Page 118 of Dark Tides
“Ned!” William said warmly. “Good man!”
“Good to see you, Ned Ferryman,” said Edward.
Ned smiled at them. “I’m sure you need no guarding,” he said.“The weather will keep everyone indoors. But I thought I would visit, and I brought you some fresh meat for your dinner, venison from my neighbors over the river.”
“You’ve never crossed the river?”
“John Sassamon led me across. I don’t mind admitting I was fearful.”
“Is he this far north again?” John Russell asked.
“Yes,” Ned said. “Again. I’ve come to speak with you about him, and the Pokanoket. Indeed, he asked me to speak with you, and with these gentlemen.”
“What’s the matter?” The minister took his seat, and waved Ned into a stool by the fire. “What does he want?”
Ned squatted on the stool. “Thing is,” he started. “He trusts you, sir, as a man of God, a minister far superior to him, and a man who has risked his own safety for his friends.”
“Rightly,” William said.
“And he trusts you two,” Ned said, turning to his former commanders, “after taking you out and bringing you back to Hadley last summer. He knows you have the ear of some of the great men of the Council, he knows that you know the governor, and the great men: Josiah Winslow and that Mr. Daniel Gookin keeps your cattle, and that you have friends throughout the land.”
“How does he know all this?” Mr. Russell asked, surprised.
William nodded, not taking his level gaze from Ned’s face. “We are blessed with good friends,” he said. “What of it?”
“John Sassamon says that the settlers aren’t staying within their agreed bounds,” Ned said earnestly. “They’re buying land, though the Council forbade them to buy. The Indians are selling to them, though the Sachems forbade them to sell. The country is driven by buying land and no law seems to be able to stop it.”
“Amen. It’s true,” William said seriously.
“Amen,” Edward said. “The Indians are right to complain if we bring them not to God but to Mammon.”
“The Massasoit has all but lost his kingdom,” Ned said. “They say he can see a roof and a chimney from every side of Mount Hope where once there was nothing but forest. He can’t even get to the sea withoutcrossing settler farms. That’s very bitter for them—his prayers in the morning are to be said facing the rising sun over the sea.”
“He’ll have sold it himself,” Mr. Russell pointed out.
“Not freely,” Ned went on. “They say that we get them into debt, and then we suddenly foreclose.”
“That is illegal, the Council are firmly opposed to it. All deeds have to be good, and signed in good faith. They should make a formal complaint and we will prosecute the settlers,” John Russell said firmly.
Ned looked away, embarrassed. “Yes, but it’s the old governor’s son,” he said miserably. “He’s suing an Indian for a ten-pound debt. Says he’ll take twenty pounds’ worth of land for it!”
“Says who?” William asked indignantly.
“They say,” Ned admitted. “The debtor is the nephew of the Massasoit—King Philip. The father, who is Sachem of his tribe, is handing over a hundred acres of land to the trader to forgive the debt.”
“Josiah Winslow is doing this?” Edward asked.
“It’s worse than that—he’s got a debt on King Philip himself.” Ned looked from one grave face to another. “If they force the Massasoit to sell land, when he has sworn he will not—”
“It makes him look bad,” John Russell said. “It makes him break his own word. It humiliates him.”
“They say that when they were all-powerful and the English newly arrived and starving, they were good to us. They were generous. They say that now we have guns and cannon and a militia and we are stronger than them, they say we should be generous to them.”
“Are we stronger than them?” Edward the old commander demanded. “If it came to war?”
Ned looked at him, unable to lie. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve not been to Mount Hope—Montaup, the sacred home of the Pokanoket—and I’ve never seen one of their gatherings. But I know they’re having big gatherings and that other tribes are attending.”
“To make alliances? To go to war?” John Russell asked.
