The Fouled Doe
Well, I thought I'd upload this here and a couple of friends agreed with me. This is a short story I wrote for my American Literature class. We had recently read the play The Crucible, and had to place ourselves within the story, accused of witchcraft. This is what I wrote.
The Fouled Doe
By Ziva Damiani
The crack of a large caliber rifle echoed through the coniferous forest, sending birds and deer alike scuttling into cover. A .58 caliber lead ball hurtled through the air towards an unsuspecting doe. The man behind the rifle grumbled to himself as he watched her slump to the pine needle covered forest floor. "Such a shame to kill such a beautiful doe, but my family must eat..."
The man rubbed his now sore right shoulder, which, despite the thickness of his winter coat, had taken a battering. Clearly, he had used too much black powder. Sebastian slung his musket over his shoulder, the leather band brushing off what little debris happened to have collected upon his shoulder. Dropping out of the tree he had perched himself in, one of the few oak trees around, he landed with a thump, a mere twenty feet from his kill.
Sebastian wrapped a rope around the doe's hind legs and tugged, pulling her from the snow bank she had fallen in. Dragging his family's newest meal behind him, Sebastian faded into the sunset, trudging back to his humble home.
Two weeks later
Sebastian furiously pounded on the iron door that barred him from freedom. Accused of wizardry, he had been held in this dank, rusting cell for almost a week now. The now scruffy, filthy hunter slumped to the floor in tears, having finally given up. 'I'm never getting out of here, am I?' He thought to himself, his torn back to the door. Having been whipped for resisting arrest, the tearful man's back was covered with a mass of crisscrossing gashes.
Outside the battered iron door the voice of marshal Herrick could be heard, cursing the bitter late fall air. With the clack of a lock, and an echoing groan, the heavy door pushed open, forcing Sebastian to his sore feet. "Come on," Herrick growled, "Danforth requires your presence."
Recently cleaned iron cuffs clanked onto his wrists, ripping hairs from their follicles. Sebastian gave a hiss as Herrick pushed him from the cell, stumbling into the hallway, aging wooden floors creaking under the stress of both his and Herrick's weight.
"Come on, I haven't the time to mess around! Stand up you surly cur!"
With barely a whisper, the torn and discouraged man slogged his way through the jail, passing many more befouled accused. Abigail had sold this town to Satan. Neighbors, friends, even widely respected members of Salem were imprisoned for fanciful, unrealistic charges.
Thomas Putnam paced the antechamber of Salem's meeting house, his eyes dulled with a nervous look. He looked sick, as well, as if he had caught a case of food poisoning. Bad meat, he said. Bad meat from Sebastian.
Danforth, watching Thomas' sickly strut, ponders the probability of Putnam falsifying evidence, only to have his thoughts quickly hurled out his proverbial window as the accused was tossed into the room by Herrick. Standing up, the deputy governor strides towards the supposed wizard, looking him over. "Stand up."
Giving a disheartened chuckle, Sebastian peeled himself from the cold stone tiles, watching Putnam's nervous twitch.
"You are accused of the supernatural tainting of meat you sold to the Putnam household. What say you?"
Eyes narrowing, the scarred, shattered man stood mute.
"S-sir," Thomas piped in, "I have been ill for over a week and a half, surely that is proof enough?"
"Sebastian Cole Jones, did you or did you not supernaturally food poison Thomas Putnam?" Danforth demanded, already fed up with the constant pesterings of Reverend Parris.
Standing dead center of the antechamber, his own feet tormenting him, Sebastian stood mute. The poor man had been whipped, beaten, and bloodied over the course of the past week, and his entire being ached like no other. Such accusations infuriated him, yet he still stood, mute as an oak stump.
"Did you send your spirit out to befoul the meat you sold Putnam? I say to you, answer my inquiries or face punishments worse than death!"
A fire of fury and pain ignited in Sebastian's eyes. He never really belonged in Salem, having been raised far, far outside of the little town by his single mother. He never showed his face in church, fished on Sundays, and hunted more than he needed. Sebastian was a salesman, of sorts. He plied all extra meat on the market, buying what other foods he required with what little money he earned. "Throw me to the hounds of Hell! Slice my ears from my face! I say these accusations are those of one whom has been damned to the darkest pits of Hell!"
