Friday, May 26th, 1637
Mystic River, Present Day Connecticut
On a hill above the Mystic River lay a large stronghold of the Pequot Indian Nation sleeping in the illusion of safety behind the walls of their crude fort. Leaving gaps through which they could fire arrows, the Pequots had erected twelve-foot high vertical logs around their camp. Water protected part of the steep hill on which the fort stood. Patches of brush lined the base of the hill and the water’s edge.
Hawks, a young Englishman, marched among his fellows through the thick northeastern forest just outside the fort. On this warm spring dawn he and his fellow colonists had marched for a few hours already and sweat now trickled down his back. The preceding night, the men had slept fitfully on the ground, having marched hard. Hawks had watched many of the men faint from the heat and hunger.
He lifted his hat exposing white-blond hair, and he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm.
Pushing his hat firmly down on his head, Hawks checked his musket. He examined the match, a thin gunpowder-treated rope attached to his musket by a serpentine clamp. To keep it burning, he blew the ashes from it, loosened the clamp and threaded the match a little further through the serpentine. With peculiar eyes the color of ice, he scanned the area around him, wondering how many hidden eyes were watching him.
Throughout yesterday’s march, Narragansett and Mohegan warriors had moved in silence at the English flank. To Hawks, it seemed as though they were spirits. Hawks held the Indians in awe … and fear. He had arrived from England seven years ago. He had never gotten used to the notion of savages living all around him. To some degree he mistrusted even those Indians allied with the English.
Hawks did not understand and did not particularly want to understand the intricacies of this war against the Pequots. He knew that somehow the English and Indians must live side by side, and the Indians did seem to understand force as a means of communication. After all, there were always Indian skirmishes here and there. Strength was something Indians respected.
It really did not matter to Hawks which Indian Nation was correct in this fight. What did matter to him was that the Narragansetts, ancient enemies of the Pequot Nation, were stronger and lived closer to English settlements than did the Pequots. Alliance with the Narragansett Nation meant relative safety for the colonists. That alone was good enough argument for Hawks. Besides, the Pequots were wont to make threats and were hardly innocent of shedding English blood. They had spent the preceding days preparing to set out on the warpath against them again.
The allied force of nearly five hundred Indians and seventy-odd English moved quietly from the forest into a cornfield, and the fort now came into full view. Tense, tired and eager, Hawks’ nerves frayed as he walked among the rows of young cornstalks. Hawks had never killed a man, never engaged in battle of any kind. He was thrilled to have this chance to prove himself and protect his countrymen.
Knowing his captains to be honorable men who would avoid the killing of innocents, Hawks understood they were not attacking a group of men on an open field but in a village where women and children lived. He accepted that a few among the helpless would die. It was an unavoidable fact of war. He did not hate Indians, but holding a general mistrust of them, he knew the women would only raise their boys to resent the English. For Hawks then, the occasional death of a woman or child was not to be lamented.
The young Englishman was prepared to lose his own life in this fight. No matter the cost, he would not allow enemy savages to capture him alive. He knew Indians were notoriously creative in the torture of enemy prisoners ~ slowly peeling the skin off a man or burning him alive and piercing the blisters with sticks. Hawks shuddered at the imagination of savages. He would leave the fort a free man or dead. There would be no captivity for him.
Suddenly noting a difference in the eerie silence of the Narragansett and Mohegan allies who could walk for hours without so much as snapping a twig, Hawks glanced backward. Alarmed to see only a handful of warriors where moments ago there had been hundreds, he elbowed a fellow colonist by the name of Mead, then jabbed his thumb to the rear. Nonplussed Mead looked behind them and cupped his hand around his mouth as he whispered, “Hawks, I heard they think we’re going to run when we see how strong the Pequots are. They’re just keeping out of the Pequots’ sight until we prove ourselves. You know as well as I do that just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
As Hawks rolled his eyes in disgust, Mead continued, “See, their chiefs are still with us,” and pointed at two braves walking through the corn ahead of them toward the English captains Mason and Underhill. “That’s Wequash, sachem of the Narragansett Nation, and there’s Uncas, sachem of the Mohegan People.”
