North Woods: A Novel

North Woods is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Daniel Mason

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Random House and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Published in the United Kingdom by John Murray Press, a Hachette company.

Photo credits: This page: Lucian Turner, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, [06549100]. This page: Daniel Huntington, Courtesy of the Century Association, New York. This page: Kate Wolff. This page: Courtesy of the Vermont Historical Society. This page: Courtesy of University of Michigan Library. This page: Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection. This page: artist unknown, likely Mark Jefferson; courtesy of the Eastern Michigan University Archives.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mason, Daniel (Daniel Philippe)

Title: North woods: a novel / Daniel Mason.

Description: First Edition. | New York: Random House, [2023]

Identifiers: LCCN 2022056687 (print) | LCCN 2022056688 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593597033 (Hardback) | ISBN 9780593597057 (Ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3613.A816 N67 2023 (print) | LCC PS3613.A816 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20221205

LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2022056687

LC ebook record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2022056688

International ISBN 9780593730621

Ebook ISBN 9780593597057

randomhousebooks.com

Book design by Simon M. Sullivan, adapted for ebook

Cover design: Anna Kochman

Cover images: Private Collection © Purix Verlag Volker Christen/Bridgeman Images (cougar), Private Collection/Bridgeman Images (clouds)

ep_prh_6.1_148359409_c0_r4

…to build a fire on Ararat with the remnants of the ark.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Chapter One

Anonymous, the Nightmaids Letter

Chapter Two

Osgood’s Wonder, Being the Reminiscences of an Apple-Man

Chapter Three

The Catamount, or a True Relation of a Bloody Encounter That Lately Happen’d; a Song for Voice and Fife, to the Tune of Cheerily and Merrily

From Proverbs and Sayings

Chapter Four

The Doleful Account of the Owl and the Squirrel; or How the Land Came to Be Forested Again, Being a New Winter’s Ballad; Written by a Pair of Grave Sisters, for Children. to the Tune Then My Love and I Will Marry

Letters to E.N.

Chapter Five

A December Song. Another Ballad by a Pair of Grave Maids, to the Tune of When Phoebus Did Rest, &C. for Fife and Voice

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Case Notes on Robert S.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Murder Most Cold

Chapter Ten

An Address to the Historical Society of Western Massachusetts

Chapter Eleven

A Cure for Lovesickness, Being a Spring Song, Sung to Celebrate the Remedy of a Long Affliction, to the Tune of the Yearning Maid

3 Bd, 2 Ba

Chapter Twelve

Succession

Dedication

Acknowledgments

By Daniel Mason

About the Author

_148359409_

One

THEY had come to the spot in the freshness of June, chased from the village by its people, following deer path through the forest, the valleys, the fern groves, and the quaking bogs.

Fast they ran! Steam rose from the fens and meadows. Bramble tore at their clothing, shredding it to rags that hung about their shoulders. They crashed through thickets, hid in tree hollows and bear caves, rattling sticks before they slipped inside. They fled as if it were a child’s game, as if they had made off with plunder. My plunder, he whispered, as he touched her lips.

They laughed with the glee of it. They could not be found! Solemn men marched past them with harquebuses cocked in their elbows, peered into the undergrowth, stuffed greasy pinches of tobacco into their pipes. The world had closed over them. Gone was England, gone the Colony. They were Nature’s wards now, he told her, they had crossed into a Realm. Lying beneath him in the leaves, in the low hollow of an oak, she arched her neck to watch the belted boots and leather scabbards swinging across the wormy ceiling of the world. So close! she thought, biting his hand to stifle her joy. Entwined, they watched the stalking dogs and met their eyes, saw recognition cross their dog-faces, the conspiring shiver of their tails as they continued on.

They ran. In open fields, they hid within the shadows of the bird flocks, and in the rivers below the silver veil of fish. Their soles peeled from their shoes. They bound them with their rags, with bark, then lost them in the sucking fens. Barefoot they ran through the forest, and in the sheltered, sappy bowers, when they thought they were alone, he drew splinters from her feet. They were young and they could run for hours, and June had blessed them with her berries, her untended farmer’s carts. They paused to eat, to sleep, to steal, to roll in the rustling meadows of goldenrod. In hidden ponds, he lifted her dripping from the water, set her on the mossy stone, and kissed the river streaming from her tresses and her legs.

