The Ransom of Mercy Carter (16 page)

Joseph gasped. “Mercy!” he whispered. “It’s Mr. Williams!”

The minister wore French clothing, of course; his real clothing hadn’t lasted so many months. But how familiar he looked! How right. How English. In a moment Mercy would hear his voice—listen to his blessing. All her questions would be answered. Mr. Williams knew everything.

Shouting and laughing, Mercy and Joseph raced along the river, across the stones and onto the jetty.

“It’s me! Mercy Carter! Oh, Mr. Williams! Do you have news?” She flung herself on top of him. Oh, his beautiful beard! The beard of a real father, not a pretend Indian father or a French church father. “My brothers,” she begged. “John and Sam and Benny. Have you seen
them? Have you heard anything about them? Do you know what happened to the little ones? Daniel? Have you found Daniel?”

Mercy had forgotten that she had taken off her tunic to go swimming. That Joseph did not even have on his breechclout. That Mercy wore earrings and Joseph had been tattooed on his upper arms. That they stank of bear.

Mr. Williams did not recognize Joseph, and Mercy he knew only by the color of her hair. He was stupefied by the two naked slimy children trying to hug him. In more horror than even Ruth would have mustered, he whispered, “Your parents would be weeping. What have the savages done to you? You are animals.” Despair and shock mottled Mr. Williams’s face.

Mercy stumbled back from him. Her bear grease stained his clothing.

“Mercy,” he said, turning away from her, “go cover yourself.”

Shame covered her first. Red patches flamed on her cheeks. She ran back to the swimmers, fighting sobs. She was aware of her bare feet, hard as leather from no shoes. Savage feet.

Dear Lord in Heaven, thought Mercy, Ruth is right. I have committed terrible sins.
My parents would be weeping
.

She did not look at Snow Walker but yanked on the deerskin tunic. She had tanned the hide herself, and she and Nistenha had painted the rows of turtles around
the neckline and Nistenha had tied tiny tinkling French bells into the fringe. But it was still just animal skin. To be wearing hides in front of Mr. Williams was not much better than being naked.

Snow Walker burst out of the water. “The white man? Was he cruel? I will call Tannhahorens.”

No! Tannhahorens would not let her speak to Mr. Williams. She would never find out about her brothers; never redeem herself in the minister’s eyes. Mercy calmed down with the discipline of living among Indians. Running had shown weakness. “Thank you, Snow Walker,” she said, striving to be gracious, “but he merely wanted me to be clothed like an English girl. There is no need to call Tannhahorens.” She walked back.

On the jetty, Joseph stood with his eyes fixed on the river instead of on his minister. He had not fled like Mercy to cover himself. He was standing his ground. “They aren’t savages, Mr. Williams. And they aren’t just Indians. Those children over there are Abenaki, the boy fishing by the rocks is Pennacook, and my own family is Kahnawake Mohawk.”

Tears sprang into Mr. Williams’s eyes. “What do you mean—your family?” he said. “Joseph, you do not have a
family
in this terrible place. You have a master. Do not confuse savages who happen to give you food with
family.
”

Joseph’s face hardened. “They are my family. My father is Great Sky. My mother—”

The minister lost his temper. “Your father is Martin Kellogg,” he shouted, “with whom I just dined in Montréal. You refer to some savage as your father? I am ashamed of you.”

Under his tan, Joseph paled and his Indian calm left him. He was trembling. “My—my father? Alive? You saw him?”

“Your father is a field hand for a French family in Montréal. He works hard, Joseph. He has no choice. But you have choices. Have you chosen to abandon your father?”

Joseph swallowed and wet his lips. “No.” He could barely get the syllable out.

Don’t cry, prayed Mercy. Be an eagle. She fixed her eyes upon him, giving him all her strength, but Mr. Williams continued to destroy whatever strength the thirteen-year-old possessed.

“Your father prays for the day you and he will be ransomed, Joseph. All he thinks of is the moment he can gather his beloved family back under his own roof. Is that not also your prayer, Joseph?”

Joseph stared down the wide St. Lawrence in the direction of Montréal. He was fighting for composure and losing. Each breath shuddered visibly through his ribs.

The Indian men who never seemed to do anything but smoke and lounge around joined them silently. How runty the French looked next to the six-foot Indians;
how gaudy and ridiculous their ruffled and buckled clothing.

