John Goodman
Northeastern Frontier (Modern-Day New Hampshire)
It had been a long time since John Goodman slept with one eye open, walked with intermittent glances over his shoulder. Then again, it had been a long time since he had been forced into the company of William Marley. The strange triad of them and the praying Indian Isaac Alderman had departed the civilized edge of New England two weeks ago, heading northeast across the scarcely-settled frontier beyond. It was a dreary trek, sloshing through a mix of mud and half-melted snow, looking to the sky for some relief, only to be greeted by the depressing grays of February. It was made even more unbearable, of course, by the presence of Marley, who snored at night, swore with every sentence, and stumbled drunkenly, reeking of liquor (the worst of all these trespasses to the Puritan Goodman).
Thankfully, John had been given an opportunity to see an old friend before he left. Samuel Appleton was as close a friend as one could ask for, to John and Isaac both. He too had fought in that accursed war, and he too took part in that final fateful battle in the swamp, where the mighty Indian King was shot in the back. He, John, and Isaac, then, were not only friends—they were war-brothers, veterans-in-arms. They fought side by side, sharing in the few triumphs and the many torturous ordeals of that horrid time. All of them survived that hell of three years, though none of them had managed to forget it, still haunted by its ghosts after almost a decade.
John and Isaac went together to visit Appleton. It was not just to reconnect with an old confidant—they needed guidance right now, and Sam had a knack for finding wisdom in a world of madness. He was always the one to calm them in the most turbulent times of the war, to soothe their anguished souls, praying for clarity in a time of chaos. He provided that clarity, a rock with which they could anchor their emotions and keep their minds level-headed for the battles ahead. In another life, he could have been a pastor, but it was good enough, John thought, to just be a friend.
Besides, it was for Appleton’s benefit, too, or at least, they figured it would be. Appleton spent his days in the Essex county jail ever since September, when he refused to pay the crown’s new and tyrannical taxes. Andros, being the servile little imp that he was, accused the man of sedition and threatened him with imprisonment. Samuel was always a hardhead, though—two weeks after meeting him, Isaac remarked that he resembled an ancient oak, deep-rooted and unwilling to budge. Instead of backing down, Samuel stood tall and proud atop a rocky cliff of Saugus and railed against Andros and the Vatican’s strings that pulled him like a puppet.
A part of John wished he were committed and steadfast as his friend, but he wouldn’t risk prison. His morals were one thing. His family was another, and when it came down to it, he would always choose the latter, especially his daughters. Even though he loathed the despotic boot of England, ever-weighing on his pure-hearted neighbors, he would not fight against it, not with his eldest daughter aimless and his youngest frail and sickly.
Sure enough, John and Isaac found Samuel laying on a cot in his jail cell, dozing off in a midday half-nap. John rapped one of the iron bars with his knuckle, and the noise roused the man, whose eyes widened when he saw the visitors.
“I’ll be,” Samuel chuckled, rubbing his eyes. “I thought life was all out of surprises.”
“It’s good to see you, Sam,” Isaac said with a smile. “You don’t look half bad, considering.”
“Hah. I’m not fed enough to keep fat, not in here. How hast thou fared, my friend? The years seem to have pitied thee, old man.”
“Old? They must not have a mirror there in your cell. Give a look the next time they bring your dog bowl full of water. You might just knock it over from the shock.”
The two men shared devious grins, and burst out into hearty laughter. John just watched and reveled in it. He was never one for banter, really—the other two made fun of him for being too serious all the time.
Samuel stood up from his cot and sauntered up to the bars of his cage.
“Well now,” he said. “What bringeth you? Ye aren’t here to muse upon the good old days.”
“Were they good old days?” Isaac mocked.
“‘Surely. All the old days were good, to see the ones now. My home’s a cell. My governor’s a wretched pope-lover! I’d reckon myself in the depths of Hell, were it not for your faces before me.”
“Mention not Satan’s domain, Sam,” John warned. “Soon as Andros frees you, Increase will slap the cuffs right back on for your blasphemous tongue.”
“There he is, the stoic!” Samuel chuckled. “No love for an honest jest, after all these years. Right, then, I’ll ask again—what bringeth thee, John?”
“We journey to the land of the Abenakis,” John explained. “Andros has commanded we parlay with a wife up there. Husband’s dead, she’s to take his place.”
“Aye. It is not unheard of among the Indians, if you remember the she-chiefs we used to meet and fight with, Weetamoo and Awashonks*. But this is no trouble in itself. What is thy burden, then?”
“We travel with William Marley.”
Just by the mention of his name, Samuel’s face soured.
“Not by choice, I take it,” he said.
Isaac responded by spitting on the ground. A fitting one, John thought—Marley was hardly worth the breath for words.
Samuel’s brow furrowed, his mind wracked in thought.
“And what of Andros?” He asked. “What’s his aim?”
“He speaks only to make friends with this woman,” John said. “And perhaps an ally of her and her kin.”
“There must be more. He would not send Marley on a mission of peace.”
“Thou know’st our burden, then.”
“Aye.”
Samuel stood there in silence for a moment, as he always did when consulting his great insight.