Did he know where he was going, she asked him, pulling him to her, tasting his mouth, and always he answered, Away! North they went, to the north woods and then toward sun-fall, trespassing like fire, but the mountains bent their course and the bogs detained them, and after a week they could have been anywhere. Did it matter? Rivers carried them off and settled them on distant, sun-warmed banks. The bramble parted, closed behind them. In the cataracts, she felt the spring melt pounding her shoulders, watched him picking his way over the streambed, hunting creekfish with his hands. And he was waiting for her, winged in a damp blanket which he wrapped around her, lowering her to the earth.

—

They had met in, of all places, church. She had known of him, been warned of him, heard that he stirred up trouble back in England, had joined the ships only to escape. Fled Plymouth, fled New Haven, to settle in a hut on Springfield’s edge. They said he was ungodly, consorted with heathens, disappeared into the woods to join in savage ritual. Twice she’d seen him watching her; once she met him on the road. This was all, but this was all she needed. She felt that she had sprung from him. He watched her through the sermon, and she felt her neck grow warm beneath his gaze. Outside, he asked her to meet him in the meadow, and in the meadow, he asked her to meet him by the river’s bank. She was to be married to John Stone, a minister of twice her age, whose first wife had died with child. Died beaten with child, her sister told her, died from her wounds. On the shore, beneath the watch of egrets, her lover wrapped his fingers into hers, made promises, rolled his grass sprig with his tongue. She’d been there seven years. They left that night, a comet lighting the heavens in the direction of their flight.

—

From a midwife’s garden: three potatoes. Hardtack from the pocket of a sleeping shepherd. A chicken from a settler’s homestead, a laying chicken, which he carried tucked beneath his arm. My sprite! he called his lover in the shelter of the darkness, and she looked back into his eyes. He was mad, she thought, naked but for his scraps of clothing, his axe, his clucking hen. And how he talked! Of Flora, the dominion of the toad and muck-clam, the starscapes of the fireflies, the reign of wolf and bear and bloom of mold. And around them, in the forest, everywhere: the spirits of each bird and insect, each fir, each fish.

She laughed—for how could there be space? There’d be more fish than river. More bird than sky. A thousand angels on a blade of grass.

Shh, he said, his lips on hers, lest she offend them: the raccoon, the worm, the toad, the will-o’-the-wisp.

—

They ran. They married in the bower, said oaths within the oaken hollow. On the trees grew mushrooms large as saddles. Grey birds, red snakes, and orange newts their witnesses. The huckleberries tossed their flowers. The smell of hay rose from the fern they crushed. And the sound, the whir, the roar of the world.

They ran. The last farms far behind them; now only forest. They followed Indian paths through groves hollowed by fire, with high green vaults of celestial scale. On the hottest days, they climbed the rivers, chicken on his shoulder, her hand in his. Mica dusted her heels like silver. Damselflies upon her neck. Flying squirrels in the trees above them, and in the silty sand the great tracks of cats. Sometimes, he stopped and showed her signs of human passage. Friends, he said, and said that he could speak the language of the people this side of the mountains. But where were they? she wondered. And she stared into the green that surrounded them, for fear was in her, and loneliness, and she didn’t know which one was worse.

And then, one morning, they woke in the pine duff, and he declared they were no longer hunted. He knew by the silence, the air, the clear warp of summer wind. The country had received them. In the Colony, two black lines were drawn through two names in the register. The children warned of thrashings if they spoke of them again.

They reached the valley on the seventh day. Above them, a mountain. Deer track led through a meadow that rose and narrowed northly, crossed through the dark remnants of a recent fire. A thin trail followed a tumbling brook to a pond lined with rushes. Across the slope: a clearing, beaver stumps and pale-green seedlings rising from the rich black ash.

Here, he said.

