Timewatch (26 page)

At the same time under covering fire, nearly 400 of the men at the entrance finally broke into the fort. Dan noticed some Indian warriors slipping over the walls of the fort into the swamp.

Inside the fort, bodies littered the ground. A figure staggered out of one of the hundreds of wigwams inside the fort. It was Captain Gardner. He must have gone after an Indian who had tried to take refuge there after the main assault force of the English had broken into the fort.

“Captain Gardner. Are you hurt?” cried Church, who had just run up.

The captain slumped to the ground, looked at Church but couldn't speak. Church took off the man's cap. The captain had been shot in the head.

“See,” he muttered just loud enough for Dan to hear, “where the ball has entered his head from the direction of the upland where we entered the swamp.”

Dan nodded.

“Aye. This is something General Winslow should know,” said Church. Turning to a rangy-looking man with a handlebar mustache, he said, “You, Matthew, take this information to the general and have the good captain taken care of—God rest his soul. And now, Captain Prentice, we have more work to do.”

Church turned and sprinted out of the fort. Through the swamp ran a broad, bloody track where the Indians had escaped with their wounded. After firing his musket at one of the escapees, he saw the warrior throw up his hands and fall down.

Stopping to reload, he caught glimpses of Church's men running past him, firing. Then a sound behind him made him turn around.

Indians, between him and the fort!

Church had seen them, too, and was cautioning his men to hold their fire and creep up on the enemy.

“For heaven's sake, don't fire! Those are friendly Indians!” yelled a sergeant in the fort.

There was a pause, like a frame of a movie suddenly frozen, then pandemonium. The sergeant had made a mistake, his last one. His body jerked from the impact of at least a dozen shots from the Indians clustered now in front of the fort.

It was like stirring up an ant heap, thought Dan as he crouched down and finished tamping down his powder. Many of the Indians fell, while others were so startled by the unexpected volley coming from behind them that they ran off in all directions, some into the swamp and some back into the fort into a ramshackle hovel.

The way he charged right back into the fort, Church had to be crazy. This time his luck seemed to have run out. Three shots rang out. Church stumbled and fell.

“Run! You can take them now. Their powder is spent,” shouted Church clapping a hand to his thigh.

The men cheered and charged the hut, out of which flew a volley of arrows.

Dan put an arm around Church to support him. “We've got to get you to safety.”

Holding up a tattered wad of red yarn blackened with powder burns, Church said, “Providence has saved me again, Captain Prentice, this time in the guise of your mittens.”

Good thing those bullets didn't have the range or stopping power of 20th-century ones and that the yarn in those mittens had been so thick.

“If I had not stuffed them into my pocket, I should be grievously injured and unable to ride my horse,” continued Church. “Ah, well, God works in mysterious ways.”

“You have no idea how mysterious,” was Dan's last coherent thought before what felt like a bolt of lightning surged through him, plucking him out of his host body.

CHAPTER 29

Although the man couldn't be more than 50 years old, his posture was erect as that of a much younger man. That he was also Indian made no difference to Marjory.

His dark eyes, clouding over with what she recognized as the beginnings of cataracts, held a powerful force and vigor, and in them was a kind of knowing that sent a tremor of fear through her, although the information coming to Marjory from the mind of Priscilla Matthews was that the Indian was a shaman who had once given her some herbs that had cured her husband's bilious fever. “Englishwoman,” he said, “we must talk.”

“Come in and sit down.”

She waved him to a stool on which he seated himself gingerly like a man who wasn't used to such household furnishings.

Marjory watched as Nicholas came over and rested a hand on top of a chair to stand beside her. Nicholas Stevens had been sent to the same time and place as she, and was now living as Priscilla Matthews's husband, Josiah. After a week of living in this 17th-century New England town in a plain little house without even a bathroom, she still wasn't used to seeing him dressed in breeches and stockings and a short, close-fitting russet jacket. If ever, no
when
they left this appalling place and returned to their time period, she would never say a word about his bow ties.

