The Ransom of Mercy Carter

by Caroline B. Cooney

  It was possible to enter a longhouse in silence, because no wooden door creaked, no wooden floorboard groaned, no heavy shoe tromped. Mercy was unprepared to find Nistenha at her side. Shame made it impossible to look Nistenha in the eyes.

  “Yes, daughter,” said Nistenha. “Wear my best cross. This is your first time alone in the city. You must look beautiful. We will be proud.” Nistenha put the chain over Mercy’s head and also slid six silver bracelets up her arm. They were fat bracelets, so that her arm was solid with silver from wrist to elbow.

  Money, thought Mercy. I have plenty of money now.

  “Come, Munnonock,” said Nistenha. “Spukumenen’s father awaits.”

  Ruth was going into Montréal? Mercy froze. She could not imagine taking Ruth with her. Ruth had never cooperated with anything in her life. Ruth would find a thousand things wrong even with this plan.

  Nistenha smiled. “No. Spukumenen stays here. Even she must help with the corn. Her uncles, though, have arrived in Montréal with many furs. Her father, Otter, goes to get them and will take you. You will ride home sitting on top of much beaver.” Nistenha kept fixing Mercy’s hair, although it was perfect; Snow Walker had fussed with it before Mass. “Much depends on you, daughter.”

  Mercy said nothing to that, and Nistenha did not elaborate. Together they walked out of the longhouse, out of Kahnawake village and down the steps of the stone jetty.

  She had not had to steal the cross. It had been given to her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Montréal

  November 1704

  Temperature 34 degrees

  It was cold on the water.

  Otter did not paddle smoothly and icy spray hit Mercy’s face and arms.

  She was not wearing the clothing she would have chosen. To go with the glittering cross, Nistenha had insisted upon her best tunic and her finest fur hat. Into her hair, Nistenha had woven shells and bear claws. Hardly the garb of an English girl seeking a cabin on a French ship.

  Around them were another two canoes from Kahnawake, men bringing wives and sisters and mothers. Mercy managed to chat about shopping at the same time she stared down the river, holding her breath, praying the ships had not yet sailed. Finally she could make out their masts.

  Her plan was still possible.

  Otter tied up at one of the small jetties, and the men left to do their trading. Mercy knew by now that they were all smugglers. They claimed loyalty to the French and were always willing to help the French fight the English, but in the end, furs were sold to whatever buyer paid the most. It happened to be the Dutch in Albany. However, since the Dutch promptly sold those furs to England, it was forbidden to sell to the Dutch.

  No Mohawk paid the slightest attention to the law.

  The Indian women began shopping and exchanging news. There were Norridgewock and Oneida and Cowasuck Indians to talk to; there were French fur traders and jewelers and a display of glass.

  Mercy traded her sassafras for a long gray wool cape with a hood. It would wholly cover her Indian clothing. The women protested vigorously; it was dull, it was ugly, Munnonock had a better cape at home. Why not purchase this pink scarf, embroidered in a riot of green leaves and white flowers?

  Slowly the women separated, one going to the ironmonger, one to the shoemaker to sell him leather, one to the tattoo artist to buy needles.

  Mercy turned down a lane with no shops which led past the enclosed gardens of the convent. In the shadow of the nuns’ world, Mercy pulled her hair out of its braids and flung down the Indian junk tangled in it. Shells and claws. She saw herself as Ruth did; as Cousin Mary had—a pathetic little English girl trying to curry favor with savages.

  Using her fingers to comb her hair, Mercy put on the long gray cloak, and this time she did not cover her hair; its golden sheen and her blue eyes were her proof that she was English.

  Then she walked back to the wharf.

  SHE HAD LOST HER FEAR of small boats. After all, Indians handled canoes well and rarely went out in bad weather, and Mercy could now swim. But how alien were these great vessels, with their rope ladders and furled sails, stinking tar and shouting sailors. Their wooden bodies creaked like a hundred doors. They pulled the floating dock up and down so that everybody standing on it also bobbed and swayed.

