I started Runarchism one year ago on Halloween, which also happens to be my birthday. This was one of the first pieces I posted, a dramatized retelling of an ancestral true crime story. It is best read out loud at night around a campfire.
These events really happened to ancestors of mine in the year of 1844-1845 on Isle la Motte, a small island in Lake Champlain near the border with Canada. It includes flashbacks to events in 1814 during the military buildup culminating in the Battle of Plattsburgh between British and US forces during the war of 1812. The characters of the story are fictionalized versions of people who really lived. The Abenaki name for the lake where this story takes place is Bitawbágw, “the waters in between.” The name of the island is Azíbidzizikók, and it stands as the boundary between Abenaki and Mohawk/Haudenosaunee lands.
The thin powder flew in drifty wisps across the granite ice the day Pipershine the Peddler returned to Isle la Motte. The island drew him ashore, his mind fixed on the stone house ahead, his mule plodding up to home, towards the goal that animated his master’s annual circuit. It had been just a few days since Mr. Pike had thrown him out. He had waited, bided his time, but could wait no more. Today would be the day. He would win her hand forever, the moon-faced girl who waited there in Hill House atop the rise in the road with the ship’s light in the gable.
With the thought of her, the icy cutting wind parted around the armor of warmth emanating from Pipershine’s hopeful heart.
She will laugh when she sees me again! I will surprise her! Yes, she will laugh! Pipershine giggled in his furs, the mule plodding, the wheels of his cart bumping over the frozen furrows of muddy road that bore him up and on. It would be soon, indeed.
He’d been here for a year, working for her hand. Being a peddler on Isle la Motte, cut off from the world by the waters of the lake, would seem to be bad business. But in the winter the lake was Pipershine’s highway. He could carry his wares across the ice to Plattsburgh and Montreal and St. Albans and Burlington and pay no ferryman’s fare. In the summer he could do well enough on the island as a hired hand.
Business had been good that year. He had kept from drink, slept under his cart on his travels when the nights weren’t too cold, stayed apart from bad company. He had saved, and he had bought the two acres by the marsh with the loamy soil. It would finally be his home. Her home. How many children shall I sire with her? He wondered. He would be the pride and envy of the island when she was his. Judge Pike would doff his hat. Mrs. Pike’s protective frown would melt away along with her heart of iron. The stone fortress of Hill House would open its gates and he would enter, for he had won her heart. No, not a lowly peddler am I. They will see!
And besides, he thought, she is not theirs! She is not theirs! If only her mother lived yet. If only her father had not gone to seek his fortune. They loved me once! But now this witch, this mother hen, always watching, breathing always on my shoulder! Pipershine spat, the frozen spittle clacking on the mud and joining the brine in his beard. A shiver shook his arms, but the mule remained insensible to the tremble in the reins.
Blasted cold. But the thought of the moon-faced girl retuned him to his reverie and he forgot the cold as the cart climbed the rise in the road to the Hill House. She will be mine. Yes, she will be mine indeed!
One year ago Mrs. Pike sat in her parlor with Pruda, the maid. Pruda had grown from an older girl to a young woman but she still had much to learn, and with loving patience Mrs. Pike corrected her needlework. “Yes, just like that my dear, very good,” she gently intoned with her hand on young Pruda’s shoulder.
But Mrs. Pike was preoccupied, her worried mind turning to that man. He will be coming around any day now, she thought. Why does Ezra insist on letting him stay and work? There’s something not right about the man! She didn’t like the way he looked at Pruda. Lecherous man! I feel it in my bones!
Mrs. Pike was not sleeping well those days. In her dreams she was 16, back in her childhood home. 1814, the war. Shouts in the kitchen. Two thunderous bangs. The whip and slice of the sabre that laid open her brother Ira’s brave and handsome face. She cowered in her bed. When she crept out trembling the American sailors were gone, the smell of liquor and gunpowder poisoning the air, her father choking on his last breaths on the floor, her brother screaming in rage and pain. But what she remembered most was her brother’s teeth as she stretched his cheek back over them and applied her practiced needlework on flesh, the outraged militia mingling and arguing in the yard. This is what she saw in her dreams, the rage and helplessness mixed with horror in her brother’s eyes. They will hang for this, Ira, she sobbed. They must hang!
They didn’t hang – days later those same drunken marauders became heroes at Plattsburgh, the bloody battle that thundered up the lake from her home, her militiamen called up to bleed with them. She stood on the beach and watched the apocalypse, numb. Smoke enveloping sails. Burning town. Even her father’s friend the Commodore could do nothing. Damn politicians. The murderers made untouchable by order of the Assembly. Later, ashamed, she secretly wished the British had had better aim.