Captain Mason halted the allied force with an upheld hand. He and the chiefs, called sachems by their People, whispered briefly among the men in command. Watching the group closely, Hawks noted the difference between the English and Indian commanders. Mason, a short, stocky man sporting a carefully coiffed beard that came to a neat point just below his chin, wore an expensive buff suit of leather armor and held a shining steel helmet in the crook of his arm.
In stark contrast to Captain Mason, the lithe, smooth-skinned Indian sachems wore only loincloths. Hawks was always a little shocked by Indian nudity, and it seemed absurd to him that they could wear so little clothing especially in the presence of honorable English officers. Weapons hanging from straps here and there around their bodies, the Indians stood a full head taller than their white counterparts. They were perfectly self-sustained war machines, and Hawks could not help holding the Indians in some awe.
The sachems now returned to their band, still lurking in the surrounding forest where they would await the English attack. Captains Mason and Underhill knelt and the colonists all followed suit, each praying silently. Hawks prayed, “Deliver Thine enemies into our hand this day, O Lord.”
Captain Mason rose and beckoned broadly with his arm, giving the order to proceed. Underhill’s men split off from the group and moved quietly down a path around the hill to the opposite end of the fort. To ensure both ends of his match were lit, Hawks bent the end dangling from his musket up to the burning end that was clamped into the serpentine. With both ends burning, at least one end should stay alight throughout the battle. Mead, having no such preparations to make with his more modern flintlock musket, moved ahead of Hawks as they stole quietly up the steep hill.
Hawks heard a dog bark, followed quickly by an Indian voice inside the palisade sounding the alarm. “Owanux! Owanux!” The voice shouted the Pequot word for “Englishmen.” Understanding that they were discovered, Mason immediately gave the command to fire. Instantly, Hawks heard the firing of those who had carried the flintlock into battle that day. Hawks crouched next to Mead behind a bush on the hill, and while Mead was reloading his musket Hawks used his teeth to uncork his powder horn. Then, having poured powder down the barrel of his matchlock, he dropped a ball of shot down the muzzle and rammed the ball and powder tightly with a rod.
Now Hawks was forced to expose himself while Mead still crouched safely behind the bush. Aiming his weapon at the broad palisade wall, Hawks stood up and steadied his weapon on a rest which stood about shoulder height. The rest was an iron stand forked into a U at the top. Into this U, Hawks laid the end of his barrel. His weapon thus steadied, he poured a small amount of powder into the priming pan of his musket. He plugged the powder horn with the cork he held in his teeth and let it drop from his mouth so that it hung from his shoulder, ready for its next use. Checking his match again, he saw it still burned at both ends, and he blew the ashes off the end attached to the serpentine. Then, he squared himself behind the musket, pulling the butt firmly into his shoulder. He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, his right foot a little to the front, his right knee bent, and his left foot a little behind him.
Hoping no Englishman behind him downhill would hit him in the back, Hawks aimed his weapon at the broad palisade wall. The gaps through which the Indians fired their arrows allowed musket balls to penetrate the palisade, and he could see Pequot braves gathering inside. Hawks’ weapon was not as accurate as an arrow, but it was deadly when it found a mark.
As Hawks squeezed the long triggering lever against the butt of the musket, the serpentine snapped backward, dropping the lighted match into the gunpowder inside the priming pan. Through the tiny touch hole in the bottom of the pan, the gunpowder in the barrel ignited and shot the ball into the palisade. Hawks saw copper skin jolt, then reel backward. Surprised that he had hit anything at all, Hawks allowed a smile to flick across his face.
Despite a hail of arrows, Hawks could not seek cover and fire at the same time. Designed for the orchestrated battlefields of Europe and not the wilderness of the New World, the unwieldy matchlock required a standing rest. Hawks stood his ground as he reloaded and fired again and again. A torrent of shot slammed against the palisade wall, and the smell of sulphur filled the air.
Captain Mason ran forward with a few men to secure the entrance to the fort. The Pequots had barred the entrance with uprooted trees and branches. Arrows flew thick around the entrance as Hawks watched the men tugging and tearing at the barricade. An arrow pierced one of the colonists through the heart, and the man fell backward.
