Read Online The Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline B. Cooney - Free Book Online Page A

at the Indian, grabbing his knife from his belt.
    Eben ran forward, crying, “No! Ruth! No, she doesn’t mean it!” he shouted to the Indians. “Don’t—”
    But her Indian simply caught Ruth’s wrist in what must have been a painful grip and retrieved his knife.
    Ruth was willing to hate her own as much as she hated the Indians. But the Indians did not accept her hate. They respected her. No matter what Ruth did, they thought more of her. They had even named Ruth, using a special word to call her. (She didn’t come.) “Mahakemo,” they called her, and they enjoyed saying the word. It just made Ruth madder.
    It was amazing that Ruth would survive to kick and scream, she whose lungs had seemingly destined her for an early grave, while many who would be useful to the Indians, who would lift and carry and obey, were killed.
    It came to Eben that the Indians were not deciding who deserved life. They were deciding who deserved captivity. Being the property of an Indian was an honor.
    He just wished they were worthy of being fed.
    T HEY MARCHED .
    “Ask your Indian his name,” Mercy said softly to Eben. “They like that.”
    So Eben patted his chest and said, “Eben.” Then he touched his Indian’s arm and said, “Who are you?”
    “Thorakwaneken.”
    Eben said it over and over until Thorakwaneken nodded and Eben supposed he had the pronunciation right.
    Mercy pointed to a squirrel sitting on a branch. “Thorakwaneken,” she said, “what is that?”
    “Arosen.”
    “Arosen,”
repeated Mercy, and Eben echoed her.
Arosen
. Squirrel.
    Eben would rather have had that knife pierce his chest and kill him than live to acquire an Indian vocabulary, but it was something to do and it kept Mercy cheerful. Eben did not much care if he lived, but he could not bear the thought of one more girl dying.
    By nightfall, Eben and Mercy possessed a vocabulary of twenty-one words. They knew
redbird, sky, rock, spruce, knife
and the difference between
wood
and
woods
. They knew
fire
and
foot
and
hand
. So when Thorakwaneken took Eben’s pack, gave him a light shove toward the forest and said in Mohawk, “Firewood,” Eben realized he was being sent to gather kindling.
    For the first time on the march, the Indians were going to permit a fire. The prisoners would be warm and have hot food.
    “Go,” said Thorakwaneken in English, and then in his own tongue.
    Never had Eben been given an order he was so glad to obey. Moments later Joseph Kellogg was thrashing through the snow after him, breaking up fallen limbs and snapping off dead branches.
    Eben envied Joseph, whose older brother, father and two sisters were on this march. How lucky Joseph was that his family had been largely spared. Of course, Joseph had not been allowed near his father or brother, his sister Rebecca was kept entirely separate by her Indian, and Joanna, whose eyesight was so bad, he was not allowed to help either. Still. Joseph did not have to imagine their final hour.
    “Fire!” sang Joseph. “We’re going to get warm!”
    “We’ll dry out our moccasins,” agreed Eben, “and our pants and our blankets. We can warm our feet by the fire all night long.”
    “Do you think there will be food?” asked Joseph.
    “No,” said Eben. The French soldiers were gone, having moved ahead, fallen behind or taken another route. That still left three hundred to feed, and no Indian had gone hunting; they were too busy pushing their captives and carrying their wounded.
    Eben chose a long heavy forked branch on which to stack his firewood and dragged the burden back to the camp, where he found much rejoicing. The Indians, it seemed, had paused here on their journey south from Canada to go hunting before the battle. Under the snow were stored the carcasses of twenty moose.
    Twenty!
Eben had to count them himself before he could believe it, and even then, he could not believe it.
    Eben was no hunter. If he’d gotten one moose, it would have been pure luck. But for this