Metipom's Hostage/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
DAVID VISITS THE PRAYING VILLAGE
“It seems he gives fair warning,” said Nathan Lindall quietly as he stooped and lifted the horrid token from the step. The snakeskin rustled as his hand touched it, and Obid, peering over his shoulder, shuddered in disgust. David was already outside, his keen eyes searching the moist ground. A dozen steps he took and then pointed toward the woods to the west.
“Thence he came, sir, and went,” he announced.
“One only?” asked his father.
“Aye, though there may have been more beyond the clearing.”
“What mean the blue spots on the arrow, master?” asked Obid troubledly.
Nathan Lindall looked at the three stains on the slender shaft and shook his head. “I know not, Obid, unless they be this sachem’s signature. Or mayhap they have a more trenchant meaning. What matter? He has put us on our guard, though for what reason I cannot discern.”
“Then can I, master,” said Obid bitterly. “Murder be enough for the bloody-minded savage, but he must even forewarn us that we may suffer first in anticipation of our fate.”
“Nay,” said David. “’Tis the Indian way to give challenge, and by so doing fight fairly, Obid. When all is said, father, he has done us a kindness, for now we know of a certainty that he means us harm and we can be more than ever on our guard.”
“’Tis a childish play,” said Nathan Lindall, “and none but a child would be disturbed thereby.” He made as if to break the arrow in his hands, but David spoke quickly.
“Let me have it, father. ’Tis like none other I have seen and I would keep it.”
“A pretty keepsake, indeed,” muttered Obid, as he went back to his tasks. “Have no fear but that they be waiting to give us plenty more of its like!”
The incident could not fail to cast a shade of gloom over the morning meal, and all three were more silent than usual. Soon after they had finished, there came a hail from the front and Master William Vernham and a servant approached. Their neighbor was a tall, grim-faced man of upwards of fifty, long of leg and arm, clean-shaven save for the veriest wisp of grizzled hair upon his lip. He bore with him another such arrow as Obid had stumbled upon and was in a fine temper over it.
“On my very doorsill ’twas lain, Master Lindall! Did ever one know of such insolence? What, pray, is the Colony come to when these red devils be allowed to come and go at will, indulging themselves in all manner of mischief and seeking to frighten honest folk with such clownish tricks? Governor Leverett shall know of this ere night, and if he fail to dispatch militia to clear the country hereabouts of the varmints, then I shall call on you, Nathan Lindall, and all others within reach to aid me in the task, for patience is no longer a virtue.”
“The task will be no easy one,” answered Master Lindall, “for these Indians are but a handful and seeking for them will be like seeking a needle in a haymow. But you may count on me to aid, Master Vernham. As for asking help of the Governor, I fear ’twill be but a waste of time, for we be too far from the towns to cause him concern. ’Twill be best to take the law into our own hands, as you have said.”
“Aye, that be true. What disposition, think you, will be made of that Nausauwah that we took prisoner to Boston?”
“I know not. Perchance ’twere best for our heads were he set free with a fine, since, from what I make of it, this Metipom’s quarrel with us is on his account.”
William Vernham shook his head stoutly.
“Nay, that were truckling with the villains. Rather shall I beg the Governor to hang the wastrel on Gallows Hill as soon as may be. ’Tis not fair dealing that the savages require, but harshness. They construe justice to be weakness in their heathen ignorance.” He continued in like vein, so finally working off his anger. Then: “What think you of this, Neighbor Lindall?” he asked at length. “Will these skulking devils try to burn our houses about our heads or pick us off the while we toil in the fields?”
“Perchance no more will come of it,” was the answer. “As I understand the sachem’s meaning, he bids us release his son or else our lives will be forfeit. Having sent his message he must wait a time for our answer. An he wait long enough his petty quarrel will be as but a flea-bite in the greater trouble that will be upon us.”
“You still look for a rising? Tush, tush, Master Lindall; I tell you this King Philip, as they call him, has not the courage. He but brags in his cups. Nay, nay, such annoyances as this we shall have to put up with until the country be cleaned of the vermin, but as for another such war as was fought with the Pequots, why, that cannot be. Well, I must be off. To-morrow you shall hear from me so soon as I return from Boston.”
“I would I were as certain as he,” murmured Nathan Lindall as the visitors departed.
