Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  A crack sounded from somewhere in a bog thicket. A bird scolded, a high, repetitive call. Smith’s hand fell to the short stock of his snaphaunce. The gun was a reassuring weight at his belt, and a rare sight since the expedition had disembarked. Wingfield had admonished the men to leave their firearms locked away, insisting they would not be needed. Firearms, he said, would be a temptation to do evil to the naturals. Once the first shot was fired, the savages would mistrust the English, and the expedition would fail.

  Smith ignored the order. His piece would do no good packed in a crate.

  Gabriel Archer’s hands were healing well enough—it was a mercy the arrows that pierced his palms had not been tipped with poison—but Smith had no intention of receiving similar wounds. Archer’s hands should have been enough to convince Wingfield that the naturals were not the gentle people he imagined them to be, friendly and childlike and glad to embrace civilization and the Christ, once shown the superiority of English ways. This was a harsh land, a place of dense sucking bogs and tangled forest, rushing water and changeable skies. The people who called this place home must be forged of a cold, hard metal. Only the ruthless could survive here.

  And so Smith had brushed past Wingfield to retrieve his snaphaunce from its crate. Wingfield may have convinced the remainder of the council that the naturals would not look upon their fence of twigs and their unarmed condition as an invitation to be slaughtered, but not even God himself could convince John Smith that he should trust the Indians. At any rate, Wingfield had made it clear that Smith was not truly a member of the council—not yet, no matter what the instructions from the Virginia Company specified. Wingfield did not trust him. He insisted that Smith could never be trusted, and, given his attempts at mutiny, his participation in the council must be further considered and voted upon.

  It was all one to John Smith. According to his calculations, if he could not be trusted with a seat on the council then he was under no obligation, official or practical, to comply with any of Wingfield’s demands—including his demand that firearms remain packed away.

  When Smith had tossed the lid of the crate aside and lifted his gun free of its packing, Wingfield had snarled, “If we were in England, I would scorn that any man should think you my companion.”

  In reply, Smith had thrust the piece through his belt and walked away.

  Matthew Scrivener emerged from the cluster of tents, choosing his way through the boggy puddles and patches of muck with careful deliberation. Smith noted with grim amusement that a sidearm swung from Scrivener’s belt, bouncing gently against his thigh.

  Scrivener stopped at Smith’s heap of saplings and stood gazing down at them in thoughtful silence. The blows of axes sounded again from the woodland. They rebounded off the opposite shore of the James River and staggered over one another, ra-tat, ra-tat.

  “Good day,” Smith said.

  Scrivener said nothing. His hand was pale on the butt of his gun. His eyes scanned the thickets, squinting against the glare of midday. “Do you think they’ll return?”

  Two days gone, a band of Indian men had paid a visit to the spit. They came gliding across the water in their long, dark canoes, their bodies moving in unconscious accord like the limbs of a smooth-gaited horse, the paddles cutting and pulling and sliding in such unison that Smith had found himself staring at the perfection of motion, caught up in some fatal trance as the boats drew nearer. Thank God, the visit had been friendly. The men had indicated with signs—surprisingly simple to understand—that their king wished to call on the English, that he would bring a deer for a feast and all would make merry, all would be friends. They called their king Wowinchopunck.

  The ease with which he comprehended the naturals’ meaning had made Smith’s belly quiver. He had spent two days wondering at his fear, and now, as he and Scrivener stood over the saplings that would add to the fence—their useless, flimsy protection—he understood. Never in his life had Wingfield been more wrong than he was in his assumption that the naturals were innocent, uncivilized savages. No, they were every bit as calculating and as self-interested as any Englishman—and a good deal more sophisticated than most.

  “Aye,” Smith said. “They’ll be back.”

  “When, do you think?” Scrivener’s voice betrayed no concern, but Smith’s eye strayed again to the man’s firearm. His hand was still wrapped tight around the stock.

