Escape

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  I had hardly settled myself beside him when Morag Mackenzie, a girl not much older than Elizabeth, turned from the hearth with a bowl of stew in each hand. There was a lively gleam in Sam’s eye as he took one from her. Mr. Butler, who was easing himself to the floor beside us, looked at Sam and Morag and then he winked at me — but he didn’t say anything.

  Our encounter with the two militiamen on the towpath was still very much on my mind, and I began to tell Mr. Butler about it. “Just imagine,” I concluded, “Sam and I were saved because they couldn’t read. Papa would say that proves what he often tells us about the advantages of a good education.”

  Mr. Butler laughed as he moved to make room for Papa, who was already intent on plans for the next step of our journey. “What now, Truelove?” he asked.

  “Well,” Mr. Butler answered, “we’re about six miles from Fort Stanwix and the Indian trail to Oswegatchie. I’m convinced that’s the route we should take. The tricky thing is to reach the trail without being seen. We want Captain Fonda to think we’ve taken the road to Oswego.”

  “Easier said than done,” Papa mused.

  “You’re right, Caleb. It’s going to be risky, but travelling in small groups has worked pretty well up to now. I think we should try it again.” Mr. Butler looked at Mr. Cameron as though seeking his help.

  Mr. Cameron shook his head. “I’m very sorry but I have to get back to Fort Hunter to keep an appointment.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Papa interrupted hastily. “You’ve done more than enough already, and I’m more grateful than I can tell you.”

  Sam and Cade had been whispering, their heads close together, and now Cade spoke up. “Papa, I think you and Mr. Butler should make your way on foot through the forest to the Indian trail. We’ll be safer without you on the road. If we’re questioned, I’ll say that we’re on our way to Lake Oneida to join our father, who is a fur trader. That story worked before.”

  “I just don’t know what would be the wisest thing to do,” Papa murmured.

  “It’s only six miles,” Cade insisted. “Let’s do it my way and meet on the trail.” It wasn’t like Cade to argue with Papa. There was something in the wind. That’s what the whispering had been all about. Sam had hatched some daring plan and had persuaded Cade to go along with it.

  “Cade’s right,” Mr. Butler said. “We’d better go through the forest, Caleb, and take Ned with us. We’re the ones who might be recognized by searchers on the road.”

  Much as I wanted to fall in with their plans, I just couldn’t. I was too bone weary. “I’d rather go in the wagon,” I said sheepishly. “What about a disguise? I could loosen my hair and wear one of Elizabeth’s dresses.”

  “As long as you remember to keep your big feet hidden,” Sam taunted, but at least he didn’t tease me about being too puny to walk through the forest.

  Papa was silent for a while and then he said almost to himself, “There doesn’t seem to be any other way. If we didn’t need the wagon to carry our provisions, we could all walk through the woods.”

  It was clear that Mr. Butler didn’t want Papa to ponder any longer. “You’re right, Caleb,” he said firmly. “We must take the wagon as far as we can, even if we have to abandon it when we reach the Long Falls. The trail gets pretty rugged from there on, but we’ll see.”

  “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” Papa said. “If the worst comes to the worst, and my wife and children are captured, the militiamen are bound to release them if I surrender.”

  “Over my dead body,” Sam whispered to Cade and me.

  “Listen carefully, all of you,” Mr. Butler said. “The Indian trail branches off the road just south of Fort Stanwix. Be on the lookout for it as soon as you catch sight of the fort.”

  “Are there soldiers at the fort?” I asked, rather worried.

  “No,” Mr. Butler replied. “It’s been empty since the war ended, and there aren’t any settlers nearby either. The land is too swampy.”

  “Where shall we meet?” Cade asked.

  “There’s a small camp the Oneidas use when they’re hunting, about two miles along the trail. There are no longhouses, only a few small bark shelters. We’ll meet there,” Mr. Butler replied.

  While we’d been talking, Mama and Mrs. Mackenzie had been sorting out blankets and trying to find places for all of us to sleep, and it wasn’t an easy task with so many of us. Finally they decided that all the men and boys would go to the loft, while the women and girls settled down in the main room of the cabin.

