Blue Birds
Page 10
“I have gone to the Croatoan,
explained our mistake.
My people won’t try again to harm us
as they did that day onshore.”
“He’s the Queen’s man,”
the Governor says.
“Three years I’ve trusted him.”
“And how does that
protect us?” Father says.
The Governor strokes Virginia’s cheek,
who’s cradled in his daughter’s arms.
“If there is any reason
for you to leave
before my homecoming,
carve where you’ve gone
on the trunk of a tree.
If there’s any sort of danger,” he says,
quietly this time,
“include a cross in your carving.”
He knows we are not safe here,
yet he departs,
abandons us
to Roanoke.
KIMI
All but the small boat
sail to deepest waters.
The men watch the village,
say the English remain.
It is a comfort knowing
my friend stays near.
Alis
KIMI
It consumes me,
the attack the Governor
spoke of just this morning
before he sailed away.
Here,
in the quiet,
I must try
to make sense of things.
Her face is grave
as she greets me.
“Wingina?”
It pierces me
to hear her say
my father’s name.
“Kimi, please tell me
what happened
before we came.”
I cannot make out
all her words,
but see the sorrow heavy
on her brow.
I use my hands
to paint pictures.
“Wingina. Alawa.
They are gone.”
My palms
upturned
toward the sky.
Her hands are empty.
Her eyes fill with tears.
“The soldiers?” I whisper,
moving my fingers
like a consuming flame.
“Wanchese’s fire?”
I show her of the burning,
those who escaped
to the canoes.
Her words and movements
confirm every awful thing.
Tears spill down her cheeks.
Did the attack take someone
dear to her?
The English,
my countrymen,
have brought upon the Roanoke
the same fear and horror
we feel for them.
These Englishmen
know nothing
of what happened?
“A Roanoke man.”
I hold one arm straight ahead,
draw the other back.
“He had an arrow.
How it frightened me.”
“Chogan.”
I don’t believe
he would have harmed her,
an unprotected girl,
but how can I know
if she was truly safe?
When friends
become enemies
how quickly
things can change.
Didn’t the very man
who gave Alawa her ribbon
later attack my village
the day Wingina died?
It has been one life for another.
Death on both sides.
The English
have wronged us.
But there is suffering
we have also waged.
Alis
It’s been three days
since the Governor left us,
and things are different now.
People group together,
scattered in bands across the common,
huddles that form and break,
reform again.
They stoke fears,
nurture worries,
imagined threats the center
of every conversation.
Community chores that once happened
without direction
have begun to dwindle,
each family looks
to protect its own members,
each man focuses only on himself.
Father speaks
of a Roanoke attack
to any who will listen.
Already,
he’s drawn many to his side.
KIMI
“You wear your pearls so beautifully.”
Mother pauses in her weaving.
“Such a strong woman you’ve become.”
She straightens the strand about my neck.
“Why is it then you sometimes leave
the fields before the others?”
Mother thinks I’ve been idle,
but never have I worked so faithfully.
“I move quickly about my tasks
weeding and tending.”
So I might go to Alis.
Mother doesn’t answer
but her eyes never leave me.
Our women are woven together
in ways that form a dance.
It is difficult to step
outside
without breaking the pattern,
upsetting the rhythm.
I must not draw
Mother’s further notice.
KIMI
Each day,
the English boys
march through the forest.
Their guns swing toward all sound,
as though danger lurks nearby.
It is the deer they’re after.
I’ve seen enough
to know they sometimes make a kill,
but they also circle closer to our borders,
hint at an attack.
I have overheard my uncle
speaking with his men.
An opportunity will arise, he says,
the perfect time to show our might.
If these boys fear my people striking,
if they long to fight,
their wait is almost done.
Alis
The bo
ys
roam each afternoon,
act as if they’re hunting,
though it’s Indians they want to find.
KIMI
What can I give Alis
that will show her she’s my friend?
What might teach her
she’s helped ease my pain?
What will guard her
from what Wanchese has planned?
I touch the pearls at my neck,
remember the pride I felt
when Mother gave them to me,
her tears warming my skin
as I left childhood behind.
What more than these?
There is nothing dearer to me,
save the memories of my sister.
For her I could do nothing.
The wooden bird
brought the two of us together,
but will it protect Alis?
This montoac,
what good is it,
if I leave her helpless?