“Alas, I can see nothing from within my cage,” Samuel admitted. “I can only prithee to stay wary. Heed the danger of that man—it is not a wickedness well-hidden, but thou art blind still to its true nature. Tread lightly, my friends. Above all, keep the peace, that our sons will not know war, as we did.”
John and Isaac nodded. They didn’t need to be reminded of what was at stake, but hearing it from a man who guided them through the carnage strengthened their resolve, as his words always had.
On the road now, John tried his best to heed Samuel’s advice. On the one hand, he felt paranoid. William had done nothing overtly hostile towards them on the trip—in fact, he had hardly shared more than a few errant words with either of them. In some ways, he seemed as reluctant to go on this errand than they were. Still, he knew the man William was. Even among God’s chosen Puritans, there were sinners. He was an opportunist of sin, a man who lived his life waiting for a chance to kill. Not bold enough to murder wantonly, he bided his time until the devil granted him license.
The war, of course, was the happiest time of his miserable life. Every week, he would march to some Indian village or encampment, his boot-steps in rhythm with his sordid routine. Shoot the men, brutalize the women, butcher the children. He did it all with a smile on his face, humming as he glutted his appetite for blood. The few times John and Isaac had fought alongside him were the worst memories they had from those years, and he was most of the reason. Of course, he was never punished for his atrocities—they were at war, after all, and even the godly Puritans overlooked the horrors inflicted upon the Indians, who in their eyes were lowly savages shadowed from God’s graceful light. John was one of the few who knew better. He saw that light in some of them, torn from their eyes as their souls were from their bodies, one after another, corpse upon bloody corpse. Satan brought that war upon all of them, and Marley was one of his most obedient minions.
Though Marley had not done or said anything this trip to arouse suspicion in John thus far, there were some parts of his behavior that were erratic, at the very least. He seemed to never want to walk in tow with John and Isaac, trailing far behind them, sometimes by a mile or more. At times, they would lose him in the dense woods, and pray that he’d stay gone, but he always returned, speaking nothing of it. Not that John or Isaac would ask him about it—not worth the pain of conversation with a man like that.
At first, the trip was largely uneventful. A wild animal here or there, nothing that couldn’t be scared off with a gunshot. John and Isaac spent the time catching each other up on their lives, well out of earshot of Marley, who they only saw when they stopped to rest.
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“You know, my boy’s of marrying age,” Isaac mentioned casually.
“Aye,” John replied. “What of it?”
“Well, so’s your Grace, isn’t she?”
“She is. Though she lacks a certain maturity. Truth be told, Pleasance is troubled for her.”
“I was the same as her, at that age. Didn’t grow up until I found my wife.”
“You think marriage would mend her child’s heart?”
“It did mine.”
“Hmph.”
“Unless you would not marry her to my kind.”
“Come now—you've known me long enough. I bear no ill will against the Indian, so be he in Christ. He is numbered among the faithful, isn’t he?”
“Of course. He attends my services. Hell, he’s more devout than I am.”
“Language.”
“Right, right. Sorry.”
“Why make mention of this? Is this just passing talk, or do you bear a true intention?”
“Sure, it’s true. He’s a boy, she’s a girl. They’re around the same age. Why shouldn’t they marry?”
“True, but never have you spoken of this until now.”
Isaac shrugged.
“Didn’t occur to me until now. So what?”
John thought for a moment.
“Hmph,” he grunted, the wind passing through the thick hairs of his brown beard. “I reckon we might call a meeting between the two. See how they fare. Your boy’s got land? A trade?”
“He’s got my land—only family I’ve got left now. And he’s a skilled woodworker—put together most of the furniture in my place. He’ll probably build his own home on my acreage, or buy his own land, if your superiors’ll let him.”
John opened his mouth to respond, but the words caught in his throat as he heard a rustling from the brush in the wood beyond. It was probably just another animal, but neither John nor Isaac would let their guard d0wn. They began to unsling their muskets from their shoulders, but before they could do so, five Indians leaped out of the brush, each of them armed. They pointed their guns at the two travelers, who had no choice but to drop their own and raise their hands in surrender.
“We travel in peace,” Isaac told them, speaking softly and diplomatically inches from a gun barrel. John knew enough of his tongue to understand it, even speak some.
“You might,” one of the others replied. He spoke a strange dialect, one John couldn’t place. The man pointed at him. “He doesn’t. The white man’s peace is a violent one.”
“This man is different. He is a friend to me, the closest I have. Our children are to be married.”
John fought an urge to argue, and then an urge to laugh. It was just like Isaac, using an opportunity like this. He’s incorrigible, John thought as sweat beaded on his brow. In the back of his mind, though, all he could think of was Marley. He, of course, was nowhere to be seen. Despite the fact that they pointed guns at him, these Indians did not look outright hostile. All it took was one William Marley to change that.
The man who spoke, seeming to be the leader of the group, scratched his chin in thought.
“And who are you, kinsman?” He asked Isaac. “Friend to us, or to the English?”
“I am Antoquan,” Isaac replied, using his Indian name. “Of the Wampanoag. My allegiance is to myself, and to those close to me, of which this man, by the name of John, is one. And who are you, to be treading this unclaimed land with us?”