  Papa called us before dawn. By lamplight he and Mr. Butler removed the anvil and the other tools from Mr. Cameron’s wagon and repacked them in ours. Mr. Cameron tethered the horse he’d lent Mr. Butler to the back of his wagon and climbed onto the seat, obviously glad to be driving his own team again.

  “That stallion of yours was a bit too spirited for me,” he told Papa.

  Papa reached up and clasped his hand. “We’ll never forget you, Sandy,” he said. “You saved our lives.” Mr. Cameron didn’t answer. He just squeezed Papa’s hand and flicked the reins. As he went down the lane, he turned once to wave at us.

  Papa and Mr. Butler were ready to leave too, when Goliath came loping out into the yard. Cade slapped his forehead. “What are we going to do with him?” he asked. “You’d better take him, Papa. He’s a nuisance in the wagon.” Smiling, Papa agreed, and he got a long rope from the wagon and tied it around the dog’s neck.

  Mr. Butler made a great show of slinging a blanket pack over his shoulder. With a big grin, he said to us, “The Bible. Now your father and I have both the troublemakers.” His little joke worked. We were still laughing as the two men disappeared in the forest.

  When they were out of sight, we said good-bye to the Mackenzies and began to climb into the wagon. “Where’s Sam?” asked Cade, who was counting heads. The words were hardly out of his mouth when Sam came out of the cabin holding Morag’s hand. When he saw that we were all watching him, his face turned red as a beet. No one dared tease him though, and right away Cade drew our attention away from him by saying to me, “You make a pretty girl, Ned.” I glared at him and tucked my bare feet under me, feeling as silly as could be in Elizabeth’s old calico dress.

  To make amends for teasing me, Cade said, “Come up here, Ned,” and he made a place for me between him and Sam on the wagon seat. “We want to talk to you.” Awkwardly I gathered up the skirt of Elizabeth’s dress, wondering how on earth she ever managed to run in it.

  When I was wedged between them, Cade began to speak very softly. “Sam and I have decided that today we will answer no questions. I’m afraid to trust our luck again. If we’re stopped, we’ll make a run for it.”

  Sam couldn’t wait to put the plan in action. As soon as we were on the road, he took the rifles and the musket from the floor and began to load them. Mama asked him what he was doing. Before Sam could say anything, Cade replied that we wanted to have the guns ready in case we saw any game. That seemed to satisfy Mama, but she couldn’t have been paying much attention. She knew very well that we wouldn’t shoot game on the road when we’d soon be in the woods.

  One mile, two miles, three miles, four miles, and still we hadn’t met anyone. Unlike Sam, Cade and I were beginning to hope that we’d make it to the trail without an encounter. Lulled by the warm morning sun on my back, I was lost in a daydream. Then suddenly Sam poked me in the ribs. Just ahead of us, standing in the middle of the road, were two militiamen. Cade slowed the horses, and Sam and I slipped to the floor and grabbed weapons.

  “Yes, sir,” Cade called out when one of the men ordered him to stop.

  At the sound of his voice, Sam and I leaped to our feet and pointed the guns at the two men. “Place your weapons on the ground and be quick about it,” Sam ordered. “Now stand back.” Taken by surprise the two men dropped their muskets.

  While Cade whipped the horses with the reins, I fired my musket in the air. Startled by the report, the horses plunged forward and broke i
nto a gallop. Behind us a shot rang out. Cade screamed and slumped sideways, clutching his shoulder. In a flash Sam returned the fire.

  Driverless and out of control, the horses bolted. I tried to grab the reins, which Cade had dropped, but I couldn’t reach them. In desperation I crawled out along the tongue of the wagon and managed to catch one rein and fling it back to Sam. If I didn’t get the other one quickly, the wagon would smash. Grasping the mare’s harness, I stretched as far as I could along the tongue. Just in time, I retrieved the second rein, tossed it to Sam, and crept back into the wagon. Slowly Sam brought the horses under control.

  With Elizabeth’s help I dragged Cade into the back of the wagon and put a blanket under his head. Sam had the horses at a gallop again, and the wagon was swaying wildly, but Mama managed to open Cade’s blood-soaked shirt.

  “Be careful, Mama,” Cade screamed when she touched his arm. “I think my shoulder’s broken.”

