimed carefully, then fired. “That’s one redskin who won’t do us any harm!”

  Rachel picked up a musket and laid it carefully on the sill. Her heart was pounding, and she wondered if she could send a man to death. Just then she saw an Indian painted in various hues running for the house, a rifle in one hand and a hatchet in the other. At his belt were several bloody scalps, and without hesitation she drew a bead on his chest and felled him with one carefully placed shot.

  Before she had a chance to feel sick, another Indian approached from the far side, and she snatched up another loaded musket and hurried her shot. His leg was knocked from under him as he fell, badly wounded.

  A loud volley of shots erupted from the first floor, and both Rachel and Jude emptied their muskets, then loaded them quickly as the Indians withdrew. But they were not gone, and their hideous screams of rage cut through the morning air.

  For over an hour there was no sign of an attack, but then a sudden burst of musket fire riddled the house, sounding like gravel as it struck. Every pane of glass was shattered; a sliver of it sliced Rachel’s cheek, but she was unaware of it until she felt the blood running down her face, and even then had no time to do more than wipe it with her sleeve.

  As the shots continued to rake the house, driving them away from the windows, there was another rush, and this time three of the Indians managed to reach the house. They threw their weight against the stout oak door; when it refused to budge they moved to try the windows, but were cut down at once by Trowbridge and his sons.

  Again there was a lull. Rachel eased her head around the facing of the window. From a shelter of gum trees, a blazing arrow flew in an arc and fell to the ground a few feet from the house. “Get ready to run for it! They’ll get the roof sure!” Jude shouted.

  He was right, for despite their attempts to drive the archers back and disturb their aim, an arrow sailed high, and landed with a thud in the roof.

  The dry thatch caught at once, and within minutes Rachel and Jude were forced to climb down the ladder, blinded by the thick smoke.

  “We’ll have to take the fight outside, Jude!” Trowbridge shouted over the roar of the blaze. “We’ll burn to death in this cabin!”

  Suddenly the roof began to collapse, and wisps of blazing thatch fell past them to the floor.

  “I’ll go first and you come after me, Jude!”

  Trowbridge threw the door open and started to run out, but an arrow hit him in the chest. He dropped his musket to pull at the shaft, but another caught him in the throat and he fell to the floor lifeless.

  “Everybody out!” Jude shouted, and they all made a rush at the door. Rachel ran to Mercy who was struggling to get to her feet, and by the time she helped her to the door and stepped outside, the butchery was in full sway.

  One burly Indian had seized John Trowbridge with one hand and even as Rachel watched, he drew his war club up and killed the boy with one blow to the head. The other boy was trying to protect his mother from two warriors who were pulling at her, and one of them slashed him across the throat with a long knife, leaving him dead.

  The other Indian then turned to the woman who was on her knees clutching a small baby to her breast. She turned her face up, and cried out, “Please—don’t kill my baby!” But the Indian gave a howl and killed them both.

  Screams of agony and fear scored the air. Suddenly a shout louder than the rest rang out: “Rachel! Look out!”

  Rachel whirled to see a tall, muscular Indian with red paint smeared all over his body running for her, a hat
chet raised high.

  Jude came through the surging bodies to her right, and the Indian took his eyes off Rachel and Mercy. He swerved to meet Jude’s charge, making a wild sweeping blow with his hatchet. Jude parried it on the barrel of his musket, then swung the heavy butt around, catching the Indian with a blow that crushed his skull.

  “Rachel!” Jude yelled and turned to her; even as he turned, a bulky form on his left appeared—a short Indian with a heavy war club raised high. Jude caught a glimpse of him, but he was too late. The heavy head of the club struck him in the temple, and he dropped to the earth dead.

  As the short Indian swung around and raised his club to strike Mercy, Rachel instinctively did what she would never have dreamed of. She leaped in front of the woman who had fallen to the ground and faced the savage without a sign of fear.