The Indians were not painted and they wore almost nothing. Neither were they armed. And yet they came as warriors. Two of their children were threatened. It could not be tolerated.

Tannhahorens put one hand on Joseph’s shoulder and the other on Mercy’s. He was not ordering them around, and yet he did not seem to be protecting them.

He was, it dawned on Mercy, comforting them.

In Tannhahorens’s eyes, we are Indian children, thought Mercy. Her hair prickled and her skin turned to gooseflesh. She had spent the summer forgetting to be English—and Tannhahorens had spent the summer forgetting the same thing.

Snow Walker joined the group, now wearing a skirt. In Mr. Williams’s eyes, of course, she was still naked.

But Mr. Williams saw only the gathering men. He forgot Mercy and Joseph. “My daughter,” he said eagerly. “My little girl. Eunice Williams. I know you have her here. I must see her. Bring her to me.”

He wants news of Eunice as intensely as I crave news of my brothers, thought Mercy. He wants to hold Eunice and talk to her and know that she is well.

She thought of her real father, whom she could forget for days at a time. Somewhere on this earth he too was desperate for news about his children.

The French officers interpreted Mr. Williams’s request to the Kahnawake.

“Aongote is with her mother,” said Cold Sun.

“No, no.
Eunice
,” said Mr. Williams loudly. “My daughter. My little girl.”

“Aongote is with her mother.”

“Her name is Eunice.” His voice was strained and high-pitched. He sounded like Ruth. And like Ruth, he would not ask for a translation of
Aongote
. He would not believe an Indian name could have meaning. If he did know, his pain would only increase. For Aongote meant “planted.” The black-haired red-cheeked English girl would grow where she was planted.

Here. In Kahnawake.

“I demand to see her!” said Mr. Williams in his pulpit voice, the syllables ringing out over the jetty and the river. “I am her father!”

Cold Sun had refused. He could not understand why Mr. Williams continued to ask. Nevertheless, he said once more, “Aongote is with her mother.”

“Her mother,”
said Mr. Williams, “was murdered by
you
!”

Wisely, the French did not interpret this.

There was a pause. The warriors were motionless. The French were fidgety. The children were afraid and the minister lost heart.

“I am her father,” pleaded Mr. Williams. “Let me see my little girl.” He held out his hands to the warriors as a kneeler in Mass begs for a blessing.

Mercy’s heart broke for Mr. Williams. If she could rest her eyes upon her brothers and know that they could smile and were among friends, she too could rest her heart. So Mercy said to the minister, “Eunice is fine. They treat her well. She has Joanna Kellogg to play with and two best Indian friends already. I haven’t really made any Indian friends, but people are nice to me.”

He stared at her as if she had been speaking Mohawk.

“My brothers,” she reminded him. “Sam and John and Benny. Have you any news?”

He stared longingly into Kahnawake. No laughing red-cheeked little daughter ran toward him. He said wearily, “Your brother Sam is with the Indians in Lorette. He lives near Eben Nims. I have indeed spoken to him. I sorrow at how he falls into Indian ways. Your brother John has been taken by a French family. He becomes more French and more Catholic every day. Already he answers to the name Jean.”

Mercy yearned to confide in him and tell him how hard they were all trying, how blurry the situation was. If only she could be alone with him and pour out her heart. She struggled, wondering how to explain their lives, but he burst out, “A new name is their first step in seizing your soul. Do not let them give you a name, Mercy! When the French can think of no other name for a girl, they use
Marie
. Do not yield. You are English, you are white, you are Puritan, you will be ransomed. We will go home. I am confident that the Lord is with us still.”

Marie. Munnonock. Sister. Daughter. Mercy answered to all these names. But she did not answer Mr. Williams.

Finally she said, “And my brother Benny?”

The French soldiers were withdrawing. Mr. Williams had not noticed. “Benny is supposed to be with an Indian family near Fort Chambly. I have not been there nor seen him.” He looked over Mercy’s head, searching once more for Eunice.

“And little Daniel?” asked Mercy.

“Nobody knows.”

Nobody knows
. Oh, the horror of it: to be three years old and have nobody know where you are.

