Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  She paced all night on the bank of the river, eyes blinded by hot tears. Her spirit cried out like a wounded beast, inarticulate and wracked with pain. Again and again she saw Chawnzmit, watching her struggle in Ratcliffe’s grip, and then turning deliberately away. She had defended him to her father, had fought to help him and his people—and he had shown himself to be no true friend. She wore a track in the underbrush, her restless feet beating at vegetation silvered by moonlight, her unfeeling fingers breaking off twigs and shredding leaves as she moved in her unceasing distress. The only person who had truly understood her—the one who was like she was, low blood, common, but dreaming of more, knowing she deserved more . . .

  With a pain that cramped like hunger, she felt Matachanna’s old words fall heavy into the pit of her spirit. They dropped like chestnuts into a deep basket, round and cold and hard. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have so many friends to spare. Matachanna was right. If Chawnzmit was not her friend, then no one was. Oh, how it burned to admit it, how sour was the knowledge in her mouth!

  She walked up to her calves in the river. The cold lanced into her flesh; she stood still and welcomed it. The harsh bite of cold water chased away the dull ache in her chest, suffusing her body with a shivering, sharp awareness. Night insects buzzed in the grasses. A hunting owl called once and was silent.

  Into the momentary peace, Matachanna spoke again. The truth is, you are selfish and ungrateful.

  Pocahontas bent her knees and dashed her hands against the surface of the river. A glittering arc of spray curved into the night, pattering back into the water. The words gripped her spirit as hard as Ratcliffe’s fingers had held her jaw, yet she still resisted the truth. Her dream was too grand, too important. Her desire for influence, to be the focus of all eyes, could not be abated by something as simple as truth. She cherished her dream every bit as much as Powhatan clung to his dream of guns and conquest.

  Powhatan. If I tell him exactly what happened today, it will all be over. He won’t risk Naukaquawis’s safety. Chawnzmit might be no friend to her, but she was still the master of the English tongue, still the best resource the Real People had for dealing with the fort. Her skill with the tassantassas’ language was the one lever she could still use to move her father. Water lapped around her legs, raising the tiny hairs of her body. I have a very small and frail arm to draw such a mighty bow. She wrapped her arms around herself. She was nothing but a little fawn, thin and fragile as a baby clam’s shell. Am I equal to this task? Can I bend Powhatan—the whole of Tsenacomoco—to my will? I will not give up so easily. I will not walk away, as Chawnzmit walked away.

  Her teeth chattered.

  Dawn stole through the forest, leaching the deep blues and violets from the spaces between trees, replacing them with a pale gray, the gentle sheen of new-strung pearls. Birds began to wake in the branches. Their tentative morning songs stirred the air as a paddle stirs weeds in shallow water with a languid, dancing slowness. Pocahontas splashed back onto dry land. Her legs were numb from the cold; she stamped and shook them, rubbing her hands vigorously over her body to warm her skin.

  As the sun crept above the horizon, she formed her plan, turning it over and over in her mind like a woman working red clay into a pot. It was a good plan. Like a good pot, it would hold and withstand the heat of her father’s hottest fire. She made her way back through the wakening wood. The women’s temporary shelter loomed into view, the arch of its roof painted with a bright-yellow slash of morning light. The door flap lifted, and a woman ducked out, straightened, and flicked her apron to remove some speck of dirt.

  The spirits are good to me. It was just the woman she needed.

  “Anawanuske,” she called.

  The woman paused midstretch and glanced, startled, toward Pocahontas. Anawanuske was a new bride of Powhatan, having arrived in the capital of Werowocomoco only a few months before. She had seen perhaps sixteen winters, but in spite of her youth she was not an especially pretty woman. One of her eyes drifted away from whatever she looked at, and her chin was too small. But she was very kind, and had a wicked humor with a wit nearly as sharp as Pocahontas’s own.

  But of far greater value than her face, Anawanuske was the eldest daughter of Wowinchopunck, werowance of the Paspaheghs. Wowinchopunck remained embittered over Powhatan’s too-soft treatment of the white men, and some whispered that the Paspahegh were prepared to split from the union of tribes and stand on their own against the tassantassas—and to stand against the entirety of Powhatan’s confederacy.