  She had heard that the sailors slept in hammocks, like Indian babies. Would they give her a cabin? Would she have a tiny room, with a tiny bed and a tiny window? Or would she too have a sling hanging from the ceiling? No matter how much beaver they had on board, no matter what profit they expected from it, surely they would want this jeweled cross as well. They could pry the gems out and set them into necklaces and earrings for their wives or sweethearts.

  Mercy steered clear of the French voyageurs, who had brought the fur bales to Montréal. They were Indian lovers and might hold her until Otter came back. It was easy to recognize a voyageur: They thought nothing of paddling sixteen hours a day, five miles an hour. Their arms were as big as other men’s thighs.

  She was the only girl anywhere and the only child.

  A dozen filthy swearing French sailors wrestled with barrels of water they would need for the voyage. Great tangles and whorls of rope lay everywhere. Unsold fish rotted in abandoned baskets.

  She had practiced French in her mind, but now she lost the words. She could not even remember the right English words. She possessed only Mohawk.

  If Otter or the other men saw her here, what would they do? If the captain did not have space for her, how could she coax him to fit her in anyway? Who was the captain? What if the captain just laughed and sent for Otter?

  The dock lurched and Mercy staggered a little.

  One of the sailors left the others and sauntered over to her. He was tall and thick-waisted, with a matted beard and a well-chewed pipe.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to pronounce it in the French way: “ex-cusay mwa.” She tried to smile, and he grinned back. The rotting stumps of his remaining teeth stuck up like pegs next to his grayish tongue. He answered her, however, in French-accented English.

  “Girl! English, eh? What is your name? Indians stole you, eh? Tell me. I’ll send news to your people.”

  His excellent speech meant that he did a lot of trading with the English. It meant, Mercy prayed, that he liked the English. She found her tongue. “Will you take me to France, sir? Or anywhere at all? Wherever you are going—I can pay.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You do not belong to an Indian?”

  She flushed and knew her red cheeks gave their own answer, but rather than speaking, she held out the cross. The sun was bright and the gemstones even brighter.

  The man sucked in his breath. He leaned very close to her to examine the cross. “Yes,” he said. “It is worth much.”

  He straightened up slowly, his eyes traveling from her waist to her breast to her throat to her hair. The other sailors also straightened, and they too left their work, drawn by the glittering cross.

  “So you want to sail with me, girl?” He stroked her cheek. His nails were yellow and thick like shingles, and filthy underneath. He twined her hair into a hank, circling it tighter and tighter, as if to scalp.

  “You are the jewel,” he said. “Come. I get a comb and fix this hair.”

  The other sailors slouched over. They pressed against her and she could not retreat. He continued to hold her by the hair, as if she were a rabbit to be skinned. She could see neither river nor sky, only the fierce grins of sailors leaning down.

  “Eh bien,” said the Frenchman, returning to his own tongue. “This little girl begs to sail with us,” he told his men. “What do you say, boys?” He began laughing. “Where should she sleep? What am I bid?”

  She did not have enough French to get every word, but it was the same in any language.

  The sailors laughed raucously.

  Indians had strong taboos about women. Men would not be with their women if they were going hunting or having important meetings, and certa
inly not when going off to war. She had never heard of an Indian man forcing himself on a woman.

  But these were not Indians.

  She let the cross fall on its chain and pushed the Frenchman away, but he caught both her wrists easily in his free hand and stretched her out by the wrists as well as by the hair.

  Tannhahorens pricked the white man’s hand with the tip of his scalping knife.

  White men loading barrels stood still. White sailors on deck ceased to move. White passersby froze where they walked.

  The bearded Frenchman drew back, holding his hands up in surrender. A little blood ran down his arm. “Of course,” he said, nodding. “She’s yours. I see.”

  The sailors edged away. Behind them now, Mercy could see two pirogues of Indians drifting by the floating dock. They looked like Sauk from the west. They were standing up in the deep wells of their sturdy boats, shifting their weapons to catch the sun.

  Tannhahorens did not look at Mercy. The tip of his knife advanced and the Frenchman backed away from it. He was a very strong man, possibly stronger than Tannhahorens. But behind Tannhahorens were twenty heavily armed braves.