Three days later, the Governor having dispatched one Sergeant Major Whipple to take command of the settlers, some sixteen of the latter met at Master Vernham’s, well armed, and made diligent search for many miles about, finding numerous wandering Indians to whom no blame could be laid, but failing to apprehend or even discover trace of any hostile savages. So for the time ended the incident of the spotted arrows, and the memory of it dimmed, and while Nathan Lindall and William Vernham and their households were careful to go well armed about their duties, and a watch was kept throughout the nights, yet after a fortnight vigilance waned, and even Obid was found by David fast asleep one night when he should have been awake and watchful. By this time June had come in hot and the corn was planted in the south field, and the kitchen garden was already showing the green sprouts of carrots and parsnips and turnips and other vegetables which grew, it seemed, fully as well as in England. Then, on a day when there was a lapse of work for him to do, David set forth for Natick to see Monapikot again, since, in spite of the Pegan’s promise to come within the week, David had seen naught of him. By river the distance to the village of the Praying Indians was nearly twenty miles, so devious was the stream’s winding course, whereas on foot it was but a matter of four or five. And yet David might well hesitate in the choice of routes, for by land the way led through the Long Marsh, which would have been more appropriately called bog, and save for what runways the deer had made therein there was no sort of trail. It was the thought of having to remain at the village overnight that finally decided David to take the land route, and he set out early one morning with musket across his shoulder and bread and meat in his pouch, and in his ears his father’s injunction to be watchful.
His way led him along the brook that flowed into the clearing, for it was by following that stream that he would unfailingly reach the first of the two large ponds lying between him and the Indian village. Now and then, after he had passed into the forest, he was able to walk briskly, but for the most part he had to make his own path, since for the last year or two the woods had not been fired thereabouts by the Indians and the underbrush had grown up rankly. Presently a small pond barred his way and he was some time finding the brook again. The most of two hours had gone before the first of the two large ponds lay before him. It was a full half-mile long and lay in a veritable quagmire over which David had to make his way with caution lest he step between the knolls or the uncertain hummocks of grass and sink to his middle, which had happened to him before. Many water birds swam upon the pond, and had he been minded to add game to his bag he might easily have done so. Mosquitoes attacked him ravenously, for the country was low-lying and no breeze dispelled the sultry stillness of the morning, and, when laden with a gun and balancing one’s self on a swaying tuft of grass, fighting the vicious insects was no graceful task! Alders and swamp willows barred his path and creeping vines sought to trip him, and it was not long before he was in a fine condition of perspiration—and exasperation as well.
At length a well-defined trail came to his rescue and led him around the end of the first pond and above the head of the second, although he had to ford a shallow, muddy stream on the way. More marsh followed and then the ground grew higher and pines and hemlocks and big-girthed oaks took the place of the switches. This second pond was a handsome expanse, lying blue and unruffled under the June sky with the reflection of white, fluffy clouds mirrored therein. As he neared the southern extremity of it, where it ended in a small cove, his eyes fell on a canoe formed of a hollowed pine trunk from which two squaws were fishing. The Indian women viewed him incuriously as he passed amongst the trees. They were, as he knew, dwellers in Master Eliot’s village, now but a scant mile distant. Even as he watched, there was a splashing of the still surface beside the dugout and a fine bass leaped into the sunlight. David paused and watched with a tingle of his pulse while the squaw who had hooked the fish cautiously drew him nearer the side of the canoe. The bass fought gamely, again and again flopping well out of the pond in the effort to shake free of the hook that held him, but his struggles were vain, and presently a short spear of sharpened wood was thrust from the canoe and a naked brown arm swept upward and the bass sparkled for an instant in the sunlight ere he disappeared in the bottom of the craft. No sign of pride or satisfaction disturbed the countenance of the Indian woman. She bent for a moment and then straightened and her newly baited hook again dropped quietly into the water.
“Had I brought such a monster to land,” reflected David, “I should be now singing for joy!”
In the spring of 1676 the Natick Indian village was a well-ordered community. It lay upon both banks of the Charles River, with an arched footbridge laid upon strong stone piers between. Several wide streets were laid out upon which the dwellings faced and each family had its own allotted ground for garden and pasture. Save for the meeting-house, a story-and-a-half erection of rough-hewn timbers enclosed in a palisaded fort, wooden buildings were scarce, since the Indians clung to their own style of dwelling. Some half-hundred wigwams composed the village, although not all were then occupied. There were many neat gardens, and fruit-trees abounded. Altogether the village looked prosperous and contented as David came toward it that June morning. The streets were given over chiefly to the children, it seemed, and these used them as playgrounds. At the door of a wigwam a squaw sat here and there at some labor, but industry was not a notable feature of the village. Save that a dog barked at him, David’s arrival went unchallenged, and he crossed the long footbridge and sought the palisade where he thought to find Pikot at his duties of teaching the younger men and women. A lodge rather more pretentious than the rest was the residence of the sachem Waban, a Nipmuck who had lived previously at Nonantum and who had become the most prominent of Master Eliot’s disciples and, it is thought, the most earnest. Waban had married a daughter of the famous Tahattawan, sachem of the country about the Concord River, himself a convert to Christianity and a teacher of it amongst his people. Besides being sachem, Waban likewise held the office of justice of the peace, and it was he who had a few years before written the laconic warrant for the arrest of an offender named Jeremiah Offscow: “To you big constable, quick you catch um, strong you hold um, safe you bring um afore me, Waban, justice peace.” David knew the sachem well and meant to visit him before he left, but now he kept on to the meeting-house wherein the school was held on week-days and where the Reverend John Eliot discoursed to the Indians, and, usually, to a few English besides, on the Sabbath. The preacher lived when at the village in a small chamber divided off from the attic above.
