The Ransom of Mercy Carter Read Free

slow.
    Their stepmother tottered in, moaning deep in herchest. She was holding the baby, but just barely. Marah, pulling her comfort blanket along the floor, clung to Stepmama’s nightdress. Stepmama’s eyes were open so wide they seemed ready to come loose and fall out. “Sam! Mercy! We have to barricade ourselves up here.”
    There was no way to do that. The only furniture upstairs was her parents’ bed. The children slept on rough wool bags stuffed with pine needles. They had neither chairs nor chests. There were no bedroom doors, only thick hanging curtains. Mercy slid past her brothers to take the baby before Stepmama dropped it headfirst onto the floor.
    The shooting downstairs stopped.
    It was not silent, because the fighting went on outside, but there was a pause within.
    The children were gasping for breath from the smoky air. Mercy assumed the house was on fire. Which would be worse? To go downstairs and be tomahawked or stay up here and be burned?
    Stepmama’s face turned inside out with terror, and she backed up, screaming and sobbing and tripping on Marah.
    Standing on the stairs was an Indian.
    M ERCY HAD ALWAYS wanted to see war paint. Now she had her wish.
    Black zigzags crossed his bare chest. Black stripes encircledhis eyes and snaked over his shaved head to the single lock of hair braided in back. The braid had been tossed over his shoulder to hang in front, and the braid itself was hung with scalps. They were quite lovely, as if he collected horses’ tails in many colors.
    In his hand was a tomahawk, which turned out to be a smooth rock on a wooden handle. The stone was speckled with blood.
    Mercy stood between her brothers and death. She had no idea what to do. Beg? Pray? Kick?
    Stepmama backed into her own bedroom, pulling the curtain shut, as if cloth might save her and the baby from the Indians. Marah, abandoned, began crying in her most annoying whine.
    The Indian’s eyes traveled slowly, examining each of the four boys before he focused on the sobbing three-year-old. Mercy had time to walk between the tomahawk and her little sister. Kneeling beside Marah, she said, “Hush now. It’s all right.”
    Marah didn’t hush.
    The Indian’s hand, large and dark and covered with drawings, landed on Mercy’s shoulder. His fingers closed tightly, and she obeyed the pressure and returned to her brothers. Tucking Marah under his arm like a sack of grain, the Indian pointed a finger at each child. “Go,” he said in English, nodding at the stairs. “Go down.”
    Albany Indians who came from New York to trade inDeerfield spoke a little English, and Andrew, the new husband of Eliza, spoke the same English as the rest of them, but English from a Canada Indian in war paint?
    Mercy swept the boys ahead of her. John and Benny and Tommy were too little to wake up fast and so they were too confused and sleepy to cry or fight. Sam was organized and calm, checking stockings and shoes. The boys stumbled down the narrow steps while the Indian entered the bedroom. He wore heavy leggings, but the rest of his body, split in half by white and black paint, was bare. In this terrible cold, he had come without even a shirt?
    It was true then, what Mr. Williams said. Indians were not human. No real person could endure such a thing.
    Onto the bed quilt, he tossed their nighttime drinking cups, Benny’s fishhooks and Mercy’s sewing needles. He found Sam’s knives and John’s book of ABCs.
    Mercy could not collect herself. She could not even form a prayer.
    “Go,” said the Indian. “Leave house.” Eyes that did not seem like eyes stared at her from a face that did not look like a face. Mercy backed away from him and tried to go down the stairs, but the boys had come to a halt at the bottom.
    Mercy looked over their heads. Hanging from the ceiling were hats, bullet pouches, strings of dried red peppers and apples, yarn in skeins and powder horns. Indian hands were plucking them down.
    Mercy forced herself between