Six Women of Salem (45 page)

That man still has his wits about him.

Francis is profoundly tired but cannot sleep.

If he sleeps, then he dreams, and he has woken too many times as he reaches across the bed and finds . . . emptiness. Rebecca has been imprisoned for months, and yet encountering her palpable absence still frightens him. All those petitioners, all those papers, all the trips to Boston—and still this emptiness gnaws at him. Sometimes he feels as though his heart has been ripped out.

And then he thinks,
As God sees fit.

The rest of the diminished household are quiet behind their bed-curtains, but Francis needs air even if it is night. He steps outside the front door and away from the quiet house into the sweltering night.

There—over the fields he and his sons have worked so long to own and cultivate—rising in the constellation of Aquarius floats the full moon. Capped by an icy white crescent, most of it is shadowed by a rust color, like dried blood, nearly eclipsed.

Francis sees this with a farmer’s eye.

This cosmic “miracle” is not unexpected, having been forecast in the year’s almanac. When he first read about it the previous winter it seemed a wonder. Now, it seems an omen—even if it is natural. He watches the moon in the vast stillness. He listens to the dry rustle of his corn—the fields need rain but no rain falls—and the shrill song of night insects.

He turns back into the house and locks the door.

A little light flickers from the hearth. He finds the Bible box and reaches in for
Tully’s Almanac.
Leaning close to the hearth’s embers, he finds the pages for July 17 and on eclipses.

Considering its placement in the sky, this total eclipse of the moon “may presage the Death of Aged persons, as well as persons of Quality.”

Or presage the deaths of God’s own saints,
he thinks.

He grips the almanac. On Tuesday next his wife of forty-four years will hang.

(
12
)

Ann and Thomas Putnam wait by the roadside west of Salem’s Town Bridge for the procession to arrive. She holds her husband’s arm. Annie and the servant Mercy, quiet and composed—for now at least—sit on the grass in the shade of the wagon. A few other families from the Village have gathered at the base of the hill. Where is the sense in going all the way into town—events will come to them.

Except for the occasional burst of nervous laughter, conversations are subdued. Ann can hear the ripping sound as their horse tears at the grass and weeds within his reach. Some of the other men greet Tom, hailing him respectfully—as they ought, considering all the work he has done for the community and how many of their lazy carcasses he has employed.

Workmen near the base of the hill bend under the already hot sun and dig. The sharp
shush
of their iron spades cut the shallow earth and make muffled thuds when a blade hits rock. Bedrock lies close under the surface of this hill and shoulders out of the dry grass. The men must dig a larger grave for this execution than they did for Bridget Bishop, now half forgotten. The diggers sweat, but imbibing at the tavern seems hours distant.

Today five will hang.

The oppressive day grows hotter. The hangman, pipe clenched in his teeth and a line of smoke trailing him, arrives with his ropes and sets about arranging them on the gallows.

Eventually, from the distance, Ann and the rest of those waiting hear a crowd approaching from town. The diggers hurry to finish their work.

On the far side of the tidal inlet a churning clot of people on foot and on horseback heaves into view as it follows a cart near the head of the procession. The crowd’s murmur increases as the parade advances down the slope until the mass of people and horses narrows to cross the causeway and clump across the bridge. For a solemn occasion the crowd nevertheless sounds nearly festive at the prospect of what will happen. The workmen scramble from the completed grave and drift aside, as there is no profit in being recognized. The sheriff and his men urge their mounts up the steep turn-off from road to rocky pasture, and the cart’s wheels screech on the sharp slope. This official part of the procession arranges itself along the level ground as the followers vie for a view of the gallows. The crowd seems more edgy, the officers more wary, than they had been at the Bishop hanging, for a rumor is circulating throughout the region that the Devil himself will attempt to rescue his own.

Thomas lifts Ann down from the wagon and they walk up the slope to find a vantage point. Annie and the maid move off to stand with the other afflicted witnesses, as is their right. The prisoners’ cart lurches toward the gallows, and there, among the other condemned Ann sees the Nurse woman, that self-righteous hag, brought to earthly justice at last, though not yet before the final judgment of God.

Rebecca Nurse, Ann’s idea of a supposedly powerful sorceress, droops against the side of the cart. She prays silently, as she has been praying through much of the restless night past. Not far from the more eager folk, her family stands grimly with the kindred of the other women to be hanged: Susannah Martin, Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, and Elizabeth How.

The deputies support the shackled women, stiff from the jolting ride, down from the cart. Rebecca looks around to see where her children are—to look once more on Francis. She picks them out at the margin of the seething mass and thinks she recognizes some of How’s family as well.

Does Sarah Good have anyone here?
she wonders.
And what will happen to young Dorothy, discarded in Boston jail? That father of hers seems of no more help to the child than he’s been to his wife.

The sheriff reads out the warrant for the execution of the five. A minister or two step forward to offer prayers, for hope that these souls of the condemned be not utterly lost. The soon-to-be executed make their own defiant statements, praying that God will reveal their innocence.

Some listeners snort in derision.

The long confinement and blistering summer heat have weakened nRebecca. Nevertheless, when it is her turn, she is resolved to face the Almighty with a clear conscience. This means dying in a spirit of Christian charity, offering forgiveness toward one’s enemies rather than exiting this life in a fury of resentment. Her voice falters, but she is equally determined to speak the truth about herself and prays that God will prove to these people that she has
never
allied herself to Satan.

Reverend Noyes begins talking again. Rebecca hears only some of his words as he raises his voice to urge Sarah Good to confess for the good of her soul.

Exasperated at Good’s stubborn refusal, Noyes declares, “You are a witch. You
know
you are a witch.”