“It is not unclaimed,” the man hissed. “This land is ours—we were driven from it, but we have returned.”
The man stood up tall, his chest puffing with pride.
“I am Sokanoket, of the Penacook. We live and die for Kancamagus, the Fearless One.”
Upon hearing the man’s tribe, John’s hopes of making it out of here were dashed. Not that the Penacook were a ruthless or cruel people—in fact, quite the opposite. When the first fighting broke out between the English and the Wampanoag, the Penacook were determined to remain neutral and peaceful, even going so far as abandoning their lands and homes and migrating northward to stay out of the crossfire.
Unfortunately, this was not enough. The minds of the colonists, ever-distrustful of Indians, grew paranoid that all Indians were against them. This flame was fanned when the Penacook took in refugees from the war, including combatants on the enemy’s side. The colonists saw this as a betrayal of the Penacook’s claimed neutrality, and marked them among their foes. In a despicable act of treachery, a merchant named Richard Waldron invited hundreds of the Penacook, whom he had been trading with for years, to his home for a feast. In good faith, the Indians went, only for Waldron to spring a trap on them—a colonial militia burst from hiding, arresting and imprisoning the lot of them. Their leaders were tried and hanged, the refugees shipped to slave in the Caribbean. Most of the common Penacook were eventually turned loose, but they never forgot the betrayal, especially since Waldron still lived and prospered in New Hampshire. That resentment now extended to all the New Englanders, John included.
“Penacook!” Isaac exclaimed. The look in his eyes told John he felt the same as him. “Forgive me for insulting you, claiming this was not your home. I was under the impression you had moved north, and taken up with the Abenaki. I must be mistaken.”
“Not completely mistaken,” the man said with a smile. “Not completely true, either. Our brothers took us in, but that was before, when we were too weak to stand on our own. We don’t have to stand on our own anymore—we aren’t on our own. Or have you not heard?”
Isaac’s brow furrowed. He was confused—so was John.
The man grinned, eager to answer his own question.
“There—”
His words were cut short with his life as a shot rang out. A bullet sliced clean through his neck, gushing blood through entry and exit holes. John and Isaac’s eyes grew wide with shock and horror as the other four Penacook scrambled to see where the attack came from. John already knew, and from whom. William Marley leaped from a tall bush, beating one of the men over the head with the butt of his gun. Dazed by the blow, the man took a step backwards, and another near him readied to fire on Marley. But Marley seized the chance, grabbing the stunned one to use as a shield just in time for the other to fire into him. In the same motion, he grabbed the dead one’s tomahawk from his belt as he slumped to the ground, throwing it into the chest of another who hadn’t fired yet.
In a matter of seconds, three were dead, and one had to reload. The last threat took a step back, having barely any time to process what happened. That hesitation gave John and Isaac a chance, for his musket was no longer trained on them. They unslung their muskets and fired: John shot the left one, Isaac the right.
The stench of blood and death filled the air—a familiar memory for these three. John and Isaac lingered in it, their silence a somber eulogy for these needless deaths. Marley, predictably, did not—he set upon looting them at once, as though they were not men who were killed, but sacks of coins and trinkets. He used his foot to push one over on his back, rummaging through his bag for valuables. The one with a bullet in his neck still twitched in his death throes, and Marley prodded his body with his musket, like a boy inspecting a bug with a stick. His callousness set Isaac off like a flame to gunpowder, and sure enough, he exploded.
“What cause did you have to shoot them!?” Isaac screamed at the chubby man, pointing a finger in his face. “We were negotiating. They were about to set us free!”
“An’ how’s I s’posed to know that?” Marley slurred, scratching his stubbled neck. He was the only man John knew who could fight well while drunk, and he had never seen the man sober.
“He speaks some truth,” John said. He hated that he was defending the man, but he would not let his feelings cloud good judgment. “Their speech is dark to his understanding—how could he know, then, our dialogue? He saw their muskets, us in peril. It was an honest mistake.”
There was fire in Isaac’s eyes, and he looked at John with disgust, as though he had betrayed him by taking Marley’s side in it. John felt a pang of guilt. Perhaps he had.
“Still, they might have been spared, hadst thou but kept near unto us,” John said to Marley, trying as always to mediate the impossible.
“Good thin’ I didn’t,” Marley sneered. “Saved yer ‘ides. Ye can thank me, rather’n moan.”
Isaac looked as though he was about to leap at the man, and John took a step forward, trying to cut him off.
“Best we move on,” he said. “Lest more of them be here.”
He gave a sympathetic yet stern look to his friend, who acquiesced, though not happily. He marched off in a storm of anger, and John couldn’t blame him. Still, he could not find fault in Marley’s actions this time. It was a misunderstanding more than anything, and had John been in Marley’s place, he would have done the same. It reflected the messiness they all found themselves in time after time, a microcosm of the great contradiction that was this New World. Two sides of honest men, teetering on the precipice of miscommunication. One slip of the tongue, one bad impression, one conclusion leaped to. Five dead. Add them to the score, along with all the others.