Metipom's Hostage/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
METIPOM TAKES THE WAR-PATH
He awoke to find John tugging at him. The wigwam was barely alight, but sounds told him that the village was well astir. The Indian had brought instructions from the sachem and the wherewithal to carry them out. David was to take the trail with them and to that end must look to be one of the tribe. First his body must be stained, and then he must put on the scanty garments that lay in a small heap beside the couch. With small enthusiasm David yielded to John’s ministrations. A brown liquid from a small kettle, still warm, was rubbed over him from head to feet, and where it touched him the whiteness of his skin disappeared and a coppery-red took its place. David viewed the result with misgivings.
“Shall I ever come clean again?” he asked. “Will water remove it, John?”
“Nay, it will not wash off, brother, but in time it will go.” John stood back and viewed his work proudly. “None would know that you were not of our people, David. Very brave and beautiful you look.”
“Do I so?” asked the boy dryly. “Yet methinks I prefer my own skin better. However, an it pleases you and will some day disappear, I mind not. What now?”
“The sachem sends you these.”
“What! That thing? Nay, I will not go about the world naked for Metipom or any one! And so you may say to him!”
But in the end, mindful of Monapikot’s advice, he donned the costume provided; loin-cloth, belt, moccasins, and necklet. All were of the best and much ornamented with quills and wampum. As for the moccasins, he was glad enough to have them, for his shoes had long since worn through at sides and bottoms and provided scant protection for his feet. John grew every minute more proud of the miracle he was working and must momentarily pause to admire and praise. And when David thought all complete, and viewed his brown nakedness with a mixture of shame and interest, John produced white and blue pigments and, with the absorption of an artist before his canvas, traced meaningless lines and figures on the boy’s chest and face. Then, with David grumbling wrathfully, the Indian wove three red feathers into his hair, and, picking up the bow that Sequanawah had fashioned, put it in his hand.
“Now!” he announced. “Go and see yourself in the water of the spring, my brother, and be vain.”
“More like ashamed,” David grumbled. “Whither do we go, and when?”
“I know not whither, but when the women are ready for the journey we start.”
David pushed aside the skin that hid the entrance and gazed forth in astonishment. The Indian village was gone save for the palisade and, here and there, a bark wigwam. Otherwise the lodges were down and the skins and mats that had formed them were rolled and tied with thongs and lay ready for transportation on the backs of the squaws. Fires still smouldered and a few families were yet partaking of food. Dogs barked excitedly and the younger children called shrilly. Everywhere was confusion and bustle.
As David watched the unusual scene, the sun, hotly red, crept over the rim of the world and in the valley eastward the blue-gray mist wavered above the parched earth. The old squaw came with food ready cooked, and brought, too, a sack of parched corn for David’s pouch. The food he devoured as he stood, and then, John having returned to his own family, he made his way to the spring, somewhat shamefacedly, and, as he scooped the water from it, saw himself reflected vaguely in the surface. The first glimpse was startling, for he who looked back from the rippled mirror might well have been a young Indian. Even the boy’s features seemed to have changed; as, indeed, they had since his coming to the village, for lean living had sharpened the cheek-bones and made thinner the nose; and now it was a Wachoosett brave, painted and feathered, who was reflected back from the spring. The vision brought a little thrill to David, for there was something almost uncanny in the marvels wrought by the stain and the pigment and the few gay feathers.
An hour later the exodus had begun. A handful of braves had left the village long before, and at intervals others had followed, but the main body of the tribe began to straggle through the gate an hour after sun-up. Ahead, pretending no military order, but armed and watchful, went the warriors, all painted and panoplied with bows and spears. Well in the van stalked Woosonametiporn, a striking figure in a cloak of green cloth edged with soft yellow feathers below which his unclad legs emerged startlingly. Much wampum he wore, and his face was disfigured with ;a blue disk on each cheek and a figure not unlike a Maltese cross done in yellow on his forehead. Metipom carried a musket, as did several others. Next to the warriors went the older boys, armed with bows, and behind them were the men past the fighting age and the squaws, maidens and children. Only occasionally did one of the men or boys carry any burden, and then it was like to be some treasured object like an iron kettle or a bundle of pelts. It was the women and maidens, and even the children, who bore the household things: skins and mats for wigwams, cooking-utensils, food supplies, babies, and a general miscellany of belongings too precious to leave behind. Used to such form of drudgery, however, the squaws kept pace with the men and asked no favor.