Dressed in a long skirt billowing out from the several petticoats underneath it and a bodice to which was tied a pair of sleeves covered by shoulder pieces, Marjory supposed she must look just as odd to him.

Whatever they had to do here, she hoped they could get it over with soon, so they could return to the comforts of 20th-century civilization. Life here was very difficult. Simply making a meal was a time-consuming task when you had to raise or shoot your dinner. Knowledge gained from his host's memories had enabled Nicholas to use the flintlock he had found in the house. With quiet pride, he had brought her a wild turkey he had managed to shoot.

They were fortunate to have produce from the garden to eat, but the rest of the ripe peas, corn, cucumbers, beans, and other vegetables would have to be picked soon and preserved for the winter. They would need these crops to live on if they stayed much longer.

She would also have to pick and dry the herbs used to keep both Nicholas and her healthy. Beets, Priscilla's mind told her, were good for getting rid of lice and dandruff. Marjory shuddered. How had the early colonists ever survived? There was so much to learn here!

She had been disturbed to find that one of her front teeth and several molars were missing. Judging by the rotten state of some of the others, she wouldn't be surprised if more were on the way out. Part of the trouble had to be what the New Englanders ate. Even if they didn't have any processed junk food, they ate a lot of sugar, called a loaf here and shaped like a cone, which came from Brazil. She had discovered the sugar in what Nicholas had informed her was the keeping room where food supplies were stored.

Thinking of food reminded her that the Indian looked hungry. “I'll fix you something to eat,” she said. “Then we can talk.”

He looked at her with a wary expression and then slowly nodded.

Even though it was autumn, it was still warm. There was no way to keep things cold. When they'd first come a week ago, she had noticed a simmering pot of stew hanging from an iron hook over the small fire burning in the massive fireplace. Each day she threw in more vegetables. It might not be particularly nutritious to overcook food that way, but it did fill you up and saved a lot of time.

Ladling out a generous portion onto a pewter plate, Marjory carried it, together with a spoon and two biscuits, a little burned but then she was used to baking in her Aga, her reliable stove almost as elderly as herself, to the Indian. He took it with a grunt of thanks and ate the whole thing with dispatch.

“What is your name and where are you from?” asked Nicholas.

Wiping his lips on his sleeve, the Indian answered shortly, “Kiontawakon. I live one moon's walk from here.”

“You're far from home. Who are your people?”

“The Senecas. They have been overrun by the whites who are beginning to cover the land like a plague of grasshoppers and hunt my people like animals and force them to live … “

He began to cough, a hacking, dry sound that seemed to go on and on.

“My people cry out to me,” Kiontawakon finished in a hoarse whisper.

Nicholas cleared his throat and said, “I can appreciate your distress, but why do you tell us this?”

There was a short pregnant silence. Then Kiontawakon began to speak in a slow, deliberate fashion. “There was a boy whose spirit name was Jason.”

Through a roaring in her ears, Marjory heard Nicholas's quick intake of breath. Putting a hand on the table to steady herself, she sat down on a chair. Her distress had not gone unnoticed by the Indian. His gaze was fixed unwaveringly on her now.

“When did you see Jason?” she asked, her voice thin and high.

“Many, many seasons ago, before Metacom went to the spirit world and his squaw and son were sold into slavery.”

“What happened to Jason?”

Kiontawakon allowed a smile to touch the corners of his lips—not a friendly smile, noted Marjory—but rather that of a predator. Ignoring her question, he said, “The Stone Person has told me that you are spirits come from the future. You can help my people so they do not have to live in shame.”

“Even assuming we could do this, that's asking rather a lot.”

“The Stone Person says that you two have the power.”

Nicholas shook his head.

“The white woman, Susanna Morgan. Stay away from her.”

“The boy, what happened to him?” demanded Nicholas.