  Powhatan had wasted no time in marrying Wowinchopunck’s daughter as soon as she was ripe for a husband. Any child Anawanuske produced might have weak eyes, but her offspring, sired by the mamanatowick, would do much to bind the Paspahegh more tightly to Powhatan. She was a woman of value—a woman to whom her father would listen.

  When Pocahontas waved urgently for the woman to join her on the edge of the clearing, Anawanuske glanced around the garden and peered into the forest, searching for the cause of Pocahontas’s urgency. Seeing nothing, she shrugged and left the yard of the women’s house.

  Pocahontas greeted her with hand to heart. “Wingapoh.”

  “What is it, Amonute?”

  “I have a task for you. I need you to carry a very important message to your father.”

  “Wowinchopunck? Why?”

  “Paspahegh is the closest town. We need their aid. You have heard, haven’t you, that the tassantassas captured some of our men?”

  “Yes, of course. As far as I care, they may keep Mackinoe. I never liked him—always grinning and licking his lips like a dog. But Naukaquawis . . .”

  “Exactly.”

  “Powhatan will be furious.”

  “This is an opportunity for Paspahegh to regain Powhatan’s esteem.”

  Paspahegh, of course, cared very little for Powhatan’s esteem just now. Did Anawanuske know of her own father’s anger? Pocahontas pressed her lips together and hoped, but a moment later, Anawanuske tilted her head. “How do you mean?” she said slowly.

  “The white leader—the one they call President Ratcliffe . . .”

  “Is he their leader?” Anawanuske asked, startled. “I thought it was Chawnzmit.”

  “Chawnzmit is a tanx. Ratcliffe is his werowance, and he told me to return to Werowocomoco and tell my father that they have captured his favorite son. He means to provoke Powhatan, to start a war. But wouldn’t it be better if we returned to Werowocomoco with Naukaquawis? What if we returned bearing the message that Wowinchopunck has liberated Naukaquawis from the fort, and that the peace Powhatan has worked for is still intact? Imagine how my father—your husband—will celebrate. Paspahegh will be lauded as the bravest and best of all the tribes.”

  “And how exactly is Wowinchopunck to liberate Naukaquawis?”

  Pocahontas had considered this already. “He mustn’t kill anybody. He must do it without violence. But you have seen how eager the tassantassas are for food. It will be many weeks before the garden produces any corn or beans. If he offers a share of corn . . .”

  “You know how terrible the summers have been, Amonute. For years our corn yields have been far short of what they should be. Wowinchopunck will say that Paspahegh has no corn to spare. And he will be right to say it! All the tribes send tribute to Powhatan, so you are used to seeing full stores at Werowocomoco. But it is not that way in the smaller towns, where we must pay our regular tributes to the mamanatowick. We have suffered through these dry, hot years.”

  “Fish, then—there are still plenty of fish running. Bring them many, many fish, and whatever bits of corn can be spared, and I know they will let Naukaquawis go. And that repulsive Mackinoe.”

  Anawanuske sighed. “I suppose it might work. I do want to see my mother and little sisters again. It’s an excuse to visit them, even if only for a day.”

  Pocahontas hooked her finger with Anawan
uske’s, in friendship and gratitude. “Thank you. And remember: no violence. Your father must free Naukaquawis through peaceful means only.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Once she had seen Anawanuske off in the smallest and lightest canoe, Pocahontas stole into the women’s longhouse and slept for a few fitful hours. Her dreams were shadowed by a strange, half-seen vision, a world of gray stone crowded with people, a sour smell that made her feel at once hopeless and thrilled. Her body jerked her out of the dreamworld. She lay beneath her wolfskin, mouth dry, staring up at the smoke hole in the roof. A ring of blue sky stared back at her, unblinking and thoughtful, like Chawnzmit’s stare as Ratcliffe held her in his hard, angry fist.