Songbirds flitted through the burn. They stripped their last rags, swam, and slept. It was all so clear, so pure. From his little bag, he withdrew a pouch containing seeds of squash and corn and fragments of potato. Began to pace across the hillside, the chicken following at his feet. At the brook, he found a wide, flat stone, pried it from the earth, and carried it back into the clearing, where he laid it gently in the soil. Here.

Anonymous, The Nightmaids Letter

ON the 7th of July, came the heathens in great number, upon the village in the middle of the night. And I was awake with my babe when I saw fire at the stockades and heard shots and shouting. Then my husband woke, and bid me hide with the child. Swiftly, he ran to lock the door, but then they breachd it and struck him down and murderd him, still in his nightclothes. Then came one and orderd me to follow, but such was my fear I could not move, though the house was burning and cinders were falling from the rafters. I thought I should prefer to die with my husband than go with these murderous creatures, but the heathen grabbd me and my babe. Outside the fires made it light as day. I saw my kin and neighbours slaughterd, my brother-in-law cut down before my eyes, my cousin shot, his belly slit, they fell on us like beasts on sheep. Everywhere were scatterd chairs and rakes and other things that people fought with. Then a panic seemd to come upon the heathens, for they calld to one another and, shouting, they ran to the breach in the stockade. Then was I taken by the one who first seizd me, and I had but stockings and no boots. With me were my neighbours and some carryd children and some wore nothing but their bedclothes. When we stoppd I lookd back, I could see the village burning, and in the light my neighbours’ weeping faces. Then our captors came and commanded us to follow. Through the woods they marchd us, there were six Indians and twenty capturd, but none made escape, so woeful were our hearts and so forbidding was the wilderness. Near me was my cousin, and she was weeping, and she told me all were gone, my father slayn, my mother slayn, my sister slayn—for she had seen them hatcheted. Then I prayd to God that He might take me, but I had displeasd Him and he wishd me to suffer longer on this earth. Each step took me farther from my home and into the darkness of the forest. Then dawn came and they bid us march faster, for they feard we would be discoverd. I was so benumbd, I wishd to lie down, but those that falterd were beaten, I but held my babe and tried to give him suck. In the afternoon we rested, and, seeing that many of us had only stockings on our feet, our captors made us shoes of birch bark. Then night came and they bound us together by hand and foot. And sleep came not to my eyes, for all night I thought only of my sorrows. I listend to my cousin praying for one who might save us, break the jaws of the wicked, and pluck the spoil out of his teeth. I tried to join, but my spirit was so oppressd that only cries came from my mouth. And this was the first night, and in the morning, when we were walking, my neighbour J—— came and said, Let us run, no fate can be worse than this. But I did not dare, and God blessd me in my wisdom, for shortly after noon I heard Indian shouts and saw a body crashing through the brush and they after him, and we were made to stop and wait, and all of us prayd that he might escape and bring help or at least save his own life. And though it was warm we were cold and shaking, and one of the heathens said, Think! Who has brought this suffering upon you? Who has made you wait here? And no sooner had he said this than there appeard the one who’d given chase, and he wiped his bloody hatchet on the moss and said, This be a lesson. And we walkd on, and night came, and this was the second night we slept in the muck, and in the morning I saw my babe was sick and not sucking, and I thought, He died, but still his body was warm when I pressd him to me. And such was my pain for my child that I could not feel my own pain, I walkd as if it was a dream, and sometimes I stumbld and fell. Then my friends would help raise me, for they too knew what fate would befall me if I delayd. This was the third day, but little I remember, for come evening, I began to feel weak and feverish, and all night I coughd. And in the morning, my captor came, and I knew he would kill me, but his blood lust had ebbd, for he went and conferd with another, and this one came down from his horse and they lifted me upon it. I did not know why he showd me this compassion, perhaps we were not many now, and they were displeasd with what they would get for ransom. And we walkd until night and stoppd beneath a ledge, but the heathen said, Come, and led my horse down a trail. Then I was weeping, and he said in English, Why do you cry, and I, I want to return to my people, and he, They are not your people anymore. And this filld me anew with terror, and truly, I thought to run so he would kill me and my child, for now I knew I would never see my home again. And I thought bitterly upon the words of Jeremiah, But shall he die in