“Died in battle,” the Indian replied curtly. Then, getting up, he carefully adjusted his blanket around himself and walked out of the house.

CHAPTER 30

Late that night, a gibbous moon floating high above him and several miles from the nearest settlement, Kiontawakon sat by a small fire and began to meditate as he stared into the bowl of water. As the water began to swirl, the image of a sleeping white man emerged.

Kiontawakon felt his breathing and his heart rate slowing as his presence glided close to the man. Ever since the League's council had rejected his advice to help Metacom fight against the settlers, matters had gone badly for the Indians. He had seen with his own eyes the heads of Metacom and his brother-in-law, Tuspaquin, and other fierce warriors on the palisades of Fort Hill in Plymouth.

As the colonists had retaliated fiercely against the burning of their towns, the Indians had been driven farther back into the forests. Some whites, but many more of his people, had died, not only in battle but from a strange disease the whites called smallpox.

Kiontawakon's own tribe, the Senecas, had grumbled about the fact that none of his rituals had seemed to appease the spirits. Victory in warfare now belonged to the white man. It didn't matter that he had accurately foretold what would happen. Everything was his fault. He must be a witch. Even his guardian spirit had deserted him. And so, finally, in great anguish of spirit, one night he had left the dwellings of his people to roam by himself. His one burning aim was to rid the world of Morgans and end their lineage forever.

He had learned of this one, Peter, who would continue the Morgan line. If he could be stopped, then all might be well.

The white man was dreaming now, small drops of spittle collecting at the sides of his mouth and his eyelids jerking. Give him something to dream about, something that would ensure that Peter would bring a world of trouble down upon his mother and himself!

Kiontawakon threw the last of his sacred tobacco into the fire, brought out his drum, and settled back on his haunches, ready to begin his shamanic journey to the Lower World, where he would work his magic through the spirits that lived there.

CHAPTER 31

The next morning when Peter Morgan awoke, he had a violent headache. This was so unusual that he immediately attributed it to the dream he'd had that night, a dream that had been frighteningly real. He had watched his mother step up to a kind of altar where the Black Man waited. Leering, he handed her a pen, which she took and signed her name with a flourish in his book. Then, to Peter's absolute horror, she pulled the demon's head down to hers and kissed him.

His heart was pounding so violently that he feared for his life. Was his mother a witch? Surely he couldn't have just imagined it. His relations with his mother had been strained for some time. The old woman kept her money close, while he—her only heir—was forced to make shift on a scant pittance.

She was always railing at him, finding fault with the way he dealt with the merchants. Just last week he'd returned from Boston, his pockets filled with coin. He'd made a good profit on her timber and produce that he and Jack had taken into town. She'd ignored that and inquired with venom in her voice as to why he had paid so much for the household goods he had bought from Captain Hartaker, goods that she would sell for a pretty penny to the colonists.

Then she'd gone on to berate him for his incompetence and wound up with her usual whining complaint that if she weren't housebound by stiffened joints, she'd go by herself and deal with the merchants as she'd done before for years.

Racked by chills that were not alleviated by the warmth of the air around him, Peter wanted nothing better than to go to his minister and ask his advice. He knew, though, that until he made up his mind as to whether or not the dream was real, that this was a thing best left undone. Already in this year of our Lord 1692, in Salem, 13-year-old Ann Putnam had accused people of witchcraft, and he knew the fever would spread.

Another spasm seized him. The penalty for witchcraft was death. Much as he disliked and even hated his mother upon occasion, he had no wish to see her die—not unless she was truly a witch. In that case, perhaps, it was only proper that he should tell Judge Hathorne so that this evil could be rooted out.

An unaccustomed excitement beginning to warm him, Peter licked his dry lips. Often while his mother was ranting at him, she would threaten to disinherit him and give her money to the poor. If she carried out her threat, he would be left penniless and unable to marry and support a family. Already some 40 years of age, he longed for the comfort of a wife and children who would rise up, as the scriptures said, and call him blessed.