  Pocahontas slid from beneath the wolfskin. The air here was warm. Outside the longhouse it would be like a festival fireside, a cohattayough midday shimmering with heat visions and the movement of insects. A sheen of sweat dried and cooled her. She took deep breaths to steady her spirit, and smelled the familiar, homey scents of the longhouse: the forceful, warm odor of pine smoke; a whiff of bear grease and earthy mineral pigments; the green brightness of drying herbs; and the faint salty undercurrent of preserved fish. Comforting scents. And yet she felt no comfort. She drew deeper and deeper breaths, drinking the longhouse, savoring it like cool water on a scorching day. The more she breathed it in, the further from it her spirit receded. The sensation unsettled her, filling her with a desolate yearning, a tremor of unbearable loss. She made her way to the door flap and stepped out into the full force of the midday sun.

  She worked in silence in the hot field, stabbing her digging stick automatically into the mounds of earth so that Matachanna could follow behind and drop her seeds into the soil. No one spoke. The women were subdued and frightened, yet still they clung to the hope of the garden, praying that their gift would soften the tassantassas’ hearts and set their men free.

  Sweat ran down Pocahontas’s skin, streaking the greasepaint she had applied to ward off the mosquitoes and biting flies. She longed for the evening chants, the call to leave off work for another day. She imagined that when the women finally made their way to the shoreline to bathe, she would wade deep into the river and sluice the day’s worries from her skin. Her fears would fall from her body as leaves fall from autumn trees. They would drift in the current, clouds of yellow and red and mud black, and the river would carry them far, far away.

  At last the evening chant was called, just as the rich odor of corn-and-fish stew began to waft from the longhouse. Pocahontas wedged her digging stick deep into a garden mound. Her hands were sore from the work. Blisters would form by tomorrow; she must ask Matachanna for her good salve.

  As she joined the stream of women making their way toward the bathing spot, she noted movement on the river: the swift cut and pull of a lone paddle and the low glide of a dugout canoe. Anawanuske! Pocahontas broke from the line and ran to the low shelf of riverbank where the canoe would come to ground. But something was not right. The figure in the canoe was too broad through the shoulders, too square of jaw. It was a man. A Paspahegh shield hung over the near side of his vessel.

  A terrible weight of failure, heavy and cold as a snowdrift, fell upon her as she watched the canoe beach. She felt footsteps on the path behind her and knew without turning that Kocoum was there. His silent presence was as familiar to her as her own thwarted dreams.

  The Paspahegh man sprang from his canoe. A furrow marred the space between his brows; his face was dark with blood-angry puccoon. Pocahontas stared at him, unable to speak.

  “You have a message from Paspahegh?” Kocoum said quietly.

  The messenger jerked his chin upward in a curt, wordless acknowledgment.

  Kocoum laid one hand on Pocahontas’s shoulder. “You must give it to me, I suppose,” he said. “Our werowance Naukaquawis is . . . inside the white men’s fort.”

  “The message is for the white men. I am to tell it to the girl who speaks their tongue.”

  “This is the girl.” Gently, Kocoum pushed her forward.

  Pocahontas’s chin trembled as she looked up at the warrior. Her spirit writhed, savaged by fearsome beasts: guilt, terror, and loss. Each one had terrible teeth, and talons as sharp as steel.

  “You are to tell the tassantassas that we have taken two of them as our prisoners,” the messenger said. “We caught them out hunting. They are ours now. We will keep them until they release the Real Men they hold. If Naukaquawis and the other are unharmed, then their friends will remain unharmed . . . more or less. But they shall not have them back until we have ours.”

  His duty discharged, the Paspahegh man turned abruptly and shoved his canoe back into the river.

  Pocahontas stood on the riverbank, still as a deer bemused by torchlight. All her thoughts clamored at once, and over the strange ringing in her ears, mournful words repeated. She heard them in Matachanna’s voice. What have you done, Pocahontas? What have you done?

  Kocoum took her by the arm, but he did not handle her roughly. When he spoke his voice was as soothing as a man’s ever could be. “Come, Amonute. We had best deliver the message to the fort. One foot in front of the other—that’s the way. And after you have told the tassantassas what you must tell them, I will take you home. All of us are going home. The Okeus alone knows what will happen now, but we will all be safer at Werowocomoco.”

