Page 52 of Dark Tides
JUNE 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND
Ned walked a little way with the two Englishmen and the Indian, until they came to a story hole at the side of the path where he stopped. “I’ll leave you here,” he said. “This was where a woman from the Pequot people, far from her home, picked up a baby muskrat, and she made it into a pet. She washed it clean so it didn’t stink, and it followed her like a dog.” He looked at the bewildered Englishmen. “The Pequots think the world was made when a woman fell from the skies and a muskrat brought her earth from the floor of the sea. She made the first land from the seabed, and gave birth to the People. So muskrats are an important animal for them. The Pequot woman was honoring her stories while with a strange people.”
William and Edward exchanged a glance. “Paganism,” William condemned in one word.
Ned shrugged. “Isn’t it like us telling the gospel to Indians? That you keep telling your stories because they are part of who you are?”
Edward slapped him on the back. “Ned, soldier, first you spoke paganism—now heresy! It’s just getting worse, not better. We’re going to have to burn you for a heretic!”
Ned laughed at himself. “Well, it’s the story for the hole,” he said, “so perhaps you will remember it, for it’s important. It marks where the Bay path, an Indian trail, crosses the Connecticut path, a way that the settlers use. We drive our beef down it all the way to Boston, see how rutted and muddy it is? And how wide? It’s too busy for you: the settlers are fearful of the forest and travel in big groups, you’d be seen if you walked here. So you’ll cross the drover road here, and Wussausmonwill show you the hidden ways to the shore, he’ll take you past the villages, the Nipmuc and the Narragansett homes. This is where I say good-bye. He’ll bring you back to Hadley at the end of summer.”
William took Ned’s arm and drew him to one side. “Who is he? And how does a savage speak English as if he came from the University of Oxford?” he whispered.
“Because he attended Harvard College!” Ned told him. “He’s a minister in one of the praying towns, he was brought up in an English household, his English name is John Sassamon. He advises the governor and the Council at Plymouth on Indian affairs.”
“Well, he doesn’t look like an Englishman,” William said flatly.
“Not now—he’s in his buckskins now, and goes by his tribal name Wussausmon,” Ned tried to explain. “He serves Po Metacom, the Massasoit of the Pokanoket. He serves as a go-between for him and the governor at Plymouth. He serves Josiah Winslow. He’s like an ambassador.”
“No ambassador that I’ve ever seen,” William persisted.
“He’s one of the many that have worked to keep the peace between the Pokanoket and the settlers,” Ned explained. “Fifty years we lived alongside each other—with complaints but no wars. Now, with more English coming, and the People feeling the pressure, it’s harder for the leaders to keep the peace. Po Metacom—him that we call King Philip—depends upon advisors that can speak both languages, that can live in both worlds. Governor Prence trusts him too.”
“You’d trust him?”
“He’s a Christian and understands us. He’s a Pokanoket and understands them. I’ll tell him to guide you safely and bring you back at the end of summer and I know you’ll be safe.”
Ned turned to Wussausmon, and spoke quietly. “They can’t go too fast,” he said.
“They were soldiers, and yet so slow?” the man asked incredulously.
“Not like your braves,” Ned shook his head. “They were great men in the English army against the English king. They rode horses into battle. They didn’t run on a warpath like you. And now they’re old. So take them slowly and bring them back to Hadley at the end of summer?”
The man nodded in silence.
“Did Quiet Squirrel send you to follow us from Hadley?” Ned asked curiously. “Did you come behind us all the way?”
Wussausmon grinned. “It wasn’t hard. You went through the trees as quietly as a team of oxen plowing a field.”
“Quiet Squirrel says it’s my shoes,” Ned admitted.
“She told me it was the stupid hat.”
Ned laughed out loud. “She has no respect for me,” he said.
Wussausmon laughed too. “We’re just men. She has no high regard for any of us.”
“Did she tell you that Hadley is mustering?”
“We knew that already.”
“Have you told Po Metacom?”
Wussausmon bowed his head and said nothing. Ned felt reproved for rudeness.
“It’s just that the Coatmen are anxious,” Ned explained. “We know that your king is sending out messages. We hear he’s even talking to the French, as far north as Canada—and they’re our sworn enemies. It would be as if we talked to your enemies—the Mohawks. You’d feel betrayed.”
“But you do talk to the Mohawks,” Wussausmon pointed out.