the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more. Then we came upon a clearing beneath a mountain, and there I saw what seemd to be a hut of log and stone, and a chicken in the yard, and there, my master whistld and the door opend, and an old woman most strange came out, she was dressd in skirts and blankets like an Indian, but her face was English and she spoke both English and the heathen’s tongue. And after some words I did not understand, my captor left me with this one. Come, she said, and took me in. It was a small house, with one room, and there was a hearth and she stoked the fire, then she strippd me and wrappd me in a blanket with my babe. Then she took my wet clothes and hung them above the fire and brought a broth and I drank, and then she gave some to my child, who took it and began to cry, and she said, Quick, give it your breast. And my child took it and such was my relief that for a moment I forgot my sorry plight. Then, when my babe had finishd feeding, I drank again though the broth smelld unwholesome, I did not question, so far had I come in my hunger that I might drink from the spoon of the heathen’s friend. I slept and late that night I awoke, I was with fever and now a thought came upon me that the woman would harm me. This fancy grew stronger until all reason had left me, I knew she would kill me and my child or give it to the D—l. I rose and there next to the hearth was the poker and I got it and stood above the demon, I would have killd her but my child began to wail. Then I went to my babe and fed him but I kept the poker, and the woman must have seen though it was dark, for she said, Come, foolish child, I am not a witch, and she went and came back with a book, and I saw it was a Bible. And she gave her names, both her Christian name and Indian name, for she had fled the Colony with her husband many years ago and lost him in that forsaken wilderness, and marryd a Praying Indian and lost him too. And I knew her name and his name for I oft heard whisper of these Godless fleeing people, though I thought them dead. And were you marryd with this husband before God? I askd her, for I had seen she did adorn herself as would the wicked, with a ring of silver on her finger. Or was it the D—l who shaped that omen to your skin? You are sick, she said, and I said, I know a sinner! and she, Only God knows who has a true heart, and I, But God has given me the ability to see. Then your eyes have scales, said she. And she was sitting next to me, for she had crossd the room in the darkness. Oh! said I. Will you require of us a song? And a hand touchd my head and she said that I was raving, and I knew then that she had poysond me. I ran out but I was naked and fell and then she was beside me. Godly woman! she cried. You flee without your child! Come! Then the fever was upon me fully, for days I ravd, and when I came about she said a fortnight had passd. And I did not know if it was a fortnight, but when I held my babe, I saw how he had grown. Look, she said, while you ravd I pressd him to your breast. And he was well and smiled handsomely, but I had heard of false children, made of the D—l’s clay, and when she went, I checkd him for marks of stitching that would show the seams. And he was wailing, for it was cold, and the old woman came back and said, Come, why do you distress him so? Then I askd might we pray together and she took the Bible and when we reachd those words As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more, then I began to weep. And she leand close and I saw she wore a necklace with charms of bone and iron. Put off thy ornaments from thee! I thought to cry, but I had been softend by her verses. And I askd, Is the heathen who took me truly your friend? and she said, The one who savd you is my friend. Then anger filled me, and I said, And is he who slayd my father your friend, and is he who slayd my sister? And she said, Has he not a father and a sister who were also slayn? And I hated her but she did not say more, instead she went out and I heard the sound of an axe and she came in and said, Will you just drink my broth? so I went out and carryd the wood inside. Then she took me and showd me how she livd, how she kept dried meat and corn and acorn meal in the loft above. And in a shed she showd me the baskets for fishing, and the traps, and these she showd me how to set out in the wood. Then dark fell and we went back and ate and I thought how the last time I broke bread was with my family who was dead, and I wept bitterly, and when I saw she had nothing to say, I askd, Will you not comfort me? and she said, I do not have the comfort which you seek. So my misery was great, but in the morning again there was work, though I did not forget my sorrow. Now I had been there a month. Each day I expected my captor to return, and no longer did I fear for my life, but that he would make me live among them and become an enemy of my own people. When I askd my mistress what would become of me, she said she did not know, perhaps they would trade me for one of theirs that had been taken, as for each of us there were a hundred of them that had been stolen from their homes. Now that I was