  The Frenchman kept backing and Tannhahorens kept pressing. No sailor dared move a muscle, not outnumbered as they were. The Sauk let out a hideous wailing war cry.

  Mercy shuddered with the memory of other war cries.

  Even more terrified, all the French took another step back—and three of them fell into the St. Lawrence River.

  The Sauk burst into wild laughter. The voyageurs hooted and booed. The sailors threw ropes to their floundering comrades, because only Indians knew how to swim.

  Tannhahorens took Mercy’s hand and led her to one of the pirogues, and the Sauk paddled close, hanging on to the edge of the dock so that Mercy could climb in. Mercy could not look at the Sauk. She had shamed Tannhahorens in front of them.

  Mercy climbed in and Tannhahorens stepped in after her, and the men paddled slowly upstream to Tannhahorens’s canoe. The other pirogue stayed at the wharf, where those Sauk continued to stand, their weapons shining.

  Eventually the French began to load the ship again.

  “Daughter,” said Tannhahorens, “the sailors are not good men.”

  She nodded.

  He bent until he could look directly into her eyes, something Indians did not care for as a rule. “Daughter.”

  She flushed scarlet. On her white cheeks, guilt would always be revealed.

  “The cross protects,” said Tannhahorens. “Or so the French fathers claim. Perhaps it does. But better protection is to stay out of danger.”

  Did Tannhahorens think she had gotten lost? Did he believe that she had ended up on the wharf by accident? That she was waving the cross around for protection?

  Or was he, in the way of Indians, allowing that to be the circumstance because it was easier?

  When he had thanked the Sauk sufficiently and they had agreed to tell Otter that Mercy had gone home with her father, Tannhahorens paddled back to Kahnawake. His long strong arms bent into the current. Her family had not trusted her after all. Tannhahorens must have been following her.

  Or, in the way of a real father, he had not trusted Montréal. Either way, she was defeated. There was no escape.

  If there is no escape, and if there is also no ransom, what is there for me? thought Mercy. I don’t want to be alone. A single star in a black and terrible night? How can I endure the name Alone Star? “Why do you call me Munnonock?” she asked.

  She wanted desperately to go home and end this ugly day.

  Home. It was still a word of warmth and comfort. Still a word of safety and love.

  The homes she had known misted and blended and she did not really know if it was Nistenha in the longhouse or Stepmama in Deerfield or her mother in heaven whose home she wanted.

  “You are brave, daughter,” said Tannhahorens without looking at her, without breaking his rhythm, “and can stand alone. You shine with courage, and so shone every night of your march. You are our hope for sons and daughters to come. On you much depends.”

  IN THE REMAINING WEEKS of autumn, they roasted chestnuts and gathered beechnuts, walnuts and butternuts. The girls shelled corn and dried apples and cranberries. The boys shot pigeons and doves by the score, and geese migrating, and ducks. Bonfires never went out, and meat was constantly smoking.

  Nistenha wove a basket of intricate design. She chose slender branches of willow, from which she had painstakingly scraped the thin yellow bark. Some she had soaked in butternut dye, and now, alternating wide and narrow bands, gold and brown, she created a complex pattern of light and dark. Then she sat Mercy in front of her, circling Mercy with her arms, and with her fingers ordered the movement of Mercy’s.

  It was exactly how her real mother had taught her to knit. Mercy closed her eyes and leaned back against Nistenha. What warmth and comfort there was within a mother’s arms. Mercy began to weep. Mother, she prayed to her mother in heaven, please forgive me.

  She blinked back her tears and only one splattered on the reeds in front of her. Together but separately, she and Nistenha finished the basket. It was a work of art.

  “What is the occasion?” asked Mercy shakily. This basket had taken far too much time and care to be used for corn or laundry.

  “Snow Walker will soon have a husband of her own,” said Nistenha. “She must have fine gifts.”

  Mercy was delighted. “Great Angry Cloud?” she guessed happily.

  “Of course. The families are pleased. It is good. Father Meriel will say the vows and write the names in his book.”

  Not the real names, though. Father Meriel would call Snow Walker by her French name, Jeanne. But what anybody’s real name was, Mercy no longer knew. You, Munnonock, are our hope for sons and daughters.

