Ghost Hawk

by Susan Cooper

  “I neither know nor care,” Daniel said. Then he led them all in the family evening prayers, and took even longer than he did before.

  Huldah’s visit to her family, John discovered the next morning on their way home, had been no better than his own. They sat together once more in the back of Goodman Bates’s cart, which was loaded now with timber for Master Medlycott’s cooperage. Huldah told John she had hoped that she would come home after her five years with the Kelly family, but clearly there would be no room in the house. She too felt that she no longer belonged. She was sad and muted, and John ached for her. Without any thought for the Puritan rules of propriety, he put his arm round her shoulders.

  “Thy mother still loves thee,” he said.

  Huldah said, “I know.”

  “And my mother’s affection for me is no less, but time changes all our lives. She has had two more children since I left. We can’t go back, we have to go forward.”

  “Yes,” said Huldah. She sniffed.

  John took a deep breath, and said something he had said often in his mind, half-dreaming, on his way into sleep.

  “Huldah,” he said bravely, “when I am a journeyman, will you marry me?”

  Huldah said nothing, and his heart dropped. He wondered gloomily if she was appalled.

  “That’s three years from now,” he said in a smaller voice.

  Huldah said, “You may change your mind, in all that time.”

  “I shan’t,” John said.

  “Nor shall I,” said Huldah.

  She turned her face up to him, smiling, and in a whirl of happiness John kissed her gently on the mouth. It was a moment neither of them would ever forget. And they sat there together, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, until the voices of Goodman Bates and Master Medlycott above their heads rose in some minor argument, reminding them where they were.

  John removed his arm, and he and Huldah looked at each other and smiled. Under cover of a fold of her skirt, they held hands.

  But soon they were at the Kelly homestead, and because Goodman Bates had a package to deliver here as well as his niece, he drove the cart into the yard, all the way up to the house. It was a handsome house; it seemed bigger than before. Mistress Kelly was in her herb garden with two small girls; the children ran out calling in delight when they saw Huldah.

  John got to his feet to help Huldah down from the cart and handed her bundle down after her. She looked up at him for one last moment, and he locked it into his memory.

  In the next moment, Master Kelly came out of the house in his shirtsleeves. He called crossly to Huldah, “And long past time! Get into the house, girl—little Abby is sick, and Dorothy has been needing thy help all day!”

  Goodman Bates clambered down as Huldah hurried into the house, and he handed Mistress Kelly her package. “We made as good time as we could,” he said mildly. “Good day, Mistress.”

  “Good day, and very many thanks to you,” said Mistress Kelly, an ample, patient lady. “We missed your niece only because she is a treasure.” She smiled up at Master Medlycott. “Good day, William.”

  “William!” Master Kelly called. “I need four barrels by Thursday, if you haven’t sold everything to Plymouth. Slack stock, for tobacco.”

  His voice was imperious, and the linen of his shirt was of better quality than those of the other men; there were clearly degrees of rank even in this society that prized equality.

  “You shall have them,” said Master Medlycott in his deep, untroubled rumble. “John here is becoming a good hand at a slack cask, and even my Thomas, too.”

  Master Kelly looked at John, who was standing tall among the logs and lumber on the oxcart. The eyes narrowed a little in his foxy face. “Th’art John Wakeley?” he said.

  Master Medlycott laughed. “Double the size, is he not? My Priscilla feeds up our young men.”

  John said suddenly, “Master Kelly?” His voice came out louder than he had intended, from nervousness.

  “Well?” said Master Kelly.

  “With your permission—and Master Medlycott’s,” John said, stumbling, “if there is a day whenever—when Huldah has an hour to herself—may I call on her?”

  Master Kelly said instantly, “No.”

  The word was so sudden and obdurate that it seemed to cause a ripple in the air.

  Mistress Kelly said gently, “Walter—”

  “He is an apprentice,” said Master Kelly. “He is not a freeman, to make such a request. He may speak to her at the meetinghouse, as is fitting, as all our brothers and sisters in Christ may speak to each other. But that is all.” He looked up at Master Medlycott. “How long does his apprenticeship have to run, William?”

  “Three years, I believe,” said Master Medlycott.

  Kelly’s eyes shifted to John. “Perhaps we will consider the matter in three years’ time,” he said.

  And he gave a sharp quick nod of his head, as if stressing the proper authority of his decision. But John knew, and I knew, that there was far more behind it than that.

  * * *

  I could feel John’s distress filling his mind and all his waking thoughts. Very soon, at dawn, before the sun rose over the salt marsh and turned it gold, he made his way to see me again, on the island where my tomahawk was born, the one place where we could meet. There was nobody else to whom he could speak openly about Master Kelly.

  “He is the man who killed you!” John said to me. “He is wicked! You should be haunting him!”

  “Haunting?”

  “Appearing to him, terrifying him, rousing his guilt!”

  “Is that what you believe the dead can do? Is that written in your Holy Bible?”

  John paused. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Well, the Witch of Endor called up the ghost of Samuel for Saul.”

  “What did that ghost say?”

  “He warned Saul of trouble, just as he had when he was alive.”

  I said, “That doesn’t sound terrifying.”