It would never happen again. Of that she was sure. She wouldn’t let it. Never. Her nightmares, along with the scar Ira bore fiercely to this day, kept her sharp.
The fast knocking came at the door sooner than she’d hoped. It was him. That knocking – quick, urgent, trying to sound friendly but too eager instead. Dutifully, Pruda rose to answer, but Mrs. Pike stilled her with a gentle hand on her knee, bidding her to resume her seat. “Seneca, it’s him. Please answer the door and if he asks after Pruda tell him she’s not to home.”
Seneca understood. Being the eldest son, it fell to him to be the protector when father was away, which his father often was, so he would help out with his parents’ farm when his own farm work was done. He, too, was wary of Pipershine, but his father had a soft spot for the man and was helping him get on his feet. Mr. Pike had given him a loan to buy that land near the marsh, and in a letter Pipershine promised to spend the year working it off as a hired hand.
Seneca opened the door, his short stature more than compensated for by his stout, strong frame, curved face and full beard. “Pipershine,” he said, feigning friendliness, “you’re here early. But that’s fine, come on in and sit by the kitchen fire.”
“Thank you. Thank you. I’m quite warm actually. These buffalo robes I traded from out west – at a very cheap price I might add - do me just fine!” Pipershine’s eyes were eager, shining. He was just a bit out of breath as he stamped the snow off his boots. “I have several more here for sale. I think the islanders will love them! The wind off the ice does bite this time of year! But no matter. How is your mother? Is Mr. Pike well? Is Pruda to home? I hope your parents are well! I would very much like to give my personal regards to Pruda.”
Pipershine’s chattering was picking up steam and running away from him, manifesting his true desire. Seneca’s eyes flashed with irritation at this, but he composed himself and suppressed the urge to throw the man out into a snowbank. But the warm air of the solid stone house was rushing out into the gloaming, so Seneca drew him inside and back to the kitchen.
He pulled up a chair and poured his guest a cup of brandy to cut the chill, but Pipershine’s eyes wandered towards the stairs, from where the sound of womens’ voices and footfalls filtered through the door. Seneca sat down, his chair between Pipershine and the kitchen door, his stern eyes glowering into Pipershine’s. Just give me an excuse, he wanted to say to him. Seneca poured himself a drink, drank it off, and poured another, firmly planting the cup with his arm across the table as if to give form to the invisible wall he’d raised before his guest. Pipershine giggled nervously and shifted in his seat.
They sat wordlessly, Seneca watching and secretly enjoying Pipershine’s discomfort, until Mrs. Pike descended the stairs to announce that the room was ready. Pipershine rose, bowed slightly to Seneca, and pushed past Mrs. Pike and climbed the stairs. As he came even with the archway into the parlor he stopped at the sight of Pruda. She sat in a cushioned armchair, her hands clutched on her lap, looking away at the floor.
Pruda was frightened, her heart racing, breathing labored under her corset, the hair of her arms and neck standing on end. She hated this man and his attentions towards her. He was more than twice her age. She wanted to get away, but he stood between her and escape. But Mrs. Pike was there watching over her as always, so she stood fast and endured the next moments.
To Pipershine, Pruda’s fear appeared as modesty, her labored breathing as passion, her averted eyes the propriety of a well-bred woman. The sight of her stoked his hunger. He stepped into the room and gave her a deep bow, then kissed her hand. Small. Delicate. Weak. I will be her protector. He tried to convey the promise with his burning eyes, but she would not meet his gaze. No matter, he said to himself, and turned and walked to his room, thanking his host.
For the rest of the winter Pipershine hocked his wares from door to door on the island. Every day he ventured forth with his cart and trunk. Every evening he returned with a lighter load and coins in his purse. But the islanders had begun to dread the sound of his mule and cart as much as Mrs. Pike and Pruda had at his arrival. At peoples’ homes he talked endlessly on topics having nothing to do with peddling, often making little sense at all, then suddenly remember himself and make a ceremony of opening his trunk to show his goods. People bought from him just to get him to leave.
He always returned in time for dinner. He would sit down with the hired hands to the warm meals prepared by Mrs. Pike and the maid Pruda. He would converse warmly with his hosts, but he refrained from the course talk of his fellow hands. He would regale them after dinner with tales of the far away people and places he’d seen on his travels, embellishing his stories with new details and dramas and larger than life people with every telling. In truth, storytelling was one of the peddler’s singular talents, and his listeners found themselves entranced in spite of themselves and urged him for one more tale after another. In this way he not infrequently earned bread, board, and whisky, but here in Hill House he only had one audience to win, and that was Pruda.
After paying for his necessary expenses, every week he faithfully paid down the principle of his loan from Mr. Pike, thereby assuring his creditor that his credit was worthy of confidence. Thus did Pipershine prevail on Mr. Pike to build him a small house on the two acres he had bought. Mr. Pike promptly put his sons and his hired hands to work. As the spring mud dried and the island was washed with the summer lake breezes, Pipershine’s house sprouted from the loamy soil near the marsh. Soon she will be mine, he said as he gazed on the half-built house. It is everything she could ever want. It is a present to her. Yes! I will work and work and she will love me and she will be in this house with me forever! No, Mrs. Pike can’t have her. No other man will have her. She loves me, and I love her. It is undoubtedly the truth!
This was the story he told himself morning and night, and its power over him grew with each telling. The words he spoke to himself grew in their power and took shape in his throat. Thus Pipershine began muttering to himself, turning the words about, as if trying to piece together a formula or puzzle that would make Pruda his if said just right and often enough. People couldn’t make out his mutterings and supposed they were odd but surely harmless.
And so it went. The days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and Pipershine’s obsession with Pruda only grew. As the house neared completion he imagined the life they would soon have. When the cold spring day came to hang the front door, Mr. Pike gave Pipershine the hammer to strike the hinge pin home. It was done. Today was the day of his triumph: he would ask Mr. Pike for Pruda’s hand, for who else could he ask with her real father gone?
But the confidence of Mr. Ezra Pike only went so far. Doing business with the man on the basis of good credit was just that, business. Mrs. Barbara Pike made no secret of her thoughts about Pipershine the Peddler, and Mr. Pike always took her opinions into advisement. She advised her husband to keep a sharp watch on the man, and to hasten the day when he would have his own bed. Her nightmares were haunting her sorely, and the bags under her eyes told the tale.
So when Pipershine drove home that final hinge, Mr. Pike breathed a sigh of relief. He had been called to jury duty that week - a case of murder, no less - and would likely be days gone. Now he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving his wife and maid to home with this increasingly questionable man.
But his relief was premature. That evening, after the supper had been cleared, Pipershine leaned over and conspiratorially touched the arm of Mr. Pike and whispered, “May I have a word with you in private, sir?”
Ohh, Jeezum, what now? Mr. Pike thought to himself. “Yes, okay, let’s go to the parlor,” he said out loud. If we can just keep things normal for a bit longer…
But Pipershine had nothing normal on his mind, unless you consider a sudden marriage proposal an everyday affair. He was nervous, fidgety, his voice quavering and his hands flitting about not knowing where to go. Nothing like the eloquence he commanded when telling one of his stories. He had a magnificent speech all rehearsed, but that didn’t matter.
“Sir, I love Pruda and she loves me and we want to get married and I think you’re like a father to her so I’m asking for her hand. Can I? Sir?”
Mr. Pike was dumbfounded. “I….” his voice caught in his throat as he collected himself. “Um, Mr. Pipershine, you have been a good worker and even a business partner, but not once have I considered you a match for our Pruda. Not once have I seen Pruda so much as look at you. But, sir, I have seen the way you look at her. It isn’t right. It isn’t…appropriate! We can’t abide it any more. You have your own roof to sleep under. I ask you to make use of it this night!” By this point Mr. Pike was standing out of his chair, shooing Pipershine towards the door.
“But…Mr. Pike…I… She will! She loves me! It’s all for her! It is all for her! A gift for her!” Pipershine’s voice at the door resounded through the halls, drawing out Seneca and two of the hands from where they were conversing in the kitchen. Seneca, short as he was, had a way of looming when the occasion called for it, and this one did. Cowed, Pipershine slunk away into the night.
They saw or heard nothing from Pipershine for nigh a week, but Mrs. Pike felt him. Knew he wasn’t gone. She kept her eye on the window, her ear on the door waiting for his nervous knock. The smallness of the island that once made it feel protected and homelike, now made it feel like a prison knowing that that man was sharing it with them. She went about her daily tasks but always kept Pruda within eye and earshot.
So that day, the day when Pipershine crossed the ice back to the island to win his Pruda, he was unable to believe she’d never been his. She will come away with me. She will come away! Her passion for me is ripe! Mr. Pike is away. The hands will be at work. Mrs. Pike will have to milk the cow or collect the eggs or some such chore, and that is when I’ll come to her!
And that is what Pipershine did. He left his cart off the road and crept up near the house, waiting for his chance. When it came, he snuck in through the kitchen door, up the stairs, secreted himself in his old bedroom, and waited. For hours he waited. Listening.
It was the day Mr. Pike was supposed to return from jury duty, and Mrs. Pike had the anticipation of relief at his appearance at the bottom of the hill. But the day passed, supper was served and put away, and still no Ezra. She sat in the dining room with Pruda and her daughter Anna, and her brother William and the hand Sidney were downstairs. The women were too anxious and excited to see Mr. Pike to focus on their work, so they just waited. But idle waiting didn’t help with the anxiety one bit, so finally Mrs. Pike decided having something for their hands to do would pass the time better after all.
“Pruda, can you go to the parlor and bring those garments I hung up? I’d like us to do some mending while we wait.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Pruda stood and walked to the parlor, and as she lifted the garments off the bar, one of the bedroom doors quietly opened and out peered Pipershine with his finger on his lips, eyes aflame. “Shhhh, I must speak with you!” He said in a hoarse whisper.
Pruda shrieked and ran towards the dining room, but Pipershine appeared again at her elbow. He grabbed her arm with a vise grip and, still trying to whisper, said “be quiet, I just want to talk! Please, I want to be with you! Come with me!”
“No! Get away from me!! Let me go!” Pruda shouted and tried to pull away.
He began dragging her back towards the bedroom.
“You love me!”
“No!”
“Yes, you love me. Come with me!”
“No, leave me alone! I hate you!”
Those last three words cut through the veil that separated reality from delusion in Pipershine’s mind, shattering the fever dream that cloaked his vision. He stopped, dumbfounded, mouth agape. His face contorted from shock into rage, drool on his beard, the veins protruding from his forehead. He drew a long bowie knife from under his coat.
Pruda called down the stairs, “Help! Sidney! William!”
“Then you will belong to no one!” Pipershine spoke in a low growl and swung wildly at the object of his passion, plunging and slashing, her blood splattering the wall. Two strong hands seized Pruda and thrust her aside into the hallway, her hand clutching the wound. Mrs. Pike came charging headlong towards the peddler, fire shovel in hand.
Pipershine would not stop. Blind and furious, slashing, thrusting, slashing more, once again in a dream. In his fog came Mrs. Pike and her arms dragging him down and her hand wrapped around the knife tearing it free and her knee between his shoulders pinning him to the floor, and it was the wrath of God and the fires of hell at once pouring from her eyes, insensible to the mortal wounds covering her body.
The men pulled her off the helpless peddler while William leveled his shotgun at his head. His fury blew out his mouth in short gasps of fine spray. The peddler fell to blubbering and sobs. “Please don’t kill me! Please please please please don’t kill me I’ll stop I’ll stop I’m sorry just please don’t kill me I just want to go home now! Please! Pruda, oh Pruda I’m sorry!” They carried Mrs. Pike, still fighting, to her bed, leaving a smear of blood in their wake.
Once they had locked the limp and blubbering peddler in a bedroom and left William standing guard, the girls ran to meet Mr. Pike coming up the road from the frozen ferry dock. He rushed home in a panic, guilt-wracked that he had ever left them with that man on the island. Jury duty be damned!
“He will hang for this!” Ezra said as he leaned over her and met her eyes. Her eyes were somewhere else. She didn’t see Ezra’s kind face with the bushy sideburns she used as handles to steal a kiss. She saw her brother Ira, still young, his teeth gritted through his open, bloody cheek. “They have to hang this time! They won’t get away this time! Not again. Never again!”
Pipershine the Peddler did not hang. The court declared him criminally insane, and he lived to a ripe old age in the Windsor Insane Asylum down state. Poor Pruda survived her wounds, but the medicine of 1845 could not save Barbara Pike.
In those days it was important that one have a good death. Time to make one’s peace. Time to help one’s loved ones make theirs. Time to see the good and merciful hand of the Lord in all things. Even in this. A dying man or woman assumed a pastoral calling. Mrs. Pike had spiritual labor to do. Being murdered in 1845 was hard work, indeed.
It is said that Barbara Pike’s death was a good one. She took two months to die. Was it kindness she saw and felt at the end, as other tellers of this tale have told? Or was it the bared teeth of her brother growling back at her through the sabre slashed gore, living deep inside her, demanding recompense, never resting, ever haunting? Ira, commander of the island militia from the moment of his father’s last gasp, sailing towards the inferno, face held together by his sister’s thread, holding hell at bay, the thundering lightning flame and screams and death across the water. Never again.
Or maybe it was both mercy and vengeance together contending for her soul and the souls of her children.
I, your narrator, am one of her children. Maybe I see kindness, too. Or maybe I see the scar, the fury, a demand for justice – a demand that has voice because it has hope of realization. Standing watch in hope of a life free from harm, a hope tainted because the land we guard was taken by theft. Can it be both? Mercy and justice one and the same yet wrestling in the mud and the blood and leaving one wounded and limping and scarred, never the same again? To face the horror, the trauma, to absorb its fury, to be the last one. Not one more. It stops here. Never again.
Barbara is still dead...