Hawks heard a constant whoosh of arrows whizzing past him, over him, all around him. He continued to re-load and fire as his English comrades hauled the makeshift barricade away. Arrowheads bounced off helmets and tough leather armor. Hawks saw several other men fall at the entrance of the fort. At last, the way was clear.
Hawks and Mead rushed up the hill, and stepping over their fallen comrades, the colonists poured into the fort.
Inside they found no Indians but plenty of arrows. Once the entrance had been breached, the warriors had run for cover, and now arrows flew at the English from behind domed, bark-covered wigwams.
With little success, the colonists ran through the village seeking braves to slay with the sword. Mason grew frustrated. He lunged into a bark-covered wigwam seeking anyone with the courage to fight and stumbled out seconds later scratched and battered. After several minutes of sustaining a barrage of arrows pelted at them with no recourse, many men lay injured and dead. Mason boomed, “Englishmen! These cowards do not present themselves to fight. They hide behind women and children.” Mason paused and looked at his men. Then, he shouted, “Fire the place!”
A few feet to Mason’s left stood a wigwam. Standing aside from the wigwam opening so as to avoid any attack from within, he reached inside and pulled out a burning stick from the fire pit. Then, he lit the wigwam’s bark covering which caught easily. Turning around to face his men, he held the firebrand aloft and the Englishmen cheered as they sprang into action, darting from wigwam to wigwam, grabbing firebrands and torching the shelters.
Likewise, Hawks stooped to reach inside a wigwam and a wave of horror filled his belly as he glimpsed the small round face belonging to a terrified child of three or four years. He thought he had prepared himself for this. His pastor preached that New England was the Christian Zion and he had said there was a Scriptural precedent, in fact a necessity, of destroying the young as well as the old at times. ‘It must be done,’ thought Hawks as he averted his eyes from the child and grasped a firebrand. Quickly backing out of the opening, he shoved the flaming stick into the bark sheets covering the wigwam that contained the little child and God knows how many of his loved ones.
Grimly Hawks walked along a side lane, torching wigwam after wigwam. The dwellings were clumped so closely together that Hawks could fire two without even shifting his feet. Pequot warriors suddenly began to race through the streets and paths of the fort and Hawks thought with disgust, ‘Mason was right. They finally fight like men.’ Employing only swords now, the English found the place too tightly packed, and fighting too furious for their muskets to be of much use. As the English bumped against wigwam walls and stumbled over fleeing children, they cursed the closeness of the village. To Hawks, it looked like a war being fought in a closet.
Seeing that the English did not run from the fight, Narragansett and Mohegan warriors now rushed into the fort. Hawks heard their savage whoops pierce the air above the crackle of burning bark and the screams of women and children.
Finding himself in a small open space, Hawks spied first the topknot then the head of a brave examining him from behind the corner of a wigwam. Quickly stuffing his firebrand into the bark of a nearby wigwam, Hawks drew his sword and took a long breath. Heart pounding, he set his teeth, hissed and lurched onto the path of the Pequot warrior.
The brave had also come into the open seeking Hawks, and like most Indians he was more than a head taller than Hawks. Naked but for a loincloth, his hair spiked into a red and black topknot, he held his tomahawk menacingly out from his right side. Hawks held his sword with both hands now, willing all of his strength into the steel. The Indian raised his tomahawk with his right hand and brought it crashing down toward Hawks’ skull. Hawks leapt to the side, escaping the blow, and slammed his sword into the warrior’s left shoulder. The warrior’s shoulder severed, he looked at Hawks for a moment, then raised his right arm again still holding the tomahawk and aiming anew for Hawks’ skull.
Before Hawks could react, a Narragansett brave ducked under the Pequot’s raised right arm. He wheeled around in front of the surprised Pequot placing himself between the warrior and Hawks. With both hands, the Narragansett man swung his stone tomahawk into the face of the huge Pequot. The Pequot fell backward, a puff of dust whiffing up around his body where he fell dead. The Narragansett brave stepped on the Pequot’s chest and jerked his tomahawk free before pulling a knife from its sheath strapped to his calf. He grabbed the Pequot’s topknot and sliced it neatly off, skin and all, and then beheaded the dead man.