  “No,” said John thoughtfully. “But people are always terrified of ghosts. Everyone says so.”

  “Perhaps that’s because none of them has seen one,” I said. “Except you.”

  He said, “What is your word for ghost, Little Hawk?”

  “We have none,” I said.

  Then the sun rose huge and red over the salt marsh, bringing color into the world, and I was gone from John’s sight.

  * * *

  Winter came, and John’s chances of speaking to Huldah almost disappeared. They had to be content with looking at each other across the meetinghouse, except on the rare occasions when Master Kelly was away and his kindly wife allowed them to speak. So they smiled when possible, and listened to the other members of the congregation exchanging news. The talk that washed around them was often concerned with Roger Williams, who was clearly still angering the Puritans of Boston by questioning their rules.

  Ezra’s opinions, which John also heard at some length every day at home, were very much like those of Daniel Smith. There was a great deal of indignant talk about Roger Williams in the Medlycott house, and the more John heard, the better he liked Roger Williams.

  “Does it not seem,” he said hesitantly to Master Medlycott and Ezra, as they all took a breath in the workshop one day, “that we all came here to escape authority, but are imposing an authority of our own?”

  “There must be order,” said Ezra. “Without order, we have chaos. Look at the three of us here, we are the master cooper, the journeyman, and the apprentice. In order. We are a little world.”

  Master Medlycott laughed. “Th’art a philosopher, Ezra,” he said, and took a great swig from a jug of water.

  “But this is a little world of work,” John said. “It is governed by the knowledge of the craft. When you are a master cooper, you will be the same as Master Medlycott.”

  “Not the same,” Ezra said. “He will still have more experience.”

  “And more customers,” said Master Medlycott, who was not
a philosopher. He chuckled.

  Ezra was deadly serious, however; he shook his head, frowning. “Order comes from above, John Wakeley,” he said. “This is something you seem to have difficulty in understanding. We are the children of the Lord God, put here to obey his laws—and so we must obey those he puts in office above us.”

  “Not if they interpret those laws wrongly,” John said.

  “And who are you to judge?” snapped Ezra. He looked at John coldly, as if he were a hostile stranger. “Our Lord said, ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.’ ”

  John said, “But there’s no commandment about taking land away from the Indians. Those in office—”

  Master Medlycott held up his hand. “Enough,” he said. “Back to work. The opinions of Roger Williams have no place in this workshop.”

  And at the meetinghouse some weeks later, they all learned that the Boston court had banished Roger Williams, and ordered him to be put on a ship back to England.

  “And they say,” said their informant, a merchant visiting from Plymouth, “that the General Court sent to Salem to arrest him, but found he had run away, leaving his wife behind with their two children. One of whom is a babe in arms.”

  Ezra stared, scandalized. “Do they know where he went?”

  “They say he has gone south,” said the merchant, “and taken refuge with his Indian friends.”

  Master Medlycott gave a snort of disgust. “At least his children have been spared from a life with the heathen.”

  “Oh no,” said the merchant, who was the focus now of a small attentive group, and enjoying it. “He has sent for his family, and they have gone already—his wife would not be persuaded otherwise.”

  “The magistrates should have restrained her,” said Master Medlycott.

  The merchant spread his hands. “He is outside the bounds of Plymouth Colony. They could do nothing. It is thought that he wishes to establish a settlement of his own.”

  Ezra said, “It will not be a place for proper God-fearing men.”

  John said slowly, “And our colony’s laws do not hold beyond its borders, I suppose.”

  “They do not, John Wakeley—that way lies wilderness!” said Master Medlycott. He shook his head. “Give thanks to the good Lord that tha’rt living safely here in the civilized world.”

  But John was thinking no such thing, nor was he giving thanks—except to Roger Williams, for opening a door in his mind. A perilous door, through which he intended to go.

  TEN

  Two winters had passed, and it was spring. At the meetinghouse every Sunday, John and Huldah managed at least to smile at each other, and at the best of times to sit and talk for a few moments. These moments were often quietly engineered by Mistress Medlycott or Mistress Kelly, both kind-hearted women who could sense the emotions involved.

  But one day there was a meeting full of unexpected turmoil. When everyone was seated, waiting for worship to begin, the minister unexpectedly introduced Miles Standish, the military leader of the Plymouth Colony, who lived nearby in Duxbury.

  “Captain Standish has some events of importance to us all to report,” he said. “And Master Kelly, too.”

  Standish came to the lectern; he was a short, muscular man, wearing the padded jacket of the militia, and his reddish hair and beard were flecked with grey. Kelly followed and stood nearby; since he too was short, stocky, and in uniform, they looked almost like brothers. John had not seen Master Kelly in the meetinghouse for some weeks—which had greatly helped his chances of speaking to Huldah.

  “By the providence of our Lord, brothers and sisters, we have had a great victory,” Standish said. His voice was clear and forceful, and carried round the room, over the attentive heads. “As you know, our brother Walter Kelly here and others have been helping to defend the Connecticut colonists against the warlike Pequots of that coast. The Pequots are among the boldest and bloodiest of the savage tribes, and have sought to ally the Narragansetts with them to drive all Englishmen out of this land.”