  “In the name of Jesus Christ!” she cried out in a voice that carried like a trumpet over the bloody yard, “I command you to leave this woman alone!”

  The Indians stopped short, looking around to see who was calling out. They saw a young white woman standing over her friend. The most fierce warrior of their tribe held a club over her—and she was not afraid.

  But it was more than that. She had called on the name of her God, and although none of them were Christians, they were superstitious, and there was magic in what they were seeing.

  The short brave who had killed Jude was called Fox. He was not only the most valiant warrior among them, he was also as shrewd as his name suggested. He stood there, aware that the others were watching, and his Indian sense of drama overtook him. He gave a scream and raised his club, whirling it over his head and giving every impression of a man intent on killing.

  But the white girl did not move—did not even blink. She said again more quietly this time, “In the name of Jesus, I command you to leave us alone!”

  Fox let the club fall to his side, and stood there staring at the girl. He was not as impressed with her God as he was with her courage. He had a contempt for most Christians, having seen enough greed in some of them to convince him that their religion was a sham. But one or two had been different, and he was curious.

  The blood lust had died down, and he suddenly said in broken English, “We take this one.”

  A heavy-set Indian leaped forward to grab her arm, but Rachel drew back and knelt beside Mercy. She looked straight at Fox and said, “You are a woman if you hurt this mother!” The word she used was one that John Sassamon had taught her when they were children. It meant a womanish man, one who would rather be with squaws than with warriors, and it was a deadly insult. “If you ever want to rile an Indian,” John had said, “just call him that!”

  She had heard that Indians conceal a peculiar sense of humor under their impassive faces, and now she saw it. Something about the young girl telling Fox he was womanish tickled their fancy. They began to laugh wildly, like small boys, and it was a sight that Rachel would carry to her grave—those brutal killers smeared with the gore of children and women slapping their hands on their sides and screaming with laughter, taking up the word that she had used on Fox.

  Fox himself would have killed a man instantly for such an insult, but the very weakness of Rachel, and the absolute fearlessness of her demeanor somehow cooled his blood; it was the kind of joke an Indian could understand.

  He said something she didn’t understand, and two Indians, still laughing, came forward. They are going to kill both of us, she thought, but they did not. They helped Mercy to her feet, and then marched both women toward their camp, being especially careful with the pregnant woman. Fox came back to the rear of the war party and walked along with Rachel, looking at her from time to time with curiosity. Finally he said, “You not afraid to die?”

  “No.” For the first time in her life, Rachel realized it was true. Something had happened back there when she had called upon the name of Christ. Suddenly she was aware of a presence with her—perhaps the presence her mother had so often spoken of, the peace that settled on her when she prayed. Rachel had scarcely had time to pray, but she knew—amazingly—that she was not afraid.

  “Fox not afraid either.” He looked back toward the light from the burning house. “The man I kill—your man?”

  She almost broke down then, thinking of Jude’s broken body lying on the ground, but drew herself up straight and said calmly, “He was going to be.” Then she looked at Fox and said, “Now he is with Jesus Christ.”

  He met her gaze for a moment, then said, “Your God, Jesus Christ, he not save your people.”

  She replied at once, “He saved me, Fox.”

  He nodded, admiration lighting his black eyes. But he said only, “Yes—for now His medicine is strong for you. We will see.”

  He looked ahead, saying, “We camp here. You take care of woman.”

  Mercy was almost unconscious, but she was alive. Rachel washed her face with water from the river, and later they ate some of the half-raw meat that one of the Indians didn’t want. He tossed it to Rachel as he would have to a dog. Her pride rose up, but she instantly thought, Do what you have to do to keep Mercy and yourself alive! She almost forced the meat down Mercy’s throat, saying, “Eat! It may be the last for a long time.”

  They slept a few hours, then Fox prodded Rachel with his foot, saying with a gleam in his beady eyes, “Up—see if you can keep up with Woman.” He had taken up her name “Woman” to jibe at her insult. “What is your name?”

  She stared at him. “Nahteeah.”