  A “halloo” rose from one of the ship’s masts and Smith glanced toward the river to see one of the sailors high in the rigging making an urgent gesture upstream. There, moving swiftly toward their undefended spit with that familiar hypnotic unity, were the low black slashes of canoes.

  “I should think,” said Smith, “they’ll return very soon.”

  Even before the canoes beached, it was apparent that there were at least twice as many naturals this time. The English managed to recall all their men from woodcutting duty and assemble them in a ragged crowd just as the first boats grounded. The naturals sprang from their boats with their typical alacrity, and together five or six of them bent over the largest canoe. They lifted out a deer, feet trussed up on a stout pole. It was freshly killed, judging by the steady drip of blood that fell from its nostrils. The deer’s head swayed on a limp, soft neck as it was carried up the strand. The head was flung far back, dangling toward the earth, the eyes half-closed. It gave an impression of desperation so acute it was almost comical. Smith felt as if he were watching a puppet play or some fantastical masque. But the steady, sober faces of the Indian men were no fancy.

  The men who did not carry the deer carried bows nearly as long as the men themselves, and the Indians towered over all but the tallest of the English. Quivers made of hides with the fur still on hung at each man’s hip. The men sported leather wraps from ankle to upper thigh, and each had a flexible codpiece of pale doeskin cinched tightly to his belt, tucking his manly parts away. All else was left bare, but for sinuous black and earth-red tattoos. It was sensible costume if these men had come to make war, for they could run without chafing and sweat freely, cooling their skin, remaining spry and alert while the English roasted in their wool and steel, growing slower and more careless by the moment. Smith’s palm turned damp against the butt of his gun.

  What the Indians lacked in ornate clothing was made up for tenfold with their hair. Each man wore the right side of his scalp shaved down to stubble. Roached hair stood up like a hawk’s crest at their crowns. The left sides of their heads were bound in looped plaits and intricate knots, bedecked as gaily as a Yuletide table. Bells of copper and iron tinkled amid discs of gleaming white shell, each as large as a man’s palm. One man’s knot bristled with dozens of fierce-looking quills far longer than any hedgehog’s; another sported the yellow leg of an eagle with its hard scales and rictus claws; yet another seemed to house a live, bright-green snake within his hair. As the man drew near, Smith watched the serpent ripple and shudder, coiling deep within the nest of the knotted braid.

  Smith also realized the function of these peculiar hairstyles: with the hair shorn from the right side of a man’s body, it could never tangle in his bowstring.

  Christ preserve us, everything these people do, even the way they cut their hair, is a preparation for war.

  Smith glanced at Wingfield. The man was all smiles, waving his welcome, patting the other Englishmen on their backs as if to brace them up.

  “He still thinks they’re like children,” Smith muttered to Scrivener. “A hundred of them come with bows taller than Wingfield himself, and he thinks they’ve come to sit at his knee and learn to take the Sacrament.”

  Gabriel Archer stirred uneasily at Smith’s side. He held his bandaged hands stiffly away from his body. They twitched as if he longed to seize a gun. “I don’t like it,” Archer said, voice quaking. “Why have they brought bows? They’ve come to make war on us, or I’m a dog’s uncle.”

  A rumble passed through the crowd o
f English, a sound tense with fear.

  “Now, Archer,” Smith said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You mustn’t fear. We must all remain calm. They haven’t come to make war—not yet, at any rate.”

  “Then why are they here? What do they want?”

  “They’ve come to learn,” Smith said. “They want to see us, to know us. They want to test us, find out what we’re made of. There’s nothing to fear, I swear it. Not today.” Not yet.

  The procession of Indians shifted, parted, and one emerged—Wowinchopunck, their king. He carried himself with a quiet self-possession, and above his piercing dark eyes a circlet of some coarse, red-dyed animal hair bristled tall upon his brow. Wowinchopunck’s stare moved calmly over the gathered English. He paused a moment on Smith’s face. His mouth jerked as if he might speak, and then he found Wingfield. The Indian king nodded once and stepped toward Wingfield with a hand pressed to his heart.