  Mercy’s head spun. She made one last effort to push away the world of Kahnawake. “Nistenha. On that day when I went into Montréal …?”

  “Hush,” said her mother. “We speak only of joyful things. Next I will show you how to etch a drawing on a birch-bark box you will make for Snow Walker.”

  She knows, thought Mercy. But in her world, you do not confess sins. You set them down.

  “WE’RE GOING HUNTING,” Joseph told Mercy at the end of the month. “Deer are gathering because it’s rutting season. They’ll be in the oak forests, eating acorns on the ground, so they’ll be easy to find. Our family always goes north between the Matawin River and the Black.”

  “Our family?” said Ruth. But she did not say it loudly or with heat. They could see by the blackened vines how quickly winter was approaching; they could feel it in the morning, tasting sharp frost in the air. Ruth too wanted enough food to last the winter.

  Some warriors would be gone for the entire winter; others would return in shifts, bringing meat. Bear, moose, deer, beaver, raccoon, fox. Some for food, all for fur.

  But the party searching for bear came back more quickly than they meant to.

  It was the work of a warrior to enter the cave, jab the bear awake and tempt him, grumpy and stuporous, to come out where he could be shot. No fur was so warm, no meat so good, no claws better ornaments. Of course, one swipe of that great paw could break a man’s jaw or rip off an arm, but that was why it was so admired and why the warrior who goaded the bear got the claws: such impressive risk.

  Altogether, the hunting party lost three men in poor judgment of bears.

  The paw that swiped Tannhahorens in the face was given to his widow. His funeral was in church and in Latin. How soft the Mass was. How hard and fierce Tannhahorens had been.

  Mercy was not comforted. Tannhahorens was just dead and the Mass was just noise. She was relieved when the Indians left the church and walked to the Place of the Dead, where the powwow led another ceremony and they could all howl and beat their breasts.

  On me much depends. O Lord, does that mean that I take care of Nistenha now? That one day my son will be named Tannhahorens?

  Nistenha and Tannhahoren
s’s mother and sisters blackened their faces with soot and chopped their hair off raw and ugly, to lose their looks and grace. Nistenha would not let Mercy cut her hair, but she agreed to blacken Mercy’s face in the color of sorrow.

  The mourners paraded for several hours, but when Mercy went to join them, Ruth screamed. “How can you grieve for that murderer, Mercy? Remember his barbarous cruelties!”

  So had Uncle Nathaniel said—you must remember. So had Mr. Williams said—you must remember. And one of the people Mercy would always remember was Tannhahorens. “He saved me, Ruth,” she said sadly. “I owed him.”

  Ruth hauled Mercy down to the river. She threw the younger girl into the water and waded right in after her. The first crust of ice had formed and it splintered around their legs. Mercy could have fought back, but fighting was unthinkable because Ruth was right. A bear had avenged the Carter family, while Mercy had not.

  Ruth scrubbed Mercy with sand, as if adopting her; as if washing away bad white blood. When Mercy’s face was clean of soot and Ruth’s rage spent, the girls climbed out of the water.

  In Kahnawake everything was in the open. There was no cover, no place to hide. Soaked and shivering in the wind, she walked alone to her longhouse.

  Nistenha left the mourners and came after her to wrap Mercy in blankets.

  “Do you truly mourn your father?” asked Nistenha. How awful Nistenha looked, her face black and dripping, her hair jagged and torn, her clothing rent, her hands grimy from touching her sooty face.

  Mercy nodded. She mourned all the fathers, English and Indian. She could not count as high as the number of fathers there were.

  “Then I will give you just a little paint, one stroke on each cheek, to show how your heart hurts.”

  Mercy raised her face to accept the paint. “What about Ruth?”

  “Do not worry,” said Nistenha.

  What capacity the Indians had not to worry. In Deerfield, all had been worry. Worry about the Lord, worry about sin. Worry about today, worry about tomorrow. Worry about crops, worry about children.

  But Indians set worry down.

  The next day, Mercy didn’t see Ruth once, nor the day after that, nor the third day. Finally she sought out Otter. “Is Spukumenen ill?” said Mercy anxiously.