  He paused, eyes roving over his silent audience.

  “But the Narragansett Indians and the Mohegans, having had many past quarrels with the Pequots, chose to join with the English. And in this latest assault, God gave us such good fortune that these Pequots are almost totally destroyed!”

  Voices murmured through the room. There were a few calls of “Amen!”

  Standish said, slowly and with ceremony, “Master Kelly is but newly returned from the battle, and will relate all to you.”

  The congregation murmured again and then hushed, as Kelly stood up at the front. He was less eloquent than Captain Standish but no less self-confident.

  “Our company under Captain John Underhill being arrived to join our Connecticut brothers,” he said, “the hasty Narragansetts directed us to surprise the Pequots before dawn, in a village where many of the tribe lay sleeping. And so we did, creeping up silently on their fortifications. Then our men attacked with great speed and courage. Those Pequots who fought, we slew with the sword. The rest died by fire. The Connecticut captain John Mason had us set fire to their wigwams.”

  John was sitting behind Mistress Medlycott. He saw her shift uneasily on her bench, and she bowed her head.

  “The flames spread fast through the whole village, and the savage devils screamed long as they died,” said Master Kelly with satisfaction. “We were all around the wall, waiting to stab any who ran outside. And the Narragansetts were there to kill them too, though they did little except to jeer at the Pequots as they burned. Thus the God of Battles gave us triumph over those who would murder good Christian men and women! In this and other attacks it is thought that seven hundred Indians died. The good Lord be praised!”

  There was a rumble of agreement in the room.

  John clenched his fists in an effort to stay silent, and felt his fingernails cut into his palms.

  “Where were the other attacks, Master Kelly?” called out Master Medlycott, sitting beside John.

  “I was present only at one of them,” said Master Kelly, “when we drove the people of a smaller Indian settlement into a swamp. There we beset them all day and all night. We killed many, but so miraculously did the Lord preserve us that their arrows wounded none of our men. I had an arrow through my sleeve with not so much as a scratch.”

  “God be praised,” said a woman’s voice from among the listeners.

  “Amen,” said some others.

  “Those Pequots who survived from the swamp, we took prisoner,” Master Kelly said. “The women and the maid children were disposed about in the towns. All the male children have been set on a ship to Bermuda, for the plantations there.”

  John could bear this no longer. He spoke up, suddenly, his voice shaking.

  “Master Kelly,” he said, “may I ask a question?”

  Walter Kelly heard his voice but did not recognize him, out there in the audience. “Of course,” he said.

  John stood up. He said, this time loudly, clearly, “Were there not innocent women and children in the village of people that you burned alive?”

  There was a long silence in the meetinghouse. Some heads turned.

  John sat down again, but not before Kelly had recognized him.

  “Yes, John Wakeley,” he said coldly. “There were many. You call them innocent? As our captain has said, they belonged to a people grown to a height of blood and sin against God and man. And do you think the Indians would have spared English women and children from death?”

  The minister was on his feet at once, headed for the lectern. “Brothers and sisters,” he cried, “let us give thanks for Master Kelly and Captain Standish and all our brave soldiers, and praise God for our triumph over the murderous heathen! In the words of the Bible, the Lord was pleased to smite our enemies, and to give us their land for an inheritance. Let the whole earth be filled with his glory!”

  So they were launched into the long customary pattern of worship for the day, with a break between the two sermo
ns for eating and talking—from which John deliberately kept away, taking a long time to check on the welfare of their horses. And Master Medlycott said not a word to John until they were all back at home, away from the congregation, when he erupted in furious rage.

  “Shame on you!” he shouted. “Shame on you for slandering a brave man who defends our safety! And in public! And bringing shame to this house, as my apprentice!”

  “I did but ask a question,” John said coldly.

  “A question—it was an accusation! Who are you to question the actions of your betters, of a good devout Christian?” He was on the brink of striking at John. “Ezra warned me of thy foolishness, I should have listened! Out of here! Away with thee! I’ll have you no more in my workshop or my home!”

  “William—” said Mistress Medlycott.

  “Out!” bellowed Medlycott, his face scarlet. The children had crept away outdoors, frightened by his anger, and Ezra was drifting toward the back room.

  But cosy Mistress Medlycott, never known to raise her voice in anything except merriment, was standing foursquare in the middle of the room facing her husband, beside John, like a mountain lion defending her cub. And though she was a good Puritan wife, she was shouting right back at him.

  “William! What is this rage? Tha know’st this boy—he has been part of this family for five years and more!”

  “He is a fool!” roared Medlycott.

  “He is no fool, but a good devout Christian too! Can you not recall the nature of the question he asked?”

  Medlycott paused, for a crucial second. He was so taken aback at the fury bursting out of his tranquil wife that he actually found himself hearing what she said.

  Mistress Medlycott pressed on. “He asked us to consider that our soldiers burned alive hundreds of women and children! Burned them alive! Children like your own! Not fighting men, our enemies, but innocent children! Have you ever heard of Indians doing that to us?”

  “Indians have killed white women,” Medlycott said. “And children too. And tortured them, they say.”