  Two days later, as Powhatan raged from his bedstead, his wives cowering around him, word reached Werowocomoco that the tassantassas had moved in retaliation. The white men had fallen on a Paspahegh village, setting fire to the houses and burning the precious dugout canoes that took so much labor and care to build.

  The spirits could be thanked for one small mercy: no women or children had been harmed or captured. Only three men were lost, cut down by English guns, their bodies broken and burned and stinking of sulfur and blood. Thirteen men were taken as captives, joining Naukaquawis and Mackinoe in whatever nightmare prison the tassantassas had made for them.

  The spirits were kind to spare so many lives, but the burning of the town left every heart in the mamanatowick’s capital despondent. It would take the Paspahegh women weeks to rebuild their homes, recover their food stores, and resurrect the crow towers and stockades of their gardens. And the dugouts—their destruction was a senseless waste, breathtaking in its vicious spite. Up and down the lanes of Werowocomoco, women keened in sympathetic sorrow and men kicked stones, slashing at the air with their war clubs and promising vengeance on the white men.

  Pocahontas hid her face in the furs of her bed, listening in horror to the cries of anger and loss that echoed through the town. A ravenous creature seemed to gnaw at her heart, and its teeth were made of hard, cold guilt.

  That evening she felt Matachanna’s slight, warm weight sink onto the sleeping mat beside her. A tentative hand rested on her shoulder.

  “Pocahontas, my sister.”

  She did not respond. It took all the effort her spirit could muster to breathe around the suffocating force of her shame. How could she hope to sit up and look into Matachanna’s face?

  “Please, Amonute.” She pulled a corner of the wolfskin blanket away from Pocahontas’s eyes. Matachanna’s pretty face was long with concern. “There is something going on at Father’s longhouse. Something I think you need to see for yourself.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to.”

  Matachanna found her hand, buried in the wolf pelt. Warm fingers laced together; she squeezed. “I know you are fond of Chawnzmit. I think it’s important that you witness all that is happening now. Please, come and see. Do this for me, Sister.”

  With dragging steps, Pocahontas allowed herself to be led through the lanes of Werowocomoco to her father’s house. Even before Kocoum allowed them inside, with a sympathetic glance at Pocahontas’s bed-creased face and guilt-ravaged eyes, they could hear men shouting inside. Pocahontas balked at the door flap. She knew, some
whisper on the wind had told her, that the final thin sinew holding her dreams to her heart was about to be severed.

  Many werowances from nearby tribes clustered around the heart fire, though more still were absent. It was a hasty meeting Powhatan had called. A peace pipe, still smoldering a thin wisp of tobacco smoke, lay forgotten beside the fire. The chiefs surged and boiled like a pot left too long in the coals.

  Propped up on his accustomed high bedstead, Powhatan watched with a stiff air of offended honor while his chiefs argued below him. Behind the mamanatowick, in the deep shadow of his sleeping place, two or three young women crouched, ready to attend to any of his needs. One of them leaned forward to whisper something in the mamanatowick’s ear, and Pocahontas started, recognizing the wandering eye and small chin of Anawanuske. Her eyes were downcast, contrite. Anawanuske’s own sense of guilt at the part she had played was palpable, and Pocahontas’s misery redoubled, knowing that she had led another down the path of shame.

  Seated just below Powhatan’s tattooed knee, Opechancanough watched the discussion with keen black eyes. He turned his hard-carved face from one man to another, trying to discern their words among the fretful din of the longhouse, as if he considered each man’s righteous anger in turn, and found this storm of bitterness to be as sweet as a cohattayough breeze. The discs of copper in his hair gleamed like night fires.

  Powhatan raised a shaking hand for silence. “They have sixteen Real Men now. Three more have been taken by the tassantassas, men of Paspahegh. And it was a Paspahegh village that was put to the torch. I will hear Wowinchopunck speak first, as he has been the most wronged.”

  “All of you know the story in full already,” said Wowinchopunck. His voice was harsh and low, tense with a fury he could barely control. “There is nothing to add, save that one man in particular led these outrageous attacks. All the tassantassas acted under his command, and all that was done to Paspahegh was done at his orders.”