Good cuts off whatever he might say next. “
You
are a liar!” she shouts. “I am no more a witch than you are a wizard.”

The onlookers gasp. Someone titters at such futile boldness. “And if you take away my life, God will give you blood to drink!” She speaks loud enough that even Rebecca hears. The afflicted who are present hear it too and raise a commotion.

Ann Putnam is aghast at Sarah’s impudence. She recognizes the Scriptural reference of God’s vengeance from the
Book of Revelation:
“For they shed the blood of the saints, and prophets, and therefore hast thou given them blood to drink.” She knows Reverend Noyes also recognizes the verse, for he makes
Revelation
the subject of much scholarly study and many sermons. Saints and prophets, indeed!

But the defiance of the damned changes nothing.

The executions proceed: Good and Martin are proud and resisting, Nurse, Wildes, and How submit with humble dignity. The relatives witness it all as if memorizing the deed, storing the details like ammunition for future confrontations. The afflicted utter cries of relief as, one after another, each hooded body swings free from the ladder and the crowd mutters their reaction.

The Putnam kin present feel relief at each death—one less threat, one less rival. And they note, with satisfaction, that the Devil did not arrive to save
any
of Satan’s handmaids. Bitch-witches, old George Jacobs had called his accusers, but now see who triumphs.

Finally—it is over.

The edge of the crowd frays and scatters.

The relatives linger. By custom the bodies must dangle where they are for a certain time as warnings, but the day is hot, and the now-empty mortal shells will need to be buried soon.

Mrs. Ann Putnam breathes deeply, but despite the heat, she leans against Thomas and wraps her shawl closer, a thin protection for herself and the child inside her.

Now Nurse’s soul is safely locked in Hell,
Ann thinks.
At least she can’t harm this child.
Ann has counted back the months and estimated that this baby was conceived when all this trouble began. Nor has it ended—five witches this time, the prisons full, yet more still free to pursue their wicked plans.

What will become of my child?

Annie, who has been standing with the other afflicted, comes over to her parents. It is time to go home.

Francis and his family do not leave. They wait for the workmen to bring the bodies down from the gallows and bury them in the shallow grave dug earlier. Determined to give Rebecca a proper burial at least, they wait in stony silence to claim her body.

____________________

A
strong family tradition would relate that Rebecca’s family collected her body by night, disinterred it in some accounts, and brought it home. When historian and former Salem mayor Charles Upham recreated the scene in 1867, he speculated that they brought her body “tenderly in their arms along the silent roads and by-ways” to the Nurse farm. Other tellers have them carry the body to a small boat on the stream leading to the North River, row downstream under cover of darkness into the estuary and north to the mouth of Crane Brook, then work their way upstream to their own land. In both versions they buried Rebecca’s body, but it would need to be washed first and then wrapped in a winding sheet. The farm, over the generations, maintained a small family burial ground across the fields to the west of the house and barn, not far from Crane Brook.

But would they need to do all this in secrecy?

Supposed witches and other felons were not barred from burial in consecrated ground, for Puritan burial grounds were not consecrated in the first place. Burying a felon by the place of execution was traditional in England and New England, but if families removed a body, then that was one less task for the county to pay for. The land route would have been the simpler, more direct method of bringing her broken body home.

Another part of the family lore was that Caleb Buffum helped remove the body. Buffum lived across the Town Bridge from the ledges, within sight of the hangings and was, moreover, related through marriage to Rebecca’s aunts. In some versions he helped secret the body to a waiting boat or helped dig the body from the shallow common grave or even provided a coffin, for he was a carpenter as well as a farmer.

On the same day as the executions of the five women, Constable Joseph Ballard entered his formal complaint against Mary Lacey of Andover and her daughter Mary Jr. (daughter and granddaughter of confessor Goody Foster). They had tormented his wife Elizabeth Ballard, who had been “this Severall monthes Sorely aflicted & visited wth Strange pains and pressures & remains So to this day which I verily beleive is Occasioned by Witchcraft.” He presented this in Salem to magistrates Bartholomew Gedney, John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and John Higginson Jr., and this time he posted a bond of £100 to prove his intention to prosecute. (Such a bond was required by law, yet only one other witch complaint this year, entered before local Ipswich authorities, had so far included this detail. Either Ballard, as a constable, expected to post bond, or Higginson, as a new member of the magistrates, reminded the others of the requirement. The magistrates thereafter would apply this part of the law’s requirements.) Hathorne signed for all.

The law arrested Goodwife Mary Lacey of Andover—old Goody Foster’s daughter—for tormenting Goodwife Ballard and brought her, but not her daughter, to Salem for questioning by Gedney, Hathorne, Corwin, and Higginson. Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard were especially tormented during this hearing, and soon enough Mary Lacey too confessed to attending the great witch meeting in the Village. However, she said that although her mother, who had already confessed, also attended, she was not a part of it. Her mother only “stood at a distance off and did not partake at that meeting” of the Devil’s sacrament.

Hathorne then issued the arrest warrant for Mary Lacey Jr. for tormenting Goodwife Ballard, again signing for the other three. He added a note to the arresting officer: “You are likewise required to Search diligently in the house & aboute it for popetts &c.”

Abundant, if disordered, notes for the daughter’s questioning, which began the following day, survive. Mary Warren was definitely among the afflicted witnesses on July 21, when all three generations faced the magistrates. Ann Foster had already confessed to placing her mark in the Devil’s book and, perhaps unaware of her daughter’s earlier assertion, today described the great witch meeting in Salem Village while trying not to implicate her daughter, much like the way Mary Lacey had tried to direct the court’s attention away from her mother Goody Foster. However, both had separately confessed.