Something caught the Narragansett brave’s attention and he ran into the smoke. Though grateful for his life, Hawks was shocked at the Indian’s savagery. As he stared at the gruesome sight, a naked little boy dashed out from behind the burning wigwam Hawks had lit before the engagement with the Pequot. The boy knelt beside the body of the Pequot warrior. Hawks watched in horror as the child pushed the severed, smashed head onto the body. Transfixed by the sight, Hawks could not move. Again and again, the persistent child tried to make the head stick. Suddenly, the child looked up at Hawks, and Hawks recognized him as the child from the first wigwam.
The child recognized Hawks too as he picked up his father’s tomahawk, barely able to carry it, and rushed at the English menace. The boy had never seen hair that color, for though it was white, it was not the white hair of old men. This shining, white-gold hair covered the creature’s chin and glistened on his arms. The boy thought the man must be part beast. As he rushed the Englishman, the boy was startled to find eyes the color of ice peering down at him.
The boy suddenly stopped in his tracks and Hawks grabbed the tomahawk tossing it to the ground. He held the boy’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. Knowing the boy would not understand his words, Hawks spoke them for himself, “You leave us no choice.”
The child blinked, shocked that the white-haired monster could speak, and as Hawks strode away, the boy watched him pick up a stick, light it on a burning wigwam and torch home after home. The boy reached down for the tomahawk again, but he felt an arm around his waist lifting him. He saw a blood-spattered Indian face, a face that did not belong to his People. The brave looking stoically ahead carried the boy toward the edge of the palisade. In the common Algonquin tongue, the warrior said to himself as though thinking aloud, “Honors The Dead.” Though the child understood the words, he did not yet know that he had just heard his new name.
Hawks heard a shout, and turning about he saw Mead waving his arms and pointing to the ground. Hawks looked down to see that someone had poured gunpowder along the edges of the wigwams from one end of the palisade to the other. Quickly, he jogged down to the fort wall where Englishmen gathered around Mason who, seeing his men were safe, touched off one end of the line of gunpowder with a firebrand. Captain Underhill, at the opposite end of the fort, lit the other end of the line.
In short order every wigwam was in flames. Screams and whoops filled the air as the sulphurous smell of gunpowder mingled with smoke. The fire raged, sending bark flying high into the billowing clouds of war above the scene, and Hawks thought to himself, ‘We have kindled hell on earth.’
A few feet away, lining the palisade wall with their English allies, stood Narragansett and Mohegan warriors. Some had grown disgusted with the vastness of the destruction. Their red tomahawks hung in hands no longer willing to wield them. Though the English called them savages, at this moment the Indians saw the very essence of the word “savage” in these English barbarians.
None of the Indians had ever seen warfare on a scale such as this. It was not the manner in which the English killed; Indians were far more creative in their methods. It was not even the death of children. What appalled the Indians was the vast scale of death. The annihilation of an entire populace was a foreign concept. This English barbarism was new and their entire, unbounded carnage shocked and sickened many braves.
It was illogical; it made no sense to destroy an entire populace. In a way, each People needed the others. Even enemy nations needed to know that there were others out there from whom they could take corn or women or children when needed. War was a way young men proved themselves. It was a way to gain honor and to keep the blood strong with new women from different nations. When one nation saw starvation on the horizon, or perhaps when disease had devastated a group, they could raid another People to restore the balance of their own village. To honor a slain warrior, they could take prisoners whom they would slowly torture to death, or they might adopt a person into their homes to fill the void left by one who had died. Sometimes, they would just take slaves. In these raids, they would kill perhaps a dozen or a few score people, but never hundreds.
The braves watched Captain Mason give the command to shoot anyone fleeing the flames, and some of the younger warriors thrived on this unqualified carnage. Side by side, muskets and arrows mowed down Pequots fleeing the incineration. As the heat in the palisade soared, bowstrings snapped, leaving arrows useless.