David found that he was to be allowed no chance of escape, for two painted and oil-smeared braves guarded him closely. He was permitted to retain his bow and arrows, but he had neither knife, spear, nor tomahawk. The pace set by the leaders was brisk and by mid-morning they had crossed two small streams and left some ten or a dozen miles behind them. Straight into the west they had gone, for the most part through park-like forest from which the underbrush had been fired the autumn before, following well-defined trails. Camp was made on the slope of a hill and there they rested until afternoon. Some of the scouts joined them here and made reports to the sachem. John brought food to David and afterwards fetched him water from a brook that ran at the foot of the slope.
David’s skin, unaccustomed as it was to exposure, had suffered from the heat of the sun, and he was glad to seek the shade and burrow into the cool fronds of a patch of ferns. The shadows were lengthening when the journey began again. Now the way led more to the south, and close to sunset a broad valley lay before them through which a shallow river flowed. Keeping to the hills, Metipom led his warriors southward until dusk, by which time they had reached a grassy swale between two wooded heights. Here there was a fine spring of water as well as plenty of young, straight growth suitable for lodge-poles, and here permanent camp was made. That night David slept, though not very soundly, under the stars, with his two guards close beside him.
In the morning the women began the construction of the lodges while the men prepared for their business of war. Some few of the older men and boys went in search of game and the maidens to seek berries, but for the most part the Indians toiled at erecting wigwams or adding to their store of arrows and spears. Sequanawah and another came to the new village during the morning and there followed a conclave of the sachem and his counselors. David was put to work with some of the youths at raising lodge-poles, and, since in that treeless place the sun had full way with his tender skin, he was soon in agony. At last he could stand it no longer and, amid the shrill gibes of his companions, took his suffering body to the lee of a wigwam and found some comfort in the shade. There Sequanawah later found him and, seeing the puffed condition of his back and shoulders, brought a fat and pitying squaw who anointed his burns with a cooling salve that brought instant relief.
“I am weary,” said the Indian when the squaw had gone again. “I have traveled many leagues since we parted, David, and the heat has baked my vitals. I had not thought to see my brother so soon, for it was not so said. The Great Sachem lays his plans to-day and to-morrow rubs them out with his foot.”
Sequanawah drew a moccasin over the grass and shook his head.
“Where have you been, Sequanawah?” asked David.
The Indian waved a lean hand vaguely. “Into the sunset and back,” he answered.
David smiled faintly. “Aye? And what saw you, brother?”
A reflection of the boy’s smile flickered in the black eyes of the Indian, though he replied gravely enough. “Deer in the forest and fish in the streams.”
“Were any white, my brother?”
“Nay.” Sequanawah shook his head. “I sought not your people, David.”
“Is Philip near by, then?”
“He comes.”
“Hither?”
“I know not. Stay you close to the wigwams, David, and ask no questions.”
“That is no easy task, Sequanawah, when my people perish.”
“Many will be left, brother. Philip cannot win this war, for the White-Faces are too many against him. In the end he must hide or yield. Yet ere that comes about the forest leaves will be red with blood and many of your people and mine will seek the Great Spirit. I go now to have sleep, my brother.”
In spite of Monapikot’s advice, David was resolved to let no opportunity to escape his captors be wasted, for by keeping his ears open he had learned that English settlements lay near by, notably that of Brookfield, which, he believed, was little more than twelve miles south of the present encampment. Yet, although his guards that night relaxed their vigilance, so well was the village picketed that any attempt at escape would have been futile. The next morning strange Indians came, mean and povern-seeming savages to the number of eight. These, he learned, were from the small tribe of Quaboags, dwelling beyond Brookfield. They spent more than an hour in Metipom’s wigwam and then departed southward. Of the number more than half bore muskets of ancient pattern. With them went Sequanawah and two other captains.
During the day several parties of from six to a dozen or more warriors left the village in different directions, and at intervals scouts returned and made report to the sachem.