  He blinked and said, “Who calls you that?”

  “My brother—John Sassamon.”

  He looked at her in a different way, and she had no way of knowing that Fox had hated Sassmon for leaving the old ways for the white man’s God, but he had come to admire him for his honesty and willingness to suffer for what he believed.

  “We go now,” Fox said, but he made the pace easier so that the pregnant woman would not die. In the days that followed, he came often to speak with the two women, and his influence kept them alive.

  They arrived the next day at a larger camp, and for several days they rested. Rachel had been afraid that the shock would kill Mercy, but miraculously she seemed to thrive on the scanty diet and the hard conditions. She had one fixed thought in her mind. Every day she would say, “Praise God will find us, Rachel—don’t fear!”

  Rachel was not at all certain, for the Indians were on the move constantly. Philip was in the camp from time to time, and there were long war talks; then he would ride off again. Soon after, the band would move and raid another group of settlers or a small village, then move as far away from the scene of the raid as possible.

  Often Fox would come and sit with Rachel, and in some strange way the two grew into a strange intimacy. He often argued with her about religion, telling her that Jesus was too weak, but she never let him see a doubt. “Jesus has me here for a purpose, Fox,” she would say. Once she added to this, “Maybe to show you the way to the true God.”

  He rocked back and forth with silent glee, finally saying, “You want me to be a Woman, like you say first time? Fox a man—Jesus men weak.”

  She never lost her temper, and he was impressed at the way she accepted the frightful hardships of camp life without a word of complaint. He also was waiting for her to beg for release, but she never said a word.

  She worked hard all day, doing her share of the work, and the Indian women, who had been cruel at first, came to marvel at her patience. At first she could do nothing that they did with ease, but by the end of two weeks, she could keep a pace nearly equal with theirs, and they let her alone.

  At night she prayed—she and Mercy together; then for long nights she prayed as sleep came and enveloped her. She had dreams of Jude for a while, but she was far too weary to grieve.

  * * *

  She lost track of time, knowing it had been weeks after Jude’s death. Then one day Fox came to see her with some news. “We leave this place soon—maybe two days.” He waited for her to ask
where they would go, but she said nothing. “Maybe you think white men come—take you home? No, we go far away—to Nipmuck people, very far away.” He waited for her to speak, then grew angry. “You die with us! Never go home!” She stared at him and said evenly, “Fox, my God has a million angels in His tribe. He could send one of them, and you would be helpless against him.”

  Fox reached out and grabbed her long hair, the first time he had touched her, and said angrily, “No one Jesus man can kill Fox!” He let her go then, and shook his head. “We leave soon.”

  For the first time, Rachel’s faith wavered, and she wept in the darkness. And for the first time as she prayed, there seemed to be no answer. As she rose the next morning and left the old campsite headed for the north, Fox saw her face, and he smiled and said, “Now you see that Jesus God is weak!”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL!”

  News of Philip’s raid swept through the country. They heard almost daily of new massacres after Swansea—Dartmough, Taunton, Middleborough and Sudbury. Fifty men were massacred in Lancaster, and forty homes were put to the torch in Groton. The Indians were set to move with Philip as their head, and New England was totally unprepared—strategically, mentally, and spiritually. A company of ill-trained militia would blunder out to be cut to pieces by an Indian ambush, and no one knew what to do.

  When the news of the raid of Swansea came, Matthew and Gilbert were stunned. Praise God came riding in wildly, trying to raise a party to go to the rescue.

  “They got my Mercy—and your girl, Master Winslow,” he moaned bitterly. “God forgive me for leavin’ her!”

  “Are you sure they’re alive, Pittman?” Matthew asked harshly.

  “I helped bury everybody, and we followed their heathenish trail,” he nodded. “They left the horse alive, at least, and I’m goin’ to git my woman back if I have to go alone!”

  “I’ll be with you in an hour, Praise God,” Matthew said. “We have to go tell Rachel’s mother; then we’ll be leaving.”