strong, I thought again of running, but I feard a worse fate were I capturd. In the garden, there were beans, and corn, and squash, for long ago, she said, there was a beaver pond and so the land was rich. And she taught me to set snares for rabbits, and which of the mushrooms we might eat and which ones she calld nightmaids that we were to avoid for they were poyson. And sometimes I spoke with my mistress of other things. I askd her, if she lovd the Indians so, why did she not go and live with her second husband’s people? To this she answerd that sometimes in the winter she went to them, but most had died from the pestilence, and this was her home, the land was good. Then she spoke freely, she told me of the rites and dances, and the beasts of the place. And I told her this sounded like the D—l talking, but she took me out when it was night, and said, Come, don’t you notice? But there was nothing save the mountain and the forest, and this I told her. No, she said, listen, and we were quiet, and suddenly there it was, pacing, and there are no words to describe it, I do not lie. And fear oppressd my heart, but my mistress comforted me, for had not He promisd, For every beast of the forest is mine? Then we went back, and time passd, maybe three weeks, and the days were the same, and we both wonderd what had happend to my captor, when there arrivd a party, and lo! they were not Indians but three English scouts, and such was their surprise when they saw me with my babe. And my spirit leapt though I knew none by name, but they knew my story, for some of our captives had been ransomd, and told them I’d been taken. And I wept because it paind me to recall my dear husband and my family. As for my mistress, now was I afrayd that they might slay her, so I said that she was a Christian who had been marryd to a Praying Indian, that she continued to bring light to these dark forests. I saw she had removd her ring and necklace to her pocket. Then we welcomd them and brought them food and one of them, he bid me sit near him and from his pockets took an apple and invited me to taste. And I laughd, and said, Who am I, Eve? for he frightend me so. That night, we slept up in the loft, and my mistress closd the trapdoor, and movd over it some boards and I knew that it was so that none would come to us unchastely. The next morning, before the sun rose, they went out, and when they came back it was evening and they were laughing and I askd what made them so. Then the one who had offerd me the apple reachd into his bag, and there, wrappd in leaves, was a hand, small like a child’s. Tomorrow, he said, they would leave to bring more soldiers, for the boy had told them the location of the village and they would avenge the murders of our people. Then it was time to eat, so my mistress went out into the garden and I could see that she was weeping. When she returnd I went to her, she did not let me prepare the supper, but sent me up into the loft. Then she came to me and closd the door again. She had her axe. Downstairs, the men were eating, and she said, You must understand what is about to happen must happen so that there is no more bloodshed. And I must have lookd afraid for she said, It is so the Evil stops. And I was crying and nodded, but I did not understand, I saw she had put back on her ornaments, and she said, It is what is right, and from below us came a groaning, and a scrape of chair, and plates crashing, and a body on the floor was heaving. Then a second groan rose and a third and one of them screamd that they’d been poysond and we heard the ladder creak and there was pounding on our door. There we went and tried to block them from coming up, but with their guns they hammerd and broke it open. Then my mistress went with her axe and struck one, but the other had his musket and shot her through her good heart and killd her and I took her axe. The man came and as God is my witness, I acted only to defend my child. Then I took his musket and went and found one retching who in his agony had pushd his way outside. I thought he was dead but he came at me and God did not forsake me, but steadyd my hand. Then, I was wailing, my child wailing, but I feard I must work swiftly for others would come and find them. I strappd my child to my back and got the shovel and went out into the meadow above the house and dug and didn’t stop until dawn and then I went and draggd the bodies through the high wet grass. There I buryd them, the men together and my mistress nearer to the house, and prayd for their souls, that they might be forgiven for their sinning. And this I write and swear to be true, for I must leave and I cannot bear my secret any longer. May you that find it know what happend here, in this time of great conflict, in the Colony of Massachusetts, by she who briefly calld this place her home.

Two

IT is late August when the woman bundles up her child, closes the door to the cabin, and follows the trail to the edge of the clearing, where she stops to look back before she vanishes into the woods. Deer, lifting their heads above the goldenrod, watch her depart, and then move cautiously toward the garden. Across the valley