  Blood was oozing from the wound in his shoulder, but Mama could find no trace of the bullet, and she began to bind up the wound. “Slow down, Sam,” she cried. “I have to stop this bleeding.”

  “No, Sam,” groaned Cade between clenched teeth. “Keep the horses at a gallop until you see the fort. Those two militiamen probably had horses hobbled in the woods, and there may be other soldiers nearby. They won’t be far behind us.”

  “Hang on tight then and pray that we don’t lose a wheel,” Sam shouted, urging the horses on.

  Mama was white as a sheet. “Pray that you didn’t hit one of the militiamen,” she retorted, “or we’ll be in even greater trouble.”

  The thunderous pounding of the hooves and the rumbling of the wagon drowned out her words. To add to the din, the terrified children screamed and screamed, no matter how Elizabeth tried to comfort them. I thought that wild ride must go on forever, but suddenly the walls of Fort Stanwix loomed up ahead of us.

  Sam slowed the horses a little, and I leaned over the edge of the wagon searching for the trail, but it was Sam who spotted it first and steered the wagon into its narrow tracks.

  “I’m going to have to slow down,” he said, “or the wagon will fall apart on this rough trail.”

  Mama was looking anxiously at Cade. He was pale and obviously in great pain, but he was conscious and kept urging Sam to keep going. Then all at once we turned a bend in the trail and saw a group of Indians walking towards us.

  “What shall we say to them?” I asked Mama. “Should we ask for permission to cross their lands?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mama answered. “After all, we are trespassing.”

  The Indians stopped in the middle of the trail, and Sam brought the horses to a halt. He was busy with the reins, Cade was stretched out almost unconscious now, Elizabeth and Mama were doing their best to console the whimpering children. It was up to me, but I was nervous. Although I had often seen Indians at the market shed in Schenectady, I’d never talked to one.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked cautiously.

  “I do,” one of the Oneidas answered gravely, stepping forward. “I am called Lodlihont.”

  There were five of them altogether — short, stocky men with broad shoulders. Two of them were young, just about my age. They all wore deerskin skirts, leggings, and moccasins, but above the waist they were bare, except for bands on their upper arms and a single feather on each head. Lodlihont had a woollen blanket draped over his shoulder.

  “We wish to travel through your lands,” I said. “We are on our way to Canada.”

  Lodlihont didn’t reply. He walked to the wagon and peered at Mama and Cade. “Has the boy been shot?” he asked.

  Mama nodded and pointed to Cade’s shoulder.

  “Is the bullet still in his shoulder?” Lodlihont asked.

  “No, thank God,” Mama replied. “It passed right through, but I think the bone is broken.”

  “What is your name?” Lodlihont asked.

  “I am Martha Seaman and these are my children.”

  Lodlihont smiled. “Your man awaits you at our camp.” He looked into the wagon as though counting us, and I felt his eyes rest on my bare feet. “You are fortunate to have many sons,” he said to Mama.

  Mama’s eyes filled with tears. At that moment she was thinking only of Cade. There was little comfort in Lodlihont’s obvious thought that if something happened to Cade, there were others to take his place.

  “Who shot your son?” Lodlihont went on, not noticing Mama’s tears. “Were there soldiers on the road?”

  “Yes,” Mama said, pulling herself together. “There were two of them, a few miles east of the fort, but there may be others nearby.”

  “We shall walk to the road,” Lodlihont said. “We’ll try to convince the soldiers that you took the road to Oswego. Don’t worry, Mistress Seaman. You are safe now.”

  Mama thanked him shyly, and he raised his hand in a solemn salute. Exhausted after the hard drive, Sam handed me the reins. Urging the horses forward, I began to worry about Cade. Would Mama be able to take care of him in the wilderness?

  “I pray you didn’t hit one of the militiamen,” Mama said to Sam once more. This time he heard her.

  “Of course I didn’t hit them,” Sam blustered. “I was only trying to make them take cover to give us more time.”

  Through his pain Cade groaned. “Sam is right, Mama. If he hadn’t fired, the militiamen might have shot at us a second time and hit one of you.”