September 1587
Alis
Mother shakes out an apron,
her golden hair swept back,
her blue eyes full of light.
She hums as her iron glides.
Her strength since Samuel’s birth has returned.
“What is that noise?”
She peers out the window.
There is such commotion,
I open wide the door.
“Indians!”
George rushes through the village,
hollering so loudly,
Virginia startles in her cradle,
Samuel begins to cry.
“I was hunting,"
he says to those who've gathered.
“Ran back when I saw them.”
George stumbles to a nearby bench,
sweat rolling down his face.
“Two other boys are out there still.”
Long into the evening,
men swarm about with muskets,
trickle through the palisade,
searching for the others.
George is never far from Manteo,
as if the two patrol together.
But when George steps behind him,
though he does not fire,
he trains his musket
on the Indian’s back.
Alis
Mr. Dare said
now that he’s a father,
he couldn’t rest until
those missing boys were found.
Mr. Dare was
with the first who checked
the woods outside our borders.
He has not
yet
returned.
Alis
I wake to shouts outside our window,
torches flickering past.
Father jumps from bed,
rushes outside.
“Mother?” I call.
“I’m here, darling.”
I climb into the warmth
Father has left behind.
Mother strokes my hair,
Samuel nestled between us.
I pull close to her,
try to block the ever-rising voices.
Father bursts through the door.
“The boys are safe,
said they lost their way,
but Dare,"
Father stops,
cleans his throat,
“he’s been
shot through
with arrows.”
Alis
All are screaming,
rushing, running
to the square.
Two men drag his feet,
arrows buried in his chest.
“Ananias!”
Mrs. Dare falls to the ground
beside her husband’s body,
her sleeves thicken with his blood.
It is daybreak
before Mother can persuade her
to hold her wailing child.
KIMI
All day is spent
in feast and celebration.
My people deserve peace.
But I no longer believe
war is the only way
to find it.
KIMI
Wanchese says
we teach our enemies their wrongdoings,
demonstrate the errors of their ways,
like the man he killed
after Wingina was beheaded,
and the fire he set
that frightened the others away.
Did the English understand?
For they came back again.
There was the man who hunted crabs.
How quickly he was slain.
Yet the English have remained.
Now our men celebrate
the man killed in the forest.
But this I wonder:
If the English
know nothing of our purpose,
these lessons are lost on them,
mean no more than
violence like their own.
Alis
I stroke my brother’s cheek,
place my thumb in his palm.
His soft fingers wrap around mine,
his feet kick as he laughs.
Virginia is
without a father now.
Since his death,
even through his burial
near the bones and Mr. Howe,
Mrs. Dare has worn the dress
stained with her husband’s blood.
Alis
Mother bustles into our cottage,
allows the door to slam behind her.
Both my hands fly to the cradles to keep the babies still.
Her face is hardened in a way I’ve never seen.
She bangs her bowl on the table,
kneads at dough so roughly
I am certain it is overworked,
will never start to rise.
My shoulders ache with rocking,
yet I dare not let the babies stir,
for I will not miss this chance to speak.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“Leave it be, Alis.”
Her response stings;
my gentle mother doesn’t speak like this.
“I’m no longer a child.
If it’s about our village,
it does concern me.”
Mother’s eyes grow wide at my impudence,
narrow just as quickly.
“Very well,” she says slowly,
“if you must know,
there’s talk of Manteo amongst the women.
Mrs. Archard and I believe he’s against us.”
“What do you mean?”
Mother stops her kneading,
tucks a honeyed strand of hair beneath her kerchief,
pulls a chair from the table.
“You are too young to make sense of this.”
“Mother,” I say,
“you cannot keep the truth from me.”
Few things go unnoticed here,
a reminder I must take care
with the secrets I keep.
Mother strokes Samuel’s wispy hair.
“Your father says Manteo
was the last to return
the night Mr. Dare was slain.
Manteo said he was searching for the boys,
but they’d already found their way home.”
She pinches her lips together,
her face as stern as Mrs. Archard’s.
“It makes me wary.
Just how loyal can a savage be?”
But I know I trust him.
Manteo lets me go to Kimi,
has kept this to himself.
“For whatever reason,
he has cast his lot with us.”
Mother shakes her head.
Her silence speaks more disapproval
than words ever would.
Alis
Toward evening the sun relents.