THE FROCK
TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1779
I swallow a mouthful of corn mush and look up at Mary. She’s looking back at me. We both smell it.
Fire.
Before I can even drop my spoon, my mother is rushing back into the house with her arms full of bed linen. We know what to do. We’ve been fearing this day. We make for the door, bumping into one another.
Mary and my mother shoot out of the cabin. But I stop short, clutching at the door frame to keep myself from falling over … the frock.
Turning and flopping onto the planked floor, I drag my father’s hunting frock out from under my mother’s bed and stumble back to my feet. In one leap, I’m out the door and loping after my mother and Mary.
We make for the woods to the east of the cabin. The three of us, white-faced and winded, meet at the laurels. After the Indian raid on our neighbors up in Peenpack last October, I dug a wide, shallow ditch in the center of where the laurels are thickest. At the bottom of the ditch, I placed a knife in a leather sack and covered it with dirt.
My mother jumps into the ditch and pulls Mary in with her. I tumble after them, and toss the frock to my mother.
“Why did you bring this?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I just start digging for the sack. Pulling it from the dirt, I yank at the drawstring with stiff fingers. Mary grabs it from me and unties the laces and hands it back. Then she drops onto her knees at the top of the ditch and begins searching the woods with her eyes. “I can’t tell which direction the smoke is coming from,” she whispers. “Can you, Noah?”
I slice through some of the larger branches near us with the knife, too busy to think about the smoke. My mother is gathering the branches piled on the side of the ditch that I’d already cut as part of my weekly chores.
“Maybe it’s just a fire, maybe there aren’t any Indians coming,” Mary says.
I wish it were true, but I can feel them. Or at least I can feel my skin prickling. My mother knows they’re coming, too. She lays my father’s frock on the ground and pushes Mary down onto it and begins covering her with laurel.
“Mother,” I say, turning to hand her branches, “should I make for the fort?”
She doesn’t stop burying Mary to answer.
“Mother,” I repeat, but I’m interrupted by the shouts of men.
Mary whimpers.
“Don’t worry, Mary, they won’t find us. Close up your ears with your fingers and talk to Father,” I tell her.
There was a time when we didn’t fear Indians. But since four of the six nations of the Iroquois joined the British, they’ve become a vicious enemy. Last October’s raid taught us this. On a beautiful fall day, with the sky the color of blue iris and the leaves of the beeches a brighter orange than the tip of a well-tended fire, they whipped through our neighboring settlement, burning everything in sight and murdering anyone who got in the way.
Their cries grow louder. My mother grabs my arm, and the two of us huddle down with Mary in between, covering ourselves with the remaining branches. Just before I bury myself in laurel, I see them come out of the woods north of the cabin. At first my eyes just catch movement through the trees. But then I see the red of war paint.
The whooping and hollering flattens my body against the earth. I can feel Mary shaking. I move closer to her. The smell of burning wood settles into the ditch with us. I know that it’s my home that’s burning. One Indian in particular shrieks above the rest. It sounds as if he’s standing ten yards from us. Mary’s body shakes even harder and I’m afraid it will rustle the branches. I move my hand over the dirt slowly to find hers. She grabs my hand. Her nails dig into my skin. I can feel her fear. I can smell it.
“Mary.” I say it so softly it comes out like a puff of air. “Mary, put your nose down to Father’s frock. Can you smell him? He’s here with us. They’ll leave soon. It won’t be long.”
Mary begins to sob. I can’t actually hear her crying, but can feel it. I know that movement well. For weeks after Father died, she would come to my bed at night, like when we were small, and slide in next to me. Clutching at my nightclothes, she’d cry silently so that my mother wouldn’t wake. Her body rocking back and forth without making a single sound.
There is a loud clap and the three of us jump in unison under our branches. The Indians roar with glee. The roof of our cabin has collapsed. I hear a single voice. He barks out orders in English to search for our animals. I’d released the cows and pigs this morning to forage.