David found Pikot busy with another teacher inside the building, and seated himself within the door to wait. Some fourteen or fifteen pupils, the younger members of the community, were at their lessons, and David had perforce to own that they indeed behaved with more decorum than a like number of English would have. Now and then a sly glance of curiosity came David’s way from a pair of dark eyes, but for the most part his presence went unheeded. The Indians’ voices sounded flat and expressionless as they answered the questions put to them or recited in unison a portion of the lesson. Indeed, David much questioned that they fully understood what they said save as a parrot might! After a while the class was dismissed and went sedately forth, boys and girls alike, and Pikot joined David and led him out of the building and through the palisade gate and so to the river where, on a flat stone above the stream, they sat themselves and began their talk.
“You came not for the fishing, Straight Arrow,” charged David. “To an Indian who does not keep his word I have naught to say.”
Pikot smiled. “True, Noawama, yet ’twas not of choice that I failed you. I went a long journey that took many days and I could not send you word.”
“A long journey?” asked David eagerly. “Whither did you go?”
The Indian’s expression became strangely blank as he waved his hand vaguely westward. “Toward the Great River, David.”
“That they call the Connecticote? Tell me of your journey, Pikot. What did you go for?”
“The business was not mine, brother, and I may not talk.”
“Oh, well, have your secrets then. And I’ll have mine.”
Monapikot smiled faintly. “And if I guess them?”
“I give you leave, O Brother of the Owl,” jeered David.
The Indian half closed his eyes and peered at the tops of the tall pines that crowned the hill. “Came one by night through the forest,” he said slowly in his native tongue. “The skin of a panther hung about him and he was armed only with a knife. As the weasel creeps through the grass, so this one crept to the lodge of the white man where all were asleep. On the stone without the door he laid a message from his sachem. As the fox slinks homeward when the sun arises, so this one slunk away. The forest took him and he vanished.”
“How know you that?” asked David, affecting great surprise. “It but happened half a moon ago and none has heard of it save all the world! Can it be that you know also what the message was like?”
“An arrow wrapped with the cast skin of a rattlesnake, brother.”
“Wonderful! And it may be that you can tell how the arrow was made, O Great Powwow.”
“’Twas headed with an eagle’s claw and tipped with gray feathers. Three blue marks were on it, O Noawama.”
David frowned. “Now as to that I wonder,” he said. “None saw the arrow save we three. How then could you know that the head was not of stone or the horn of the deer?”
“Did I not tell you I could guess your secret?”
“Aye, but methinks you are not guessing, Pikot. And how know you that the messenger came unarmed and wearing a panther-skin?”
“How know you that I speak true?” asked Pikot, smiling.
“I do not know,” replied David ruefully, “but I would almost take oath to it. Saw you this Wachoosett, Pikot?”
Pikot shook his head. “Nay.”
“Then how—”
“The Wachoosetts be fond of panther-skins, David, and the braves wear them much, as I know. As for the knife, an Indian has no use for bow and arrow at night, nor, on a long journey, does he weight himself with a tomahawk. The eagle nests in the great hill in the Wachoosett country and Wachoosett people arm their arrows with the eagle’s claws, and tip them with feathers from the eagle’s wing. As for the blue spots, that I heard, brother.”
“Oh!” But David viewed Pikot doubtfully. “I still think you knew more than you guessed. But ’tis no matter. This Metipom troubles us no more. Doubtless he waits to find whether his son be judged guilty or no. How far is this country of the Wachoosetts, Straight Arrow?”
“Maybe twelve leagues.”
“No farther than that? ’Tis but a half-day journey for an Indian, then.”
“Nay, for there be many streams and hills. One travels not as an eagle flies, brother.”
“True, and still this Metipom lives too near for my liking. Think you he still means mischief, Pikot? ”
“Aye,” answered the Pegan gravely. “But it may be, as you say, that he will wait and see how his son fares in the court in Boston. You do ill to travel alone through the forest, David, and when you return I will go with you.”
“I shall be glad of your company, but I have no fear.”
“Nor had the lion, and yet the wolves ate him.” Pikot glanced at the sun and arose. “Come and eat meat with me, David, and then we will start the journey back, for I would have you safe before the shadows are long.”