  “Wingapoh,” said the king. His voice was as deep and cold as earth.

  Wingfield made some elaborate gesture; the Indian king watched in silence, and then, when he was sure Wingfield had finished, he indicated the deer on its truss. The king made a rapid rubbing motion in the air, and Smith could all but see the fire stick smoldering in his great, hard hands. Wowinchopunck’s fingers danced in perfect imitation of flames.

  “Er . . . ,” said Wingfield.

  “He wants you to make a fire,” Smith said, “to roast the meat.”

  “Of course.”

  Wingfield set some of the English to the task. The collection of tents grandly known as Jamestown did have a common area with a fire pit. The men blew a handful of smoldering coals back to life and nursed them into a respectable flame, and then set about constructing a spit large enough to support the weight of the deer. Meanwhile, a few Indians bent to the job of gutting and skinning the beast. The majority of the men, English and natural alike, stood back with arms folded, eyeing one another with cautious curiosity.

  Smith tried a few gestures, signs he hoped would be interpreted as friendly. At length one of the Indian men gestured back, a rather abrupt motion that set a few of his fellows to laughing. Smith gave a tentative smile. Then he presented the naturals with a gesture exceedingly rude. Some of the English gentlemen gasped; one laborer snickered. The naturals, perceiving at once that Smith had returned fire, broke into wide grins.

  The Indian who had made the offensive sign nodded toward Smith’s snaphaunce. His eyes were hungry on the weapon. Smith covered it with his hand and shook his head emphatically. The Indian took a few steps toward him. Smith felt his English fellows edge back, but he remained standing in place. As the Indian drew near, Smith could see that he was a young man, not quite twenty years old, with an unlined face and the barest hint of adolescent clumsiness in the long, hard-muscled arms. The Indian nodded again toward the gun, reaching out a hand in a seeking gesture. Smith held out his own hand, firm and commanding: stop. A flicker of anger moved across the young man’s face, and then was gone again, replaced by deliberate, well-calculated calm.

  Smith tapped his chest. “John Smith,” he said.

  The young man stared at him.

  He tried again. “John Smith.” Tapping.

  Comprehension lit black eyes. The Indian tapped his own chest. “Naukaquawis,” he said, and then, touching Smith’s chest, “Chawnzmit.”

  Smith returned the gesture, repeating the young man’s name, or what he hoped was an acceptable approximation. The lad glanced back at his fellows with a wide grin. He said something in his own tongue, a rapid, rattling sound. Soon the Indians were moving toward the crowd of trembling English, reaching out to tap chests, offering names.

  Smith kept his gun well guarded, but not all the English were so careful with their tools. Young Naukaquawis, after making introductions to a few more Englishmen, managed to lift a woodcutter’s axe from a belt loop. He hefted the tool with a look of great appreciation, testing its weight and balance in his palm.

  “Give it back!” cried the man who had lost it. It was Samuel Fletcher, a laborer, strong of body but rather lacking in wits.

  Naukaquawis squinted at Fletcher and shuffled away, tucking the axe protectively behind his back.

  “You bloody devil,” one of the Englishmen snarled.

  “Wait,” Smith called. “Let it go.”

  “By God, I will not! No red devil will thieve from me!” Fletcher threw himself fists-first at Naukaquawis.

  The Indian hooked a foot around Fletcher’s ankle and dumped him on his backside in the mud. Fletcher roared and came up swinging. The young Indian tucked the axe into his quiver, locked his arms around Fletcher’s shoulders, and heaved him headfirst across the grounds as easily as a man might sling a half-empty sack of flour.

  Fletcher fell in a heap at the feet of the Englishmen. He was by no means a small man and to see a bull like Fletcher tossed about like a knotted rag fairly stole the breath from English lungs. The colonists stared down at their man in fearful silence while he slipped and struggled in the mud.

  Naukaquawis tipped up onto the balls of his feet, spry as a sapling, poised to take Fletcher on again. Several of the naturals’ bows snapped to the vertical. An arrow hissed as it slid from a quiver.

