The Captive Bride (15 page)

Philip had treasured the young man, and had broken into one of his legendary fits of fury when John had been led by the Spirit of God to return to Natick, where he was given the task of instructing young Indian converts.

Rachel had practically grown up with him, for he had been assigned to study under Gilbert Winslow, and the two of them had been a sturdy pair, accompanying the tall minister as he made his pastoral calls. They had sat together through the eternity-long sermons and studied the same books together, but her fondest memories were their times in the woods. He had made an Indian out of her, teaching her the forest arts of tracking, hunting, and a thousand other facts of
the wilderness. She had cried for days when he left to go to Harvard, and beneath his stolid features she had seen that he was saddened, too.

Now he stood there, embarrassed at their embrace, but with a glow of joy in his ebony eyes as he said, “You are a woman,
Nahteeah.
” She laughed as she heard his pet name for her, “little deer.”

Gilbert said, “You two can renew your acquaintance as we travel. We've got a long day's journey.” The road to Middle-borough, some fifteen miles southwest of Plymouth, was good enough for the cart pulled by one of Gilbert's two horses, but past there they would have to ride or walk through Indian trails too narrow for any vehicle.

Rachel walked behind with John as Gilbert drove the cart, and after giving him all the news on what his old friends at Plymouth had been doing, she asked, “What are you going to do now that you're through at Harvard, John?”

“My people at Nemasket have prospered in the Lord, Nahteeah,” he smiled. “I go to be their pastor.”

“How wonderful!” Rachel exclaimed. “That's not so far. We'll get to see each other often.”

“That will be good, Nahteeah. I have missed you.” He laughed and said, “Do you remember when you were twelve years old and fell in love with me?”

Rachel laughed in delight at the reference. “I tried to get you to run off with me, didn't I? And you said, ‘I can't marry you because I'm going to be a preacher!' ”

“What a pompous boy I was!” The memory warmed them; then John gave her a look and said with a peculiar tone in his voice, “You haven't chosen a husband yet, Mr. Winslow tells me. You are fourteen now, and one of our maids would be disgraced if she got to be so old without getting a husband.”

Rachel looked away from him, glancing up at a squirrel chattering angrily at the travelers for disturbing his peace. Then she said with a trace of embarrassment, “There's plenty of time.”

“Is Jude Alden still courting you?”

The question disturbed her, and she said shortly, “I see him sometimes.”

“He does not love my people, Nahteeah,” John said quietly. “If you marry him, we could never speak to each other like this.”

“He's a good man! If I did marry him, I would change his mind.”

John gave her a sardonic smile, saying briefly, “That is the talk of a foolish woman, Nahteeah. If a woman cannot change a man's ways before marriage when he is warm and eager to please her, how can she do it when he has captured her and has no need to satisfy her any longer?”

The statement troubled Rachel, and she changed the subject, but all the way to Middleborough she had turbulent thoughts about what John Sassamon had said. She had long been aware of Jude's hatred for the Indians, but, despite her close friendship with Sassamon, had tried to ignore his attitude. His prejudice left no room for distinction between friendly and hostile Indians—all red men were “savages” to him. Such a perception was not rare on the frontier, although there had not been an Indian war since the war against the Pequots in 1637. But three tribes—the Nipmuck of Massachusetts, the Narragansett in the Bay area, and the Wampanoag led by Philip in Plymouth—were growing restive under the increasing pressure of white civilization. Living on the frontier was like living on a powder keg, for if war with the Indians did come, there was no protection, no militia or army to keep the tribes at bay.

All morning they kept to a steady pace, stopping only briefly at noon to eat a simple meal of cold beef and bread washed down with cold water from a clear brook. They rested for less than an hour, then continued their journey, but this time Rachel rode in the cart and the two men walked in front. She listened as they talked over the matters of the
ministry, and presently they spoke of the low spiritual state of Plymouth.

“You young people must get tired of hearing old men say that the church here isn't what it was in our day,” Gilbert said. “But it's true. Oh, there are little fires of true godliness breaking out in places, but I can't help remembering the first years here.”

