I got to where a great tree had fallen, its roots lifted from the bank, making a muddy slide. The goat’s hoofprints went there but it did not walk into the water; it kept going around the side. I heard the animal bleating softly. When I got behind the tree trunk, I could no longer hear the woodsmen chopping logs or the sounds of the community, people moving about, animals lowing and clucking. The water murmured at my feet; downstream, it rippled at a small waterfall. The tracks led on and I heard a goat bleat. On I went, listening and smelling the air for the bear. Still, I smelled nothing but the weedy smell that the bank of the stream always carried, and the whiff of a grown-up’s sweat. I wondered, since I had now been in love with a man, albeit a young man and a dead one at that, whether I had grown up enough to smell like Patience. “Nob?” I called. “Nob?”
I went down the stream until it turned again to the left. In parted grasses where the reeds had grown tall, Nob stood chewing, tied to a stick. “God’s balls!” I cursed. Why, who would play such a cruel trick? This could bring the bear just to eat the goat and, in turn, me! As if a cold blast of air took me, I wondered if Mistress were so cruel as to put the goat here and send me to it so I would be killed. I would show her a thing or two about bravery, I thought. With shaking hands I took his rope from the stick and turned to lead him home. I then let out a soft moan against the hand that wrapped around my mouth. The hands held me so tight I could barely breathe or move but I got the quick image of a dark man, wearing paint upon his arms and some strange pants, no shirting at all, with lines drawn across his face and chest. Beads rattled against his body as he held me tight to him. I smelled his skin as he nearly crushed the life out of me, and knew it was the grown-up sweating that I had smelled. I tried with all my might to scream and to fight away, but his strength was as two men and my voice stopped in my teeth.
My eyes searched the woods and stream and brushy green. From it, like plants thrusting up quick and brown, a hoard of dark brown men in feathers and paints and the strange pants arose. They made signals to each other with their hands, and began to move in the direction I had come, while my captor held me tight, my fingers snarled in the rope around Nob’s neck. The goat had not been tied by Mistress but by them.
The hand that gripped my face loosened enough to let me breathe. The man shook me and said a word, squeezed my face and said it again as he turned to look me in the eye. Quiet was what he wanted. I nodded. He lessened his hold and I remained mute. He took his hand from my mouth and said the word again. I nodded again. He held my arms with both hands then, and I dropped the rope. Nob nestled in the grass to chew cud.
I smelled smoke. It rose in billows across the tops of the trees, bringing with it the smell of fresh green wood and old dry planks and the reek of scorched flesh. Oh, la, Patience! Oh my soul, my sister! I stayed still as stone. A bird called and another. Birds do not sing when there is danger about; even a child knows that. I realized I had not heard a bird in all the time since I left the garrison for the woods.
As the sun began to lower, the noise of many people tramping through the grass frightened away the birds again. Here they came, Indians. Behind them in a line walked people from our village, finally more Indians. They came leading cows and one of the oxen. They came with Mistress’s goats. They carried two blunderbusses and bags of powder, bags of flour, salt, and dried corn. They laid them all in a circle and went over the stock of booty just as the pirates had on the ships. The settlement people who came to the green brush had blood and smoke and dirt smeared from head to toe. My heart pained me, wanting to cry out, Patey, Patey! My eyes searched each face, discarding each image until at last I saw her following Rachael, followed by another girl. An Indian man with a pole in his hand prodded her as they moved along. Mistress and Master, along with the Newhams, Reverend Johansen, and others I recognized, men and women and boys, were part of the second group. Birgitta was not there. I looked for her again, sadness and anger mingling in my heart. I grieved for a moment, but then I thought that the old wretch should have come with me to find the blasted goat. At least she would have been taken alive. Cursed be the merciless, I thought, changing the words from the Bible, for they shall receive no mercy.
The Indians bade us all sit by shouting orders and pushing people to the ground. Most of the people wept, even the men. Once all had sat upon the ground, the man who kept me led me to them and pushed me down amidst the younger girls. Other Indians arrived, carrying away all that they could from the houses. Iron kettles and bales of cloth, hats and coats and lengths of woven wool plaid I saw with surprise, for I had not seen such a cloth since leaving home. Ma had kept her lengths of plaid hidden between layers of linens. Just like my petticoat, Ma had always hidden things under other things, always kept those secrets that were dangerous, or precious, close at hand and yet hidden a breath away. I squeezed my legs together, taking pleasure as the hard corners of Ma’s casket bruised my thighs.