And then she thought: But somebody does know where Daniel is. Nine warriors took Daniel. One of them surely gave him an Indian mother. Somebody somewhere is caring for Daniel. And Mr. Williams hates it, but many here are caring for his daughter, too. “You’ve seen Sarah Hoyt, then,” she said. “And Eben.”

“Sarah was in Lorette briefly, but she’s been purchased by a French family. She too is in Montréal. Thankfully she is not yielding to the Catholic pressure.”

How scary for Sarah. A new world and a new language for the third time in half a year. Mercy was grateful that Tannhahorens and Nistenha had kept her.

The French officer punched Mr. Williams lightly on the arm and said cheerfully, “
Monsieur
, we return another day, eh?” He bowed slightly to the assembled warriors.

How careful the French were, so outnumbered.

Perhaps, thought Mercy, they wonder if they were wise to sell guns to Indians who were
their
enemies not so many years ago but who now live beside the French, enter the French church and speak the French language. No wonder the French stay in Montréal and have made it a fortress. With any misstep, Indian allies could revert to being the enemy.

Mr. Williams embraced the two children. Mercy savored the touch of his hands. Joseph remained as rigid as the wood of a dugout.

“The Lord is with you,” said Mr. Williams. And then, roughly, as though he would shake them like puppies if the warriors were not so close, “But when they force you to go to Mass, do not repeat their prayers! Never touch a cross!”

“They don’t force,” said Joseph. “And we do repeat the prayers.”

“We go every day,” said Mercy anxiously. “We say the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. Father Meriel says it’s the same prayer.”

“He lies! A Catholic priest skulks behind his religion as Indians skulk behind trees.”

Mercy bent her head for Mr. Williams’s blessing, having forgotten that only Father Meriel painted the cross in the air. Sometimes when Mercy left Mass she could feel the cross hovering over her.

But Mr. Williams did not bless her. He pushed Mercy
away for the second time and said harshly to Joseph, “I expect weakness in girls, but if
you
enter a Catholic church, your weakness shames us all.”

Again the interpreter knew better than to interpret. Instead, he guided Mr. Williams toward the canoe. The Englishman climbed in awkwardly, supported on both sides by French officers, and then Mr. Williams, Harvard graduate and minister, put his head in his hands and wept for the daughter he had not been allowed to see. He did not look back at Mercy and Joseph. He had never asked if they were all right.

She felt gray and hopeless. “The Lord bless you and keep you, Mr. Williams,” she called, but he did not hear her over the splashing of paddles, and it was Joseph who smiled gently, and suddenly Mercy knew the Lord to be all things and all languages: Mohawk. French. English. Latin. The Lord did not mind what name Mercy used, as long as she used it well. She did not think He cared whether she answered to Marie, or to Munnonock, or to Daughter. He cared if she kept the commandments.

Honor thy mother and father, thought Mercy. Have I broken that commandment? She clung tightly to Tannhahorens’s hand, trying to discern the truth.

Snow Walker spit where Mr. Williams had stood.

T
oday, Munnonock,” said her mother, “we take you into Montréal.”

Mercy danced with delight. She would be the last English child to find out what a city was.

The family was shopping for a celebration. Snow Walker’s baby sister had reached three years of age. It was time to set aside her French name, Marguérite, and give her a real name: Gassinontie, which meant “Flying Legs,” because from the moment the little girl had been able to walk, she ran instead.

To go into the city, Mercy wore her best deerskin leggings and a tunic heavily embroidered by Nistenha’s mother. Six bracelets that belonged to Snow Walker decorated her arms. Nistenha had spent an hour braiding and greasing Mercy’s hair, working beads into it. Her earrings were borrowed. Nistenha said they would look
for earrings that Mercy could wear at the feast for Flying Legs.

Nistenha and Tannhahorens and all Nistenha’s relations went in two canoes, and Ruth’s family in another, and two more Kahnawake canoes also crossed the river to Montréal.

Instead of one small jetty, below the stone ramparts of Montréal were a dozen piers and wharves. Pirogues and flat-bottomed bateaux had tied up, and no fewer than three oceangoing vessels were there. Huge barrels and caskets were being offloaded. On the shore, safely guarded, hundreds of bales of fur were waiting to be shipped to Europe. Above this towered the immense stone convent of the nuns and the spire of the church of Notre-Dame.