“Why is it so, Brother Winslow? Why has the fire died down in the people?”

Winslow thought about the question, and finally said, “It's partly the easy living, John. People are born in town situations instead of having to wrest a life out of the wilderness. This generation has never known desperate need. They grow up never knowing what it means to be imprisoned merely because they love God enough to put Him first—like John Bunyan. They don't know what it's like to have no land and no work and no say in how they are governed. It did something to us, John—the firstcomers, I mean—to live for weeks in wet misery on the open seas, then living in tents or holes in the ground, while cold and sickness ticked us off one by one. I remember one month that first year when we had to bury our dead by night so Indians wouldn't know how our ranks had thinned! We ate ground nuts or grubbed for mussels to stay alive—and all for the sake of a vision of a Promised Land!”

John nodded. “I have often heard you say, Mister Winslow, ‘God hears only desperate men!' ”

Winslow shrugged, and his step was as strong as it had been at dawn, causing Rachel to marvel again at her grandfather's youthful body. “I fear the only way God will get the attention of our people, John, is for them to become desperate—as we were at the first.”

“You think good times ruin the church?”

“Rev. Cotton Mather believes that. He said in a sermon last month, ‘Religion begat prosperity, and the daughter devoured the mother.' And he's not alone, for Daniel Gookin showed me a letter from Judge Sewall, and the wise judge
said, ‘Prosperity is too fulsome a diet for any man—unless seasoned with some grains of adversity.' ”

They passed through Middleborough that afternoon, and leaving the cart with a friend, proceeded on foot to Philip's camp. It was growing late in the day when they walked into the collection of rude huts, made for the most part of saplings tied together with vines. The smell of cooking fires was in the air, and they were greeted at once by Philip, sachem of the Wampanoags.

“You have come,” he said, advancing to meet them. He held his hands palms up in the traditional Indian greeting, showing that he had no weapons. “We eat first, then talk.”

They sat down in a circle inside his tent, which smelled strongly of fish, dog, and unwashed bodies, and Rachel made a show of eating. The food was some sort of stew in a great iron pot, and the guest simply reached in, pulled out a piece of meat or vegetable and ate it with the fingers. She avoided the meat, knowing the Indians' weakness for young dog. She had many times seen a squaw knock a puppy on the head, dress it in a few deft movements and throw it into just such a pot; although she had eaten such food, it never appealed to her.

Philip was not physically impressive. He was small, and his slight frame was covered with stringy muscles. A large nose dominated his face, and he had a small mouth which he kept tightly shut. But he had not risen to be sachem over his tribe because of his appearance, but simply because he was by far the most intelligent of all his people. Perhaps
crafty
was a better word; as Rachel studied the small Indian who was talking to her grandfather, she was struck again with the glittering eyes that illumined his face. She had always been somewhat afraid of the man, and now she felt a chill as he spoke angrily, making violent gestures with his hands.

“You come like locusts, you white men,” he said staring hypnotically at the visitors. “Soon the People will have no place to put their feet. You talk about Great God in the sky,
but is He only the white man's God? Does He not make the People as well?”

“He is the God of all men, King Philip,” Winslow answered quietly.

“Then does He let one of His children rob the other? The Wampanoag fathers are not so cruel to their sons! He is cruel, this Jesus God!”

John Sassamon spoke up then in his clear baritone voice. “No, Jesus is not unjust. He died for the sins of all men, red and white. He longs for all His children to walk in love with one another.”

Philip shot a malevolent glance at the young man, and fairly spat out his next words: “The white man robs us, takes our land and pushes us into the sea! How can you call this love? You have forsaken the People, and can see only the white man's way!”

Philip's thinly veiled hatred of Christianity, especially of the Christian missionaries who were pulling away some of his best warriors, was no secret. To Philip, John Sassamon was a turncoat of the vilest sort, and from that moment, he turned from the young Indian, ignoring him completely.