  In a few minutes we came upon a clearing dotted with small bark shelters. Before the wagon had come to a stop, Goliath bounded from one of them, yelping wildly. Papa and Mr. Butler were close behind him, broad smiles on their faces. Their relief quickly changed to alarm when they saw Cade lying in the wagon. Gently they lifted him out and laid him on a blanket on the ground.

  There seemed to be only one other person in the camp — an Indian woman, who took one look at Cade and rushed to the fire for an iron kettle of hot water. Mama bathed Cade’s wound, and Papa poured a little whisky on it to prevent infection. Cade shrieked when the fiery stuff touched the open wound, and Papa gave him a little to drink. Cade turned his head aside. “It will make me sick,” he moaned.

  The Indian woman handed Papa some crushed twigs and nodded at Cade. When Papa just stood there looking puzzled, she put a twig in her mouth and began to chew it to make Papa understand that she wanted him to give Cade some.

  All at once I remembered that I was still wearing Elizabeth’s dress and I couldn’t get out of it fast enough. In the wagon I found my breeches and went to change behind a tree. When I came back, Cade was quiet. The twigs seemed to have helped him, though I couldn’t understand why.

  Papa and Mr. Butler were all for getting away from the camp as soon as we could, but Mama’s “No, Cade must rest for a while,” was very definite. We were still there when the Oneidas returned two hours later. Lodlihont told us that they had met six militiamen at the fort and had persuaded them that we had taken the road to Oswego, travelling fast.

  Mr. Butler gloated. “By the time they discover they’re on a wild-goose chase, we’ll be miles into Oneida territory.”

  Lodlihont grinned when he noticed me in my breeches and shirt. “You didn’t fool me,” he said. “I knew you were a boy when I first saw you.”

  That broke the ice, and I plucked up the courage to ask him about the crushed twigs. “They’re willow twigs,” he explained. “The juice of their bark drives away pain.”

  Mama was anxious to talk to Lodlihont too. “Did Sam hit one of the militiamen?” she asked him.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Thank God for that,” Mama murmured.

  Sam was exasperated. “I’ve already told you,” he said to her, “that I wasn’t even trying to hit them.”

  Papa didn’t like his tone of voice and chided him for having fired at all, but Mr. Butler took Sam’s part. “You’re wrong, Caleb,” he said. “It was the only way to gain a little time. Where would we be if the soldiers had seized the wagon? Cad
e may be wounded, but at least we’re all here together.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mama murmured, stroking Cade’s hair lovingly.

  Chapter Nine

  New Friends

  “You should stay with us many days until your son’s wound is healed,” Lodlihont said to Papa. “You will be safe here.”

  Weak as he was, Cade didn’t give Papa a chance to answer. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and his voice was surprisingly strong, “but I don’t want my family to linger here because of me. Those militiamen won’t be put off our trail for long. They’ll be back and may even follow us into your lands. The sooner we leave, the better. I can ride in the wagon for a few days.”

  “My son is right,” Papa added. “We must get as far away from the militiamen as we can in a hurry.”

  Oddly enough, it was Sam who voiced a very practical reason for not leaving at once. “Papa,” he said, “I don’t think the wagon will hold up unless you do some work on it. That mad dash to reach the trail loosened every bolt in it, and the wheels were getting wobbly too.”

  Mr. Butler clinched the argument. “Caleb, I think Lodlihont is right. We’ll make better time on the trail if we’re all well rested, and we should be safe here until tomorrow at least.”

  I think Papa really wanted to be persuaded, for he nodded his head and said, “Very well. We’ll leave in the morning.” He and Mr. Butler lifted Cade gently from the blanket and carried him into one of the shelters.

  When Papa came out of the shelter, he was all briskness and bustle. Whistling one of his favourite tunes, he crawled under the wagon, where he poked and prodded at the bolts that held the boards together. Then he got to his feet and kicked the wagon wheels. “I’ll have to take the wheels off so that I can tighten the rims,” he said. “They’re loose too.”

  Papa was his old self again and he began to tease Mama, who was already busy washing clothes at the river’s edge. “Well, Mrs. Cameron,” he said, “are you glad to have your real husband back?”

  Mr. Butler chuckled. “You’re lucky that Sandy didn’t run off with her, Caleb.”