  Smith raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture, dodging between Naukaquawis and Fletcher. He pressed his hand to his heart, struggling to remember the word their king had used. “Wingapoh.” He hoped it meant peace.

  Wowinchopunck, the king himself, distracted from his discourse with Wingfield, strode toward his men. He growled out a few words. Smith wasn’t sure whether that harsh, guttural tone was directed at the English or at the naturals, but Wowinchopunck’s men murmured and stamped.

  You English are too hostile, the king seemed to say with abrupt gesture and scowling face. Too quick to take offense.

  All at once the naturals marched away, retreating to the riverbank and hauling their half-skinned deer with them. Wowinchopunck made a few final gestures of disgust and disappointment, then gave his men one low command. They slid their canoes out onto the river, turned upstream, and paddled away as swiftly and smoothly as they had come.

  “A fine day’s work,” Smith said. He shoved through the crowd, making for the outer edge of the encampment. His shoulder struck Fletcher’s as he bulled past. Scrivener and Archer followed him.

  “To be honest,” said Archer, “I’m glad to see the back of them. Call me a coward if you must.”

  “No one questions your mettle,” Scrivener told him. “The Good Lord knows you’ve a right to be wary of them, more than the rest of us.”

  “May they never return,” Archer said.

  Smith rounded on them. “Don’t you see, we need them to return!”

  Scrivener and Archer exchanged slow, wary glances.

  “Just look at them,” Smith thundered. “They’re lean as greyhounds, but strong. You saw how that one threw Fletcher! Where does that strength come from? Do you suppose they eat deer year-round? Of course not. A man eats nothing but meat, he grows fat as a lord and can barely lift a tankard of ale, let alone throw a creature like Fletcher across a yard.”

  The others remained silent. Smith growled in frustration and threw his hands into the air. “What do they eat? Where do they find it? What do they do for food in the wintertime? We must know these things if we’re to survive here.”

  “Steady, Smith.” Scrivener laid a hand on his shoulder. “We have our supplies, with more shipments coming. Don’t tell me you’d rather live on roots and berries, or whatever the naturals eat, than civilized fare.”

  Smith shook his head. “I thought you were wiser than that, Scrivener. What happens if the shipments are delayed? There’s food all around us in this land, and yet we don’t know it when we see it. Wingfield thinks the naturals are like children waiting for guidance, yet it’s we who are weak in this place, we who blun
der about in ignorance. We don’t know a wholesome berry from a poisonous one. Come to that, we don’t know a friendly Indian from a hostile one. We don’t know their weaknesses, how they can be subdued. We need them. We must learn their ways. If we don’t, we will die. Mark my words.”

  And so it was that Smith was the only man among the English who rejoiced to see the Indians return two days later. He was helping to raise a cabin wall when the lookout sounded again from the Godspeed’s mast. This time, when the canoes made landfall, Smith was waiting on the strand. Twoscore Indians carried a new deer, but their king in his bristling red-fur crown was not among them. Smith stared out across the river to the dense woodland on the opposite shore, wondering where Wowinchopunck might be hiding with the remainder of his forces. But he led the Indians toward Jamestown, talking in gestures and grunts and the few words he had gleaned of their language from their previous visit.

  By the time they reached the assembled Englishmen, the naturals had made it clear that they intended to spend the night at Jamestown. Smith explained to Wingfield and the other members of the council.

  “Absolutely not,” said Gabriel Archer. “I’ve never heard of a greater folly.”

  Bartholomew Gosnold, square-jawed and flat-faced, shook his head. “They’ll only creep about looking for things to steal.”

  The council was in full agreement. Even had they recognized Smith as a member, his word would have convinced no one. It fell to him to turn the Indians away. He cursed the shortsightedness of his fellows as he gestured their rejection to the naturals. The Indians grew agitated at his signs, visibly bristling with offense, and Smith cursed the council all the more.