In a blaze of fury, the completely infuriated victim of falsified evidence stepped towards Putnam, stopping mere inches from his face. He said nothing, but his message was as clear as rainwater.
Herrick, unable to react in time, ripped at the chain attached to Sebastian's shackles, pulling the wild-eyed hunter to the ground, looking bewildered. "D-Danforth?" He asked, unworried for Putnam, whose face had blanched white.
Stunned, Danforth stared at the man now slumped on the gritty stone floor, a look of fear in his bloodshot, tired eyes. "Herrick, t-take this monster back to its cell, more time is clearly required..."
Three days later
The early morning silence, the sun having not even begun to rise, was shattered by the screech of metal slowly scraping through metal. Inside an aged, stinking cell, a middle aged man etched tally marks into his rusting cell door. Sebastian looked broken, his sullen, sunken eyes staring into space as he etched in his twenty-third mark. Twenty-three innocent men and women hanged. "What has this world come to be..."
His own son had been accused of wizardry, too, and had been hanged only a day ago. Sebastian hefted himself up from the straw covered oaken floor, only to stumble as his shattered knee buckled underneath him. Torture, interrogation, and more torture, and yet he withstood it all.
A drunken Herrick tumbled down the hallway, landing with a soft thump. Why he was already inebriated was not clear, but it was clear that it he was no longer fit for his job.
More stumbling, then the clank of the rusted lock holding Sebastian's door shut. As the door creaked open, Sebastian stood up weakly, keeping his weight on his uninjured knee, for the most part.
"Come on, I haven't all day!" Herrick slurred, erratically waving him forward.
Sebastian quickly calculated Herrick's ability to restrain him, and the smell of freedom floated in the air. His eyes blazed with a fury never seen before as he strode towards the marshal, adrenaline flowing through his damaged body, deadening the agony of his shattered knee. Within seconds he had covered almost the entire length of the cell, and now he was moving faster.
Herrick began to backpedal, but it was too late. Sebastian lunged, his shoulder ramming into Herrick's chest as if it were a battering ram.
Three broken ribs and a shattered collarbone later, the marshal slumped to the floor in an unconscious heap.
Searching Herrick, Sebastian found nothing of use. His ankles still bound by cuffs he stumbled down the hallway into the marshal's office, only to collapse on the floor, his body no longer able to sustain the agony of his shattered knee, and now severely bruised shoulder. He'd just signed his own death warrant, he knew it.
With the clatter of heavy boots, Danforth, along with several marshals, marched down the hallway towards the collapsed convict, muskets at the ready. Three marshals hefted Sebastian up and began to carry his limp, broken body from the jail. He had thrown his own chance of a trial out the window, and a hanging had been planned for that afternoon.
Four Hours Later
A crowd of townsfolk cheered as three men were led to the scaffold, chains binding their arms and legs. Escape was hopeless, their end had come. Sebastian limped behind the others, staring passively at Danforth, who leaned expectantly on one of the supports, watching the crowd.
As two marshals led Sebastian and the two other accused up the steps to the scaffold, Danforth climbed up to a podium in front of the three condemned. "Here stand those who have been condemned!" He shouted, much to the crowd's pleasure. "Jonathan Jacobs, convicted of supernatural lechery, Smith..." He droned on, listing off the charges. Both men were kicked off the wooden scaffold by the still drunk and beaten Herrick, sending the crowd into an uproar.
"Sebastian Jones!" He paused, the mob growing silent, "Charged with the attempted supernatural poisoning of Thomas Putnam..."
The crowd began to murmur, shocked at such an accusation. They stared at Putnam, unable to believe he was still alive. "... And the attempted murder of Marshal Herrick."
This sent the crowd into a frenzy. They began to chant, "Kick him off, kick him off, kick him off!" Over, and over, and over again, the chant repeated, soon growing into a buzz.
Danforth stepped down from the podium and turned his attention towards the scaffold, leaping up onto the platform. Two bodies hung from the ropes, and now it was time to send the third. Danforth stood behind Sebastian, readying himself. Clearing his mind, he pulled his right leg back, only to snap it forward with enough force to not only send Sebastian off the edge, but lift him into the air as well.
Sebastian fell like a stone, his mind free of anger. As he fell to his demise, there was nothing but forgiveness in his heart, his eyes brimming with tears. "God save you-" And with that, he reached the end of his rope, his head snapping back, neck breaking clean in two.