Woosonametipom was now living in less state, his lodge being small and unadorned. Most of the time he sat in front of it, smoking or dozing when no affairs demanded attention. It was evident to David that the present village, while designed to be occupied for some time, was not intended to be permanent. This was shown by the makeshift manner of erecting the lodges and by the fact that the squaws had not unpacked certain of their bundles brought from the Wachoosett country. Probably, he thought, it was Metipom’s intention to join Philip and follow that sagamore’s wanderings. The site had doubtless been chosen with a view to secretness and safety from sudden surprise. The place was like a pocket, with the opening toward the wooded valley that ran north and south. On three sides of the pocket the hills arose sufficiently to hide it, and, being but sparsely timbered, afforded a far view of the country about. By day and night watchers, stationed on the heights and at the entrance of the grassy pocket, formed a complete cordon about the encampment. Attack, should it come, would naturally come from the valley, and in that case it would be simple enough for the Wachoosetts, should they choose flight rather than battle, to slip back across the hill toward the east.
Toward sunset of the second day in the new village, David went down the slope toward where the spring burbled from beneath the twisted roots of a great ash tree. His sunburn still pained him and many small blisters had come on his shoulders. Three squaws were filling kettles at the spring, and to one of them he made known his desire for laving his body. When she at last understood what it was he wished, the woman took much delight in filling her kettle and emptying it over his shoulders, a service soon entered into by the other squaws, who, whatever their opinion of such procedure might have been, gained much amusement thereby and plied their kettles so diligently that the boy was soon choking and sputtering, to the entertainment of a near-by picket. David at length had to flee or be drowned, and so he fled, laughing, around the tree and into the thicket that lay beyond, pursued by the youngest of the three women who, finding her quarry escaping, sent the contents of her kettle after him and gave up the chase. Shivering a little, for the evening was cooling with the descent of the sun, David paused to make certain that the squaws had withdrawn. Although he could not see them through the leaves, he heard their guttural laughter diminish as they plodded off up the gentle slope toward the lodges, and was on the point of emerging from his sanctuary and following when a sudden thought bade him pause.
Unintentionally he had passed between the watchers and so far none had challenged. It might be that by remaining where he was until darkness he could get away unseen. In the meanwhile if any sought him he could pretend slumber or illness as his reason for not returning. Crouching, he peered between the lower branches of the bushes. At one side, some twenty yards away, the picket who had watched the proceedings at the spring had turned and was again squatting motionless and staring into the forest. On the other side the next picket was not visible, but David knew that he was stationed on the first rise of the little hill that began at the thicket’s edge. It seemed that the first of the two had already forgotten David’s existence. Perhaps he was under the belief that the captive had returned with the squaws. In any case, it appeared to David that the Indian was no more concerned with him and that he did not suspect his presence in the thicket.
With a little thrill of excitement the boy lowered himself quietly to the ground, brushing aside all twigs that might break and give alarm. He forgot to be chilly, forgot even the smarting and burning and itching of his back and shoulders, for the prospect of making his escape filled him with an exultation that warmed his heart and filled his thoughts.
Quickly the twilight came, for the forest soon shut off the last rays of the sinking sun. From the wigwams came the murmur of voices, the snarling of dogs, the crackling of evening fires. A breath of wind crept down the hillside and rustled the leaves about him. It brought the fragrance of burning wood and of cooking food and reminded him that he was hungry. But hunger was such a small matter now that he only smiled grimly and strove to be patient while the dusk changed lingeringly to darkness. At last his hand held before his nose was but a faint gray oblong and, fearing that if he tarried longer those whose duty it was to guard him would discover his absence and give the alarm, he decided to begin his attempt.
Before darkness had fallen, he had studied the ground about him and chosen a path. Now he set out to follow it. Prone on the ground, he squirmed forward, thrusting aside the slender trunks of the bushes with cautious hands and freeing his path of twigs and fallen branches. In spite of his efforts, absolute silence was impossible, and more than once his heart leaped into his mouth as a tiny snap was heard or a bush, released too quickly, rustled back into place. But though the sounds seemed alarmingly loud to him, they were doubtless no more than the natural noises of the night to the picket. Inch by inch and foot by foot David made his way through the thicket, leaving the village each moment farther behind. At last the bushes ended, or rather thinned, and the trunks of trees were about him. With a breath of relief he carefully got to his feet and, still testing every step, made his way noiselessly toward the south, guiding himself by frequent glimpses of a great white star that hung in the sky above the tree-tops. When a quarter of an hour had passed in cautious progress, he told himself that at last he had succeeded in making his escape, and that, unless he was so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of a scouting party by daylight, he should be within sight of an English settlement.