Read Online Flight of the Sparrow by Amy Belding Brown - Free Book Online Page B

He has stopped to talk to a warrior wrapped in a red blanket. She wishes she knew their language. She thinks of Timothy, the young Nashaway servant who ran away. She regrets reprimanding him for using Indian speech. If she had learned those words, they might prove useful now.
    She looks around for Joss and Marie, but cannot find them in the semi-gloom. She gently lowers Sarah to the ground and cups some snow into her palm. She holds it until it melts, then dribbles the few drops of water into her daughter’s mouth. Sarah moans constantly and seems half asleep, though from time to time she rouses to ask where she is. Blood still oozes from the wound in her stomach; the stain now covers not only her waist but her bodice and skirt front. And it’s smeared all over Mary’s apron.
    Mary lifts Sarah again and shifts her higher in a vain attempt to relieve the ache in her shoulders. Her own wound pulses and burns as she steps toward her captor. “Please,” she says. “Let us use the house.” She points to the sagging roof, hoping that he understands some English. “To sleep. For the women and children.”
    He frowns, spits on the ground, and then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “What, you love English still?” He forms the words slowly behind his teeth. They come out as throaty sounds that remind Mary of a dog’s bark. But the meaning is clear enough.
    “Aye, I love them,” Mary says. “Am I not English? What has that to do with taking shelter?”
    His eyebrows rise and he erupts in a burst of grunts that she slowly perceives is his peculiar mode of laughter. The man he has been talking with joins in. Her captor says something in his own tongue and laughs again. The other Indian begins hopping around, clucking and screeching like a crazed hen.
    A third Indian approaches. He is tall, with even features and a steady gaze. He wears leggings of deer hide and a dark blue blanket over his right shoulder. But his face has not been painted, and when he gestures, Mary glimpses an English waistcoat beneath the blanket. He speaks to the warriors in their tongue and then looks at her.
    “Do you understand your situation?” He speaks English clearly, without a strong accent.
    “My situation?” The pain in her side is coming in sharp waves, wringing sweat from her despite the cold. “Tell them that I am the wife of Lancaster’s minister. My daughter is sorely wounded.”
    “They know who you are,” he says. “It was ordered that you be taken.”
    She frowns. “Someone planned my capture? How would they know me?”
    He looks at her hair. “You are easily marked. They looked for a woman whose hair is the color of the fox.” He smiles.
    Her captor looks at her and speaks, a torrent of incomprehensible words. She looks questioningly at the tall Indian. “Kehteiyomp says you are of no importance now,” he tells her. “You must remember that you are a slave.”
    Slave. The word lashes her. She thinks at once of Bess and her lover, who is a slave, of the child who was torn from her. She recalls Bess saying that slavery was a great evil in God’s eyes. She recalls her own assumption that it is God’s will. Now the Lord’s judgment has come upon her with an exquisitely crafted punishment. She herself is enslaved and will soon become intimate with its rigors.
    “He wants to know where your husband is,” the tall man says. “He wants to know why he did not defend you.”
    Mary studies her captor’s face, wondering if she should tell the truth. “He has gone to Boston,” she says. “He will rescue me when he returns.”
    Her captor laughs and makes a cutting motion across his neck. “He not save you,” he says. “Men slay him when he come.” He gives the rope a sudden, sharp tug, and Mary lurches forward. Sarah cries out. Her captor turns and moves quickly along the ridge, forcing Mary to clutch Sarah more tightly and hurry after him.
    In front of the empty house, several men have dug a pit and are