Hawks loaded his weapon and steadied it on the rest. His match having gone out in the fight, he borrowed a light from the musketeer next to him. He secured the newly lit match in the serpentine, poured powder into the priming pan, aimed his weapon and positioned himself sturdily behind the musket’s iron rest. He grasped the triggering lever and looked for a target. He saw a girl of about twelve running naked through the inferno carrying a baby girl in her arms. Hawks wondered if the child were her sister. He stood motionless, transfixed by the long black hair singeing off her head as flames licked her body. The baby squalled piteously as the girl ran straight toward her enemies lining the palisade wall. Hawks knew she was not thinking. He knew she was just running away, and he thought numbly, ‘She does not understand. There is no ‘away’.’
With muskets firing at fleeing Indians throughout the fort, Hawks could not tell which sound signaled her death. He saw a hole appear in her back, and he wondered if it had hit the baby as well. She stumbled with the force of the shot. She fell forward onto the baby. The baby stopped crying. The girl’s hair was gone now and blisters formed on her skin. Hawks wanted to run.
Flames towered above the palisade and the little Pequot boy watched as village elders, cousins, and uncles raced crazily throughout the fort. Many ran headlong into the searing flames, preferring a fiery death to whatever torture their enemies might devise. In a matter of minutes, the fight was over, his village in flames, his family dead, his father undone. This was not the war of which the little boy had heard countless stories. This was something all together new. Standing among the fortunate handful of captives destined for adoption into Narragansett and Mohegan homes, the boy heard a teenaged girl whisper, “Who could do this? What kind of creature could destroy so many?” The boy knew the answer. These creatures were not men. They were monsters.
Frozen behind his musket, Hawks stood amid cheering Englishmen, Mohegans and Narragansetts. Like so many of his countrymen standing with him who had never seen battle, and like so many of the battle-tested Indian warriors, Hawks was shocked at the massive number of slain women and children. He wondered if it truly was only because the warriors had hidden. He wondered if perhaps his captain had anticipated this all along.
Blood everywhere, Hawks’ hands were sticky with the stuff as he still clutched the musket he had been unable to fire in the final tempest of carnage. The smell of burning human flesh assaulted his nostrils. He tried not to breathe through his nose, but the air was so thick and heady that each time he opened his mouth to breathe, he could taste the stench.
He heard one of his countrymen vomiting a few feet away and Hawks suddenly wretched, then forced himself to stop. How dare he find revulsion in God’s blessing?
The Pequots had made it plainly known they intended the colonists harm. His pastor had preached more than once the consequences Israel suffered each time they dealt lightly with their enemies. These Indians had shown open contempt for the Gospel and therefore deserved no quarter. He forced these thoughts through his mind. Precious few English had perished; this victory was truly a mighty one. God must have wanted it.
One of the English lieutenants announced, “In the space of one hour, men! One hour! We have killed six or seven hundred Pequots. Think of all the settlers who will keep their scalps because of what we have done here!” The men let out a mighty cheer, but Hawks could find no joy in such horror.
All around them the conflagration raged, consuming the palisade itself. Smoke blackened the sky. There was no escape from scorched corpses, headless bodies, and impaled children and women. Hawks looked upward trying to find the sky which was hidden from view by smoke and flame.
Hearing a peculiar sizzling sound coming from the ground, he looked down and saw a thin stream of blood flowing steadily over the dust toward his foot. He did not move. What was the point? He was covered with blood already. He followed the stream with his eyes and found that it stemmed from a broad wash of blood flowing through the center of the fort. And there was the source of the sizzling noise ~ fire licking at the wash, boiling and frying it.
Numb and empty, he stood rigidly primed behind his musket, still waiting to bring down the fleeing girl he had let someone else shoot. Mead laid a hand on Hawks’ shoulder and said quietly, “It’s over. God has delivered His enemies into our hand.” The men looked at each other. Hawks straightened from his firing stance and relaxed his grip on the musket. Squinting, he looked upward again, searching for the sky still hidden behind clouds of red-orange smoke.
© Copyright 2003, 2005, 2006 by Danielle Skjelver. All rights reserved.
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