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Show Page 191 heads at the sound of the first cries of alarm. They now fled toward their homes, their families. Had they kept in their hands the tools with which they hoed the ground, or even stayed together in a group, perhaps they might have lived. Yet even as I watched, an Indian sprang upon Christopher from behind a shed and drove a knife into his heart. Thomas made it to his house and inside. He did not come out again and moments later I saw two Indians leave the house, pausing only to set it afire. The cries had aroused the few men within the fort, and their heads appeared above the palisade. But there was little they could do from within, for most of the Indians remained near the houses, and any attempt to fire upon them would surely kill a settler as well. William James stepped out the door of the longhouse and was struck down with a spade, then his scalp savagely sliced from his pate. I closed my eyes, bile choking me, my head in a darkening swirl. Knowing that if I went into a swoon I would fall to my death, I lowered my shawl to my waist and tied it about the trunk of the tree, taking care to make little movement lest I be seen. Though I was high above the murderers, and my grey gown blended with the bark of the maple, it and the trees all about were still bare and open. I longed to close my eyes and sleep, hoping to awake and find it was all one of Twig's bad dreams, yet my gaze was drawn |