Just days ahead of these actions, the Seneca had held a council: they finally and sadly determined that Sullivan’s forces would outnumber and overwhelm them. All the women and children were then directed to leave immediately and travel the long journey to the banks of a creek called Catawba, while most of the warriors hid themselves only a short distance from the Genesee River.

If my people suffered, so did some of Sullivan’s men. According to my husband, Lieutenant William Boyd fell into the hands of one of our cruelest warriors, Little Beard. Boyd was tied to a young tree and Little Beard and his companions threw tomahawks at that tree, aiming for points close to the poor man’s body. But the worst was to come.

A scalping knife was laid to the lieutenant’s abdomen in order to make a slit about three inches wide. Then a warrior inserted two fingers in the slit and groped about like a surgeon until he could hook his fingers around the intestine, which he drew out. “Look,” he said. “Ha. This infant has a very long birth cord.” He severed the intestine and tied one end to a sturdy branch of the tree; Boyd was released and then whipped and pushed around and around the oak until all of his bowels were pulled out. When Hiokatoo heard this story, even he wondered at the ferocity of such torture.

AFTER Sullivan moved back off to the east, the Seneca returned, expecting some semblance of their village and finding nothing but charred wood and rusted kettles. When Mary arrived back one late afternoon she saw two men who were digging here and there, trying to uncover whatever was left of their homes.

They did not know where Hiokatoo was but knew that Sullivan’s forces had found their people’s food cache. They also knew that Mary’s hut had burned to the ground and told her as much.

Close-Eye, without ceasing his digging, said, “Go see where your hut once was. There’s nothing there.”

Mary didn’t move.

He stopped his work, straightened, lifted his head, and looked at her through his half-closed eyes. “We will all starve now.” He shifted his gaze to the children.

She considered this for the space of a few seconds. “Yes, we will all starve if we sit still or keep on digging in the same spot. I will not sit still.”

“Pah!” he replied. “Where do you think you will go?” He spat. “Maybe now you will consider running back to the whites. If they will take you. Some people call you the white witch.”

But Mary and her children were already walking off.

The sound of a dull clank followed her. The blade of the bent hoe which Close-Eye’s fellow digger was using had struck the top of a skull.

“Look,” Close-Eye called after her, “at what your people have done to us here. Maybe Sullivan is your relative.”