“You have been paid for your land, King Philip,” Winslow said, but he knew the words were meaningless to the man. Indians never understood ownership of land in the English sense. Their idea of signing a deed to real estate, usually in return for a specified number of axes, kettles, matchcoats, or mackinaws, was to share it with the palefaces, not to move out; they regarded the price as rent, to be repeated every so often.

Philip listened sullenly as Winslow pleaded with him, stating the case for the white man in the fairest terms, but finally when all was said, it was obvious that the smoldering hatred in Philip was not quenched.

“We must go before it gets too dark to travel,” Winslow said, and they took their leave of the surly chief, to hurry along the trail.

“We'll not get back to Middleborough by dark,” John remarked.

“No, but we can stay the night with Alden,” Winslow said.

They walked as fast as Rachel could go for two hours, but the sun was behind the low range of hills to the south when they turned off the trail to Jude Alden's farm. He was not expecting them, but when they came into the clearing cut out of the large oaks where his snug house was set, he came out at Winslow's hail.

“Mr. Winslow—” he said, then peering behind caught sight of the two behind him. “Well, Rachel, this is a surprise.”

He did not acknowledge John. Rachel went up to him and said, “Hello, Jude. Can you take in three tired travelers tonight? You remember John Sassamon.”

Alden hesitated, glaring at the Indian, then nodded. “Of course! Come in and we'll have some tea and a little bite of food.”

They filed into the small house, and he put his musket down and busied himself with the food. He talked steadily, mostly with Winslow, but he was very conscious of his other two guests.

He could not disguise his suspicion of Sassamon, and Rachel was grieved to see the covert glance of distrust he gave the Indian who stood silently with his back against the wall.

But he was most aware, she saw with some pleasure, of her. He listened to her grandfather, even made replies, but he could not keep his eyes off her. Rachel was accustomed to attention from young men, but as he poured the tea and they sat down to eat, she felt a sudden pride that he was so captivated by her.

“God, we thank you for this food—Amen!” Jude said quickly, and they were all caught off guard by the brevity of it.

Gilbert laughed and said as he cut a slice of beef from the large portion in the platter, “That's your grandfather speaking there, Jude.” He referred to John Alden who had courted and won Priscilla Mullins on board the
Mayflower.
“He was
a devout man, but had no time for long prayers—or sermons, either! I recall he said once to Governor Bradford's face after a three-hour sermon, which was not one of the governor's
best:
‘Yer pardon, Governor, fer goin' to sleep, but yer should take note of the oyster.' Well, Bradford stared at him, completely mystified, and finally he asked, ‘The oyster? Why the oyster?' And John looked him right in the eye and said, ‘Because, sir, the beast knows when to open—and
when to shut!
' ”

Jude laughed louder than the others and said, “I believe it of him, Mr. Winslow. I miss him very much.”

“So do I, Jude,” Winslow said quietly. He traced a figure on the table with his finger, then looked up and said, “They were a goodly people, the Firstcomers.”

“Yourself, too, Mr. Winslow,” Alden nodded at once.

“No, I was the black sheep, John.” Gilbert Winslow shook his head sadly. “I could tell you some of my sinful past that would curl your hair, if I so chose.”

“I've always wanted curly hair, Grandfather,” Rachel piped up suddenly. “Please tell us about those times.”

Winslow seldom spoke of his part in the settlement of Plymouth, but he did that night. He did not spare himself, for he had not been aboard the
Mayflower
voluntarily, but was fleeing from the King's Justice. He told them how he had entered the service of Lord North, fleeing the life of a ministerial student at Cambridge to pursue fame and fortune with one of England's most powerful lords. He told of Lady Cecily North, the beautiful aristocrat he had fallen in love with, and Rachel longed to ask him more about her, but was afraid to interrupt.

“I joined Bradford and the Pilgrims in Holland with one idea in my mind,” Gilbert said with a sad look in his fine eyes. “I was to ferret out William Brewster, one of the founders of the congregation, so I became a spy.”

“A spy, sir? I can hardly believe it!” Alden exclaimed.