There were about the same number of Indians as there were of us, yet they were all men and we were more women and children than men, and they were the ones with hatchets and blades and arrows. I wondered that Reverend Johansen did not speak to them for he knew their tongue, but he was far from me and I could not ask.
The sun slid from its heights toward the treetops, and the Indian men, quick as any woman in a kitchen, started a fire and butchered three of the goats. Mistress Hasken flew at them, her fists raised, crying, “My goats. My goats! You heathen scourge!”
I saw an Indian raise his hatchet as she came for him and turned my head away. I heard the thud and I heard Master Hasken groan in anguish. Heard her fall to the ground. Others began shouting at the other captives. I knew without question that they meant for the people to be silent. I felt horror that Mistress Hasken was dead, yet it was because she had been stubborn and stupid that he had killed her. Why would anyone run against armed men who had already proved they had the will and more weapons than they needed to kill us all? Many began to wail and call out that we would all be killed.
One of the Indians stood before the lot of us and said, “Hello!” in a loud voice. “No more fight. No more die. Stay alive. No more fight. Understand?”
I nodded as if I had been instructed by a teacher. No lesson could have had more weight than Mistress Hasken’s corpse.
Jabbing parts of the goats onto sticks and stretching them across rocks placed before the fire, the Indian men roasted the meat in a way I had not seen done before. I dared to wonder whether they would give us something to eat. I knew enough of hunger aboard the ships that it had impressed me with the stern belief that to live or die was nothing compared to doing either with a full belly.
They boiled dried seed corn in a pot with the goats’ heads to make a porridge. When the sky began losing its last colors, two of the Indians took tin cups they’d stolen from the village and scooped them full of the porridge. One man chopped hunks of the open-fire-cooked meat into each cup. They lined up the littlest children first and fed them. I was one of the first.
Oh, what a glorious repast! Something in it was so filling and good with meat roasted instead of boiled, I could have eaten three cups of it. I handed my cup back to the bronze man who had given it, and smiled, saying, “Thank you, sir.”
When I sat down, Rachael said to me, “How could you eat from them heathen curs with Mother just murdered before our eyes? You must have no soul at all.”
I thought about turning away without answering her, or declaring I was glad Mistress was dead for she was an empty, clanging gong of a woman, but I said, “I was hungry and they fed me. It was a Christian thing to do and far better than I have been treated by some such as claim salvation.”
“It’s poisoned,” she said. “I hope you die screaming.” Then an Indian man came and said aught to her and she quieted, though she knew not what he spoke.
All the captives got the supper. Rachael put up her nose at it and would not eat. The man who offered her the cup passed it toward the next captive without even a raise of his brows, for he cared not whether she ate. The Indians did not eat of it but some of them prepared another dish, taking the goat liver, heart, and lungs to add to the corn porridge. They added some of the blood and cooked this a good while, and all of them ate it with such relish I wished I had a taste of it, too.
After all had been fed and there remained some of the stew in the pot, the Indians scooped up the last of it and held it forth, offering it with gestures to any who would have it. I gulped it with relish, even though the liver taste was strong. I had not felt so full and drowsy in as many weeks as I could remember.
The Indian who had spoken English before stood again. “No more fight. No run away. Warriors watch. Sleep now. Walk after sun come. No run away. Understand?” I settled in to sleep without much ado. Those among the group who felt terror at this captivity wept; some prayed aloud. As I closed my eyes my last thought was how I had exchanged places, indeed, with the women in the hold who knew how to be captive, who knew how to take anything offered without question. I felt grown-up. I even wondered if I looked as grown as I felt.
When the sun had barely greened the sky, they pushed us with their feet to awaken us, and distributed the cooking pots, sacks of corn, axe heads, and bolts of cloth among the captives. The men compelled everyone, even the smallest, to carry something. I was given a lidded iron kettle-oven with a handle, the kind Birgitta had called a spider, but then she called everything and everyone that when she was angry.