“Mother, I must run to alert others,” I whisper. She doesn’t say a word, even though I know she heard me. “Mother,” I repeat, “they’re busy gathering the animals. At least allow me to warn the Van Ettens.” The Van Ettens are our closest neighbors, living just northwest of us. South of the Van Ettens, and directly west of our farm, are the Van Fleets, who live halfway between us and Van Auken’s Fort.
“You know I can make it in less time than it will take them to find the pigs.”
She says nothing, although she has spoken … silently.
I can hear the cows bellowing, complaining loudly about having to move in the midday heat. It sounds like many of the men have gone on ahead, leaving a few behind to drive the beasts. Mary’s breathing slows. She thinks we’re out of danger; they’re leaving. But I want to be sure. We’re safe here, and I feel we should not come out of our hole for quite a long time. Maybe even wait for early evening.
Mary interrupts my thoughts. “They’re leaving, Noah,” she whispers.
“Be still, Mary,” I squeeze her hand and she relaxes a little.
I settle more comfortably onto the dirt and stare off through the branches at the treetops and the small amount of sky that I can see. What a strange view of the world this is, lying in a ditch covered with brush.
I can smell our house still burning. Will anything be left? All our clothes and bedding will be gone, along with my father’s small library of hymnals. My mother’s Bible, too.
My mother reads her Bible as often as she can. She started after Father died. The night he passed, she picked up that book and started to read. I figured she was looking for answers. How could a strong man catch a cold, and a week later, be dead? And how were we supposed to live without him? She must not have found the answers right away, because she kept reading. I didn’t like it. My mother never needed help with anything.
I can feel Mary’s body moving evenly. I turn my head to look at her. Her eyes are closed, and whatever thoughts are in her mind seem far away from here. She looks sweet. I watch her for a few minutes, and then I think of someone else … Eliza Little.
I start to sweat. Is the Littles’ farm close enough for them to have heard the Indians’ yelling? How could they not have heard? And, just like us, they must have smelled the fire.
There is a light snap. My body goes rigid. Someone is still out there.
My eyes scour the small amount of the world available to me. My ears work so hard that they ache from the lack of sound.
I see his feet.
My mother sucks in a small breath—she sees them, too.
Oh, Father, please help us, I chant in my head. But I worry that whoever is out there might be able to hear my thoughts. I stop.
I can see his moccasins clearly now. They’re highly decorated, with white glass beads sewn to the ankles and each lace ending in a red tassel. He can’t be more than five feet from us. Is he looking for us? Maybe he’s looking for one of the pigs, or maybe he was lagging behind and got lost. Perhaps he’s trying to decide the right way to go. Mary rests peacefully, while the sweat pours out of me like a river in springtime.
The knife. I feel it next to my thigh. I don’t want to move in case the branches make any rustling noises. I want that knife. I can’t reach down now, but if he begins to check our laurel branches, I’ll grab it, dive out, and stab him. Maybe I can kill him before he kills me. I just hope that I can move fast enough after having lain so long in this ditch.
I’ve never killed anyone, although I’ve slaughtered many a pig. My father was an expert hunter and trapper, but he hated the slaughtering. Somehow he felt that hunting and trapping was different, more of an even game than walking over to the sow pen with an ax. My mother was actually the expert when it came to sticking the pig. I should hand my mother the knife. I know she wouldn’t even hesitate if it meant keeping Mary and me safe. I can kill him, I tell myself. I can do it.
If I don’t kill him, he’ll surely scalp me, just as the Tories and Indians did to old Philip Swartwout and his two sons that day last October. The thought of Mary at the mercy of the owner of these moccasins heats my blood, and my muscles strain to break free of the ditch … to use the knife.
It’s as if the moccasins feel my readiness, because they begin to move away. I keep watching the spot where I last saw them until my sight darkens from the effort.
I drop my head to Father’s frock and breathe deeply. I can smell him perfectly. “Thank you, Father,” I whisper.