Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  “I cannot give you guns, as you well know,” Smith said. Powhatan scowled deeply, all the humor gone from his face in an instant. Smith said quickly, “But I heard that your temple was destroyed. It was ill done, and you were right to take the lives of those runaways who burned it. I will not give you guns, but I will send strong workers to rebuilt Uttamussak.”

  Powhatan’s shoulders jerked, a silent bark of laughter. “You have no strong men, Chawnzmit. It is winter, and you have nothing to eat but ice and sticks.” He leaned back comfortably on his furs. “If I do not get my guns, you do not get your food.”

  “Do you think you can while away the days until my people die of starvation?”

  Powhatan watched him levelly, unblinking, the smallest and coldest smile on the Great Chief’s mouth.

  Of course it was precisely what the mamanatowick intended: allow the weather, the vile, harsh Tidewater itself, to do the chore of eradicating the English pestilence. Christ knew the land had done a fine enough job already. Brackish water, meager game, gardens that could not produce more than a handful of thin beans and dry corn. Illness spread through the very mud of Jamestown like a wine stain through linen, and when illness was not dropping men like shot drops a flock of birds, the haunting vastness of the woodland turned the English mad. Ratcliffe and his palace; Wingfield and his secret stores.

  The Indians needed do naught but wait. And now they knew it; Smith saw the truth of it in Powhatan’s conceited stare.

  “I cannot spare any of my weapons,” Smith said. “We need them to defend ourselves against your people. However, I will make a sacred oath that I will not turn a single one of my weapons on any Real Person. Nor shall any of my men harm your people in any way, if you will freely give us enough food to see us through popanow. None of us shall violate this sacred oath, unless you force us to do so with ill treatment.”

  A dark intensity came over the mamanatowick’s face. He sat forward, leaning his elbows upon his knees. Smith thought for one wild, victorious moment that the old man would agree to the oath. Instead, the Great Chief asked a question for which Smith was not prepared: “Why are you here, Chawnzmit? Why did you come to Tsenacomoco? This question has plagued me since you first arrived. It has haunted me like a crying ghost in my dreams. Do you intend to make this land yours? To take it from me, to drive my people out, or kill us entirely? Tell me. Tell me why you came.”

  Smith could not form a suitable answer. A shower of words tumbled through his head, English and Real Tongue falling together in a confusion, pouring through his mind like the gush of a waterfall. He grasped at them, but the words were slippery as fishes. They darted away again, silver and flashing. How could he make Powhatan understand any of it? The Virginia Company, the search for gold, shareholders and kings, a passage to the Indies . . . How could he explain the greatness of the explorer, immortality on the page of a book, a place in history? The fishes dodged and fled, and Smith could only stare at the chief flatly.

  “Listen to my words, Chawnzmit. This”—Powhatan gestured in the space between them, as if delineating an invisible chasm that separated them, or perhaps a tie that bound them—“is not what I want. I am old. I am only growing older. Because you are a young man still, you do not yet feel it, but the same will be true of you. Listen to an old man’s wisdom. All I want is a life of quiet ease. I cannot continue to fight, nor can I run. I would rather enjoy what few years I have left, lying with my women, laughing with my children. Making a friendship with all who come to my land—even you, even after all you have done.” The Great Chief’s voice rose slightly, carrying just a bit farther than it had before. The men guarding his person drew themselves up. It was almost imperceptible, but Smith, sharpened as he was, found it signal enough.

  “I will strike a bargain with you,” Powhatan said, “a trade, if you swear to me that you will deal from now on only with me. You and all your kind must let all my people alone, in Werowocomoco and in all my other towns, all my other territories.”

  Smith ducked his head, a grudging acknowledgment. “If I had intended to harm any of your people, Chief Powhatan, I should have harmed them long before now.” He turned abruptly to Russell, said rapidly in English, “Get back to the shallop. Tell more men to come ashore, armed and ready for a fight. Be quick.”

  He said smoothly to Powhatan, smiling, