The Kanc



  The Kanc

  A short story

  by

  Steven R. Porter

  The Kanc Copyright © 2012 Steven R. Porter. All rights reserved. Written and produced in the United States of America. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission of the author.

  Works written by Steven R. Porter can be obtained either through the author’s official website: https://www.stevenporter.com or through select, online book retailers.

  Cover design by Dawn M. Porter.

  The Kanc

  By Steven R. Porter

  The Kancamagus Highway is one of the most scenic and breathtaking byways in all of North America, stretching through the heart of New Hampshire’s majestic White Mountain National Forest, and obediently delivering its tourist-laden contents into the kitschy ski resorts around bustling North Conway. The twisting, snaking road built upon the well-worn footpaths of natives long since displaced, scampers around and through the unpredictable rolling hills, valleys and stately mountains, and can be a challenge for any unprepared or inexperienced motorist. In the fall, the leaf-peepers, highlighted by garrisons of old entitled women in floppy hats accompanied by their slow, overweight husbands, clog the popular artery, dodging the occasional exasperated deer or moose, to absorb the fragrance, crisp color and beauty honored, worshipped and revered by generations.

  But in the blink of an eye, the vibrant leaves along the grand highway fall at the command of Mother Nature’s steely sabre, and a dutiful and harsh cold marches in, seemingly overnight, to replace the scenic picture book tranquility. Like the original native residents, the local citizens have learned to honor the authority of The Kanc, or otherwise risk becoming its victim, as The Kanc serves as not only the pathway of a great spirited forest bathed in majestic beauty, but it is also a sentinel, hunched down in silence, waiting to strike at those who convey it dishonor. The vindictive mountain blizzards are not too far behind, and always arrive too soon with an astonishing fury, as Dr. Jekyll begets Mr. Hyde, and the highway’s twists and turns become lathered with thick, white snow and glazed with unforgiving patches of black ice that thrust out and terrorize the discourteous like a jab from the point of an ancient sachem's favorite hunting spear.

  The visibility along The Kanc was poor from the moment Rick and Annie turned off the interstate and drove east late that afternoon. The combination of rain and raw air had created a bluish, hazy fog. And as it was prone to do during the early winter months, the precipitation was mutating into a heavy, wet snow, sticky and reminiscent of Annie’s own holiday garlic-mashed potatoes, covering the car's wiper blades in two thick, white starchy columns. The thirty mile drive through these mountains during any winter storm was unwise, but during an irate nor’easter, it was flat out foolish. The arrogant Rick Waldron held the steering wheel of his old, restored Dodge Dart at an instructor-perfect 10 and 2 o’clock posture, white-knuckled, peering through his glasses at the winding, white, wiggling, vanishing highway ahead of him.

  “You’re not listening to me, are you? I said we should turn back. We ought to go home, now. This is stupid.” Annie grumbled from the Dart’s threadbare passenger’s seat – the only part of the car Rick had not restored. “We’re going to kill ourselves out here… and we don’t even know how to ski.”

  Rick sulked and squeezed the wheel harder. Blue veins popped like angry worms from the back of his pudgy, liver-spotted hands.

  "This ski vacation is the first respectable gift that insolent daughter of yours has ever given us. I’ve endured forty years of ugly neckties and brown leather wallets waiting for this. I, for one, intend to enjoy it whether you want me to or not. So if you don’t want to go with me, you can get out and walk.”

  “Oh, poor you. Poor old Rick! How is it you’re always the victim? What about Lizzie? You should consider yourself lucky we got anything from Lizzie at all, considering the way you act around her. Why won’t you just accept her the way she is and leave her alone?” Annie asked, folding her arms in a harrumph of disgust.

  Rick squinted into the mushy darkness ahead of him as the car suddenly fishtailed, and Annie’s arms flailed over her head, knocking her floppy hat into the backseat, exposing a disorganized nest of unkempt, thin gray hair.

  “Slow down!” Annie barked, fanning herself. “You’re going to kill us both!”

  “I treat our daughter the way she has always deserved to be treated. She’s impudent, slovenly and rotten to her core and you know it.”

  “So what is so wrong with her? You blame her all the time. Everything was always her fault, never yours, wasn’t it? Maybe if you had been around a little more often and spent more time with her while she was growing up, she would buy you better presents. This trip was a stupid idea --stupid, stupid, stupid. What is the point?”

  “And who is ungrateful now? Besides, you can ski all you want to, but the joke's on both of you. I don’t plan to leave the hotel room. Three days lying in bed watching television sounds like a great vacation to me. To hell with all that running around in the snow… you won’t catch me out there in this weather!”

  “Your plan is to risk our lives so you can lie around in your boxers? Why come all the way out here and do that! That’s all you do at home anyway.”

  A great, wide, and seemingly lifeless oak tree, its bark split and knotty, exhibiting the wear of over three hundred years of survival in the harsh climate, appeared to hop out of the woodland and take a position in the middle of Rick and Annie’s path. The tree’s long, rugged branches stretched out toward them like arms, one with a fist full of potato-thick snow, prepared to hurl at them at any time, another looking as if it clutched a tomahawk in its spindly, leafless, finger-like branches. Rick’s old and frayed nerves had just enough zip left in them to elude a direct collision, and he swerved. Annie screamed as the front bumper of the old Dodge skidded through globs of freezing slush, skipping the terrified couple and their little Dart back into the middle of the narrow, two-lane highway.

  “Oh, my God! Rick! We are never going to make it!”

  Rick’s eyes were wide and his craggy old heart was hopping. Without hesitation, he eased the gas pedal down and the car continued on its way.

  “Just shut the hell up, Annie! I haven’t seen another car since we got on this road. The way this snow is coming down, if we pull over now, we’ll be buried for sure.” Rick was perspiring, and he ground his teeth, determined not to admit defeat to Annie or the elements. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Did you see the size of that tree? It had to be five feet wide. We could be dead right now and it would be your fault you stupid, stubborn old goat!”

  “Annie, you overreact to everything. Everything is my fault, isn’t it? I have this under complete control. Our daughter turns out to be a roaring ass, throws away two perfectly good husbands, and it’s my fault. It starts to snow and it’s my fault. You drink too much and they take away your license and it’s my fault.”

  Annie cocked her head sideways without releasing her vice-like grip on the door handle.

  “If you had driven me to the mall like you were supposed to, I would never have been behind the wheel that night.”

  “And what about the second time? What about that, huh? Why did I have to embarrass myself in front of the Chief and pick you up at the police barracks, drunk as a stinking skunk? I suppose that was my fault, too?”

  “You were supposed to be home by five. You told me five o’clock, sharp.”

  “You’re the only old woman in New England who can get herself arrested for DUI on her way TO a bar.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Rick, please. You were late because you were trying to get in the pants of that fat woman in the mailroom. What was her name, Peggy or somet
hing? She smells like day old fish, and you know she lost that finger on her right hand in a bar fight, don't you? What a laugh. That’s the best you can do? Like she wanted anything to do with a heartless, dirty old man like you…. Oh my God, did you see that!?”

  What little color remained in Annie’s pale, wrinkled face had melted away. She struggled to tuck her knees up under her chin.

  “What! What is it? I don’t see anything!” Rick squinted and stared into the blizzard. He tried to squint through the dense, white darkness, but saw nothing other than more wind-driven snow.

  “It was that big oak tree, Rick. The one you almost hit a few minutes ago. We just passed by it again.”

  “What? Oh please, spare me more of your drama.”

  “I’m telling you, it was the exact same tree. I recognized it.”

  “Here’s a newsflash, Mrs. Audubon. There are lots of trees in this poor excuse for a forest. They all look alike. And they all look like, well…trees.”

  “I’m telling you, it was the exact same one you almost hit back there. Why won’t you listen to me?”

  “Listen to you, how could I not? You never stop babbling on about some fool thing or other. And how would you know it was the same tree? When was the last time you did anything that didn’t involve drinking or sitting on our sofa? You haven’t been outdoors in fifteen years. I’m surprised you would know what an oak tree looks like anyway…unless there was a picture on the back of that bottle of cream liqueur you're always nipping at.”

  “Rick, will you shut up and turn around? We must be going the wrong way.”

  “There’s only one highway that runs west to east into North Conway and I have been moving straight-on east the whole time. There aren’t even any side streets. How the hell could I take a wrong turn?”

  “I don’t know, but we need to stop and find someone and ask directions.”

  “Who do you think we are going to ask? Frosty the Snowman? I know.., maybe there will be a nice, friendly Indian chief in an igloo around the next bend. Maybe I can swap you for a bag of beads. It’s dark, it’s night time, and we’re in the middle of a big blizzard and I can't do anything about it. So just sit back and shut up.”

  Rick sashayed the steering wheel and leaned forward. The back of the car wiggled and skidded every few yards, as the snow had become even thicker and the visibility was blacker and more suffocating. It was obvious no other vehicle had traveled on the road in quite some time as there were no tire tracks to follow, and as the snow piled higher, the unfortunate Dart had to function as its own snowplow. For some reason, the car seemed determined to continue to drag the couple up the slippery, winding mountain road.

  “So why do you think Lizzie gave us this vacation, anyway, after all these years of treating us like garbage?” Rick inquired. “Most years our anniversary would come and go with barely a phone call. Then this year, out of the clear blue sky, she sends us on an all-expenses paid weekend at a fancy New Hampshire ski resort. It’s not like her.”

  “It’s not as if you would have noticed that she loves us.” Annie rebutted, her tone indicating she didn’t believe the very words coming from her lips.

  “Loves us? What a laugh. I think she’s trying to kill us.” Rick quipped, still searching for a clear view through his sloppy windshield. And then he crumpled his brow. “Wait a doggone minute, she didn’t buy this trip for us, did she? I’ll bet you bought this trip! You did this. This is your idea!”

  “Pay for a trip like this on the money you make? What a laugh! I couldn’t buy a pack of gum on what’s in our checking account. No, Rick I did not pay for this trip.” Annie answered with complete confidence. “Lizzie paid for it. It’s just that she doesn’t know it.”

  “What are you saying? You stole money from our daughter to go on a vacation?”

  “She wrote me a check. I told her I really needed the money. I told her we were behind on our mortgage payments…”

  “Ah, so that’s it! That property of ours is the only thing we have and it's worth half a million dollars. She knows that if we lose the house, she loses her inheritance... she would lose everything. That greedy little witch has been waiting for us to drop dead for years. So you used her own greed against her to pay for this getaway. You tricked her!”

  “No, I just cashed in a little bit of her inheritance for our own sake, and for her sake. That’s all. For her own good. I supposed that if you thought she liked us more than she does, you wouldn’t be so hard on her. It would be a positive thing for all of us.”

  “So you stole her money for her own good? How pathetic! You might want to check the proof on that bottle of ripple under the front seat.”

  “So if you are so offended by all this, let’s turn around now and go home. You can call Lizzie, tell her the whole story and give her all the money back.”

  “Are you kidding? Not on your life! She owes us this vacation.”

  “So how did I know you would say that? And why should she go out of her way to do anything special for us? Growing up, you missed most of her birthdays, never once showed up at a school play. She would cry herself to sleep, night after night after night.”

  “And what about you, Annie? Where were you the night she graduated from high school? Passed out and slumped over a barstool somewhere?”

  “You know I was sick that night.”

  “The doctor called it a hangover.”

  “You always turn this around and put it on me. You drive me to drink.”

  The Dart had reached the crest of a large hill, but since Rick was distracted by the bickering, he didn’t realize where he was, and as he flattened the gas pedal to push through another snow pile, the car accelerated and was sent spinning. Both Rick and Annie shrieked as they pirouetted down the road coming to rest sideways across both lanes at the bottom of the hill next to a road sign marking the Swift River. Rick’s heart was beating a mile a minute and Annie cupped her shaking hand over her mouth as if she was preparing to vomit.

  “Oh, Rick, please! Let’s just stay here and wait for help!”

  Rick struggled to catch his breath. A sense of terror was creeping into the tone of his voice. “We haven’t passed another car in an hour. It wouldn’t surprise me if they closed the highway until the storm is over, the way this snow is coming down now. We might not see anyone else for hours. We can’t just stay out here. We’ll freeze to death. We need to keep moving.”

  “Oh dear Lord, Rick, “Look!”

  Rick rolled down his window, reached out, and wiped a tiny hole in the snow crusted windshield and peered through. Above them it looked to be that same rugged, old oak tree again, its branches reaching out across the road like before, except this time weighted with heavier snow, its arms arched down closer to the car’s roof, as if it was trying to snatch them up.

  “It can’t be! I know what you’re going to say, but it’s impossible. It’s just not possible. It is not the same oak tree. We passed it a long while ago, many miles back.”

  Rick slammed the gas and the tires spun sending a chunky spray of snow high into the air, and they headed up the next treacherous hill as adrenaline and terror tore through them both. The vicious driving conditions had become impossible. The storm was defeating them. The Dart battled valiantly, and continued its final crawl to the peak of the next hill, and around the next sharp corner. By now there was no longer a hole in the snow on the windshield for Rick to see through. And as the car reached the hill's apex, Rick jumped on the brake and the car bounded to the bottom, this time crashing through a guardrail and coming to rest in a deep snow-filled gully several feet off of the The Kanc, out of sight, at the foot of an old, sprawling oak tree.

  ------

  Trooper John Whittier had been studying the accident scene for over two hours. A family passing through on their way to North Conway for their own ski vacation had seen the rear bumper of a Dodge Dart protruding from the melting snow and had called the State Police. Whittier estimated that the car could have been buried
for over a month–as several consecutive heavy storms had slammed the mountains one after another, and one deposited several inches of frozen rain along the top of it all, creating a concrete, icy tomb three feet thick. The heavy ice had also snapped several of the weaker branches from the nearby oak tree, dropping them over the top of the pile, poking into the snow like wooden grave markers, further cloaking the horrific scene from passersby. It wasn’t until the last couple of days that an unexpected warming trend swept through the valley causing enough snow and ice to melt and expose the restored chrome bumper of Rick and Annie’s Dodge Dart.

  Whittier greeted Mr. Robert Pike from the New Hampshire coroner’s office. The two old friends stood together in the narrow, wet breakdown lane of the slushy Kancamagus Highway warming themselves in the unseasonable sunshine, as a current of cars, nearly all with skis strapped to their roofs, zipped past.

  “How are you, Bobby? It’s been a while.”

  “I’ve been good," Pike said extending a gray woolly mitten to shake hands. “I am already sick of this awful run of bad weather, though. I'm ready to move down South. I hate the cold. But it was a beautiful drive up here today, I have to admit. They don’t let me out of the city much anymore. What a gorgeous day this has turned out to be. Maybe I should come up here more often.”

  Pike was a heavy set man who wore a wrinkled tan suit under his overstuffed parka stained from multiple dribbles of coffee. He surveyed the accident scene and wrinkled his nose. He was gripped by an odd sense of déjà vu.

  “A couple of years ago… we had a fatality along this same strip of road, I recall.” Pike said, trying to glue the pieces of his memory together. "I see so many wrecks, they start to run together sometimes."

  “Yea, we sure did. Right here, same spot.” Whittier answered. “The victim that day had an outstanding warrant on him, and a trunk full of stolen weapons. It was early spring, and the road washed out on him during a thawing flood which hydroplaned him into this very same gully. He was impaled by a branch from that tree -- grisly scene. That’s why the transportation department came out here and installed that guardrail. Looks like it didn’t do much good for these poor folks.”

  “Now I remember it." Pike said, rubbing the stubble on the side of his cheek. "But every stretch of this highway looks like every other stretch, and with all this snow, how can you be sure the spot is the same?”

  “It’s this tree.” Whittier explained, pointing to the big, old, foreboding oak that rose overhead. He placed his hands on his hips and looked up at the tree with wonder. “The local arborists and historians have it tagged. They consider this oak to be the oldest tree in the White Mountain National Forest, or at least the oldest they have found out here so far. They think it could be over three hundred and fifty years old. Old enough that maybe old Chief Kancamagus planted the acorn himself.”

  Pike didn’t look impressed, and checked his watch as if he was bored, or late for some critical appointment. “I've never had any appreciation for history."

  "Kancamagus was the great native leader they named this highway after," Pike said. "Not a lot has been written about him through the years, but he is known to have been a cunning, beloved and vengeful leader. He and his warriors led a bold raid on an English settlement, brutally massacring dozens of settlers after being double-crossed. He was never captured."

  "It's all the same to me. So who do we have in the car this time? Bank robbers? International spies?”

  “No, not much of a mystery here. About a month ago, we received a missing persons report from an Elizabeth Waldron who was trying to locate her elderly parents, Rick and Annie. She thought they might have tried to traverse the highway and come up here in that big blizzard. We've had an eye out for them both but no one had seen them. I called her a while ago to let her know what we had found.”

  “Poor girl, she must have been devastated.”

  “No.., I’d say elated would be a better way to describe her reaction.”

  “Well that’s odd.”

  “It is. But there’s a lot odd about this case. Come here and take a look inside.”

  “Oh come on now," Pike said with disdain, cinching up his baggy trousers. "I’ve seen about everything there is to see, Johnny, in my twenty-two years in the coroner’s office. I doubt there’s anything unusual here. I could probably write my report before I even look in that car. I am guessing the victims died of blunt-force trauma as a result of the collision, or they were huddled together trying to stay warm when they froze to death. Am I right? Am I right?”

  The slushy snow came up over the top of Pike’s ankles when he looked through the door, and the cold surging into his shoes caused him to hop up and clench his teeth. Pike peered into the open door of the Dart, glanced right, then left, then right again.

  “OK, Johnny, you are right, you got a point. This is looking pretty strange." Pike rubbed his cheek with his mitten once more. "They are frozen in place, that’s for sure, but they look like they are… ”

  “… arguing?”

  “Yes, exactly. How peculiar. Never seen anything like it. Their mouths and eyes are wide open. And I know they are frozen and have been here for a month, but the old lady looks much better preserved than the old man does.”

  “Hmm, good point.”

  “Do you have any idea why they were up here in a blizzard in the first place?”

  Whittier held up Annie’s purple handbag and pulled out some papers. An uncomfortable look of bewilderment and concern waved through his face as he unfolded them. He handed them to Pike.

  “They had weekend reservations at a place called The Cocheco Resort Hotel in North Conway.”

  “Sounds nice. A second honeymoon, maybe?”

  “Who knows what they were up to…but as far as I can tell, there is no such place as the Cocheco Resort Hotel.”

  "What do you mean no such place? Did they go out of business?"

  "No, I mean it doesn't exist, or has never existed, in the state as far as I can tell. I've never heard of it, and I can't find any record of it. I have them looking into it back at the station."

  “Sounds like someone ripped-off the poor old couple. What a world we live in...you can't trust anybody anymore. Well if they really were swindled, they’re not going to complain now."

  “I guess you've got a point there, Bobby. But that’s not all that’s eating at me. Remember that other accident here last spring? The one we were just talking about?

  "The guy with those stolen guns?"

  "During our investigation of that incident, we learned the victim was an inner city kid who stole those weapons from a drug dealer in Boston, and was in a hurry to get them north to Montreal to sell them to his connection there. There was no reason for him to be driving The Kanc that day. Why take a right turn and head out here into this strange forest, especially in the driving rain? What compelled him? What called to him? Something drew him out here that day, Bobby, something or someone that we were never able to determine."

  "Why don't you ask your friend, the tree. He seems to see everything."

  ----------

  In his mortal life, the great Kancamagus, leader of the Pennacook and grandson of Passaconaway, was equally cunning and vengeful. Double-crossed by the English, his tribal lands stolen, his leaders imprisoned, and his family persecuted, Kancamagus was destined to become the most ruthless and feared of the native New England leaders. Driven into the great wood of the north beyond Lake Winnipesauke, evading the ruthless English militias at every turn, Kancamagus rallied the spirit of his people and unleashed his rage upon the contemptible.

  For in the courage of Kancamagus there was reprisal for he would cross out those who practice deceit, and that guttural spirit remains woven into the essence of the ancient forest along the beautiful yet treacherous highway that bears his name. Behind each oak, maple or mountain pine, one can still sense the essence of he and his loyal Penacook warriors and allies -- the Saco and the Abenaki--as they wait, silently, patiently
crouched, prepared and ready when needed to strike out against injustice, to avenge the honor of their peoples and their desecrated lands.

  For his spirit, in these woods, remains.

  Author's Note:

  In real life, Major Richard Waldron (b. 1615) was an early, affluent New England Puritan who settled in the northern part of Massachusetts, in what is now New Hampshire. He and his wife Ann resided in Cocheco (often spelled Concheco) near what is now present day Dover. He and his wife had several children, including a daughter, Elizabeth.

  As a magistrate and powerful political leader, Waldron was respected and feared, and has been described as both forceful and ambitious. In 1662, Waldron imposed a particularly cruel sentence upon three Quaker women accused of witchcraft for proselytizing. The women were tied behind a cart, bare to the waist, and ordered to march through eleven townships where they would be whipped at each one. When the women reached Salisbury, the third town of the eleven, the punishment was forcibly halted. Salisbury was under the control of Major Robert Pike, an advocate of religious freedom who was horrified by their treatment, and ordered the women to be released. The profound cruelty of the incident was immortalized in the John Greenleaf Whittier poem, "How The Women Went From Dover."

  The tale is one of an evil time,

  When souls were fettered and thought was crime,

  And heresy's whisper above its breath

  Meant shameful scourging and bonds and death!

  But Waldron's brutality wasn't reserved for Quakers and witches alone. In 1676, as the leader of the New Hampshire militia, Waldron was assigned the task of gathering up Indian fugitives who had escaped north at the end of King Philip's War. Many of the fugitives had settled with the local, peaceful Penacook tribe, and Waldron was determined to root them out, as the English considered harboring fugitives an act of war. But rather than attack, Waldron created a ruse and invited the tribe to participate in a "friendly" war game. Once the Indians had discharged all their weapons, Waldron's men surrounded them. The fugitives were then separated from the local tribe and sent away where they were either hanged or sold into slavery. The local Penacook never forgot or forgave Waldron for this treachery.

  Thirteen years later, under the command of Chief Kancamagus, the Penacook extracted their revenge at what is now known as The Cocheco Massacre. In retaliation for a series of cruel injustices imposed upon the natives by Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of the Dominion of New England, Kancamagus sent Indian squaws to each of the Cocheco garrisons to ask for shelter for the night, which was granted, as it was a routine request. From inside, the squaws were then able to unlock the garrison doors, letting in the warriors and leaving the community defenseless. In the attack, several homesteads were burned and over 50 settlers were either killed or captured, including Waldron himself, now elderly, who met a cruel and perhaps appropriate demise. After being tortured for some time, the warriors took turns slashing Waldron's chest with their knives, one by one, "crossing out" their accounts with him. Weak from the abuse and loss of blood, Waldron died when his attackers forced his helpless body to fall upon his own sword.

  Kancamagus' attack was executed perfectly, but as expected, he and his warriors were then branded as dangerous fugitives themselves. From 1689-1692, several English militias attempted to engage and capture them, and all failed, as the Penacook warriors and their allies continued their attacks on area settlements. It wasn't until the English successfully captured Kancamagus' family in a surprise assault on his camp on the Androscoggin River that he was forced to make peace. Once reunited with his family, Kancamagus disappeared to live out his days in the forests of northern New England and was never heard from -- in human form -- again.

  "WARSONG OF KANCAMAGUS"

  by Mary H. Wheeler

  (JUNE, 1689)

  At the old fort in Pennacook

  The Indian sachems met,

  An insult had been given

  Which no red man could forget.

  Sir Edmund had attacked their friend

  And plundered without law,

  And in the solemn council

  Each voice had been for war.

  Ignoring former treaties,

  Which their allies ne'er sustained

  Of slight, and fraud, and falsehood,

  And unfairness, they complained.

  Their mutual accusations

  Made a list both dark and long;

  And each could well of insult tell,

  And individual wrong.

  The council had declared for war,

  And formal invitation

  Had been to all the warriors given,

  According to their station.

  And now in circles seated,

  With the chiefs and braves within,

  The stern-faced red men waited

  For the war-dance to begin.

  Then up rose Kancamagus,

  And ferocious was his air;

  High up he swung his hatchet,

  And his brawny arm was bare;

  The eagle's feather trembled

  In his scalp-lock as he sang,

  And far across the Merrimack

  The Indian's war-song rang.

  "War! War! Lift up the hatchet!

  ring scalping knife and gun,

  And give no rest to foot or breast

  Till warfare is begun!

  Look where the braves are gathered

  Like the clouds before a flood!

  And Kancamagus' tomahawk

  Is all athirst for blood!

  My fathers fought the Tarratines,

  And the Mohawks fierce and strong,

  And ever on the war-path

  Their whoop was loud and long.

  And Kancamagus' daring,

  And feats of vengeance bold,

  Among the Amariscoggins

  Have been full often told.

  Will the warrior's arm be weaker,

  And will his courage fail,

  When in grounds well known he shall strike for his own,

  And his people's foe assail?

  Will the son of Nanamocomuck

  Stand trembling, like a squaw,

  When the sagamores around him

  Are all hungering for war?

  War! War! The foe are sleeping,

  And the scent of blood is sweet,

  And the woods about Cocheco

  Await the warrior's feet!

  From silent ambush stealing,

  We will capture, slay and burn,

  Till those plundering, cheating English

  Shall the red man's vengeance learn!

  Their chiefs about Piscataqua

  Refused my proffered hand;

  The bad whites at Cocheco

  By treachery took our band,

  They have treated us like reptiles,

  But the red man's day is nigh:

  On Kancamagus' wigwam pole

  Their bloody scalps may dry!

  I am eager as the hunter

  When the fleet deer is in sight,

  And the arrows in my quiver

  Are all trembling for the flight!

  War! War! Lift up the hatchet!

  Bring the scalping-knife and gun!

  The shade of Nanamocomuck

  Shall glory in his son!

  ENDNOTES

  Beals Jr., Charles Edward, Passaconaway in the White Mountains. (Boston: Richard G. Badger Publisher, 1916) Chapter IV.

  Benner, Dana, "Kanacmagus led Pennacook uprisings against English encroachment"" Nashua Telegraph, July 11, 2010.

  Wheeler, Mary H., "Warsong of Kancamagus" Granite Monthly Vol. III (Concord: John McClintock Publisher, 1880) 263.

  Whittier, John Greenleaf, The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1884)437.

  Wikipedia Contributors, "Richard Waldron" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Waldron (accessed December 2011)

  Wikipedia Contributors, "Dover
, New Hampshire" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_New_Hampshire (accessed December 2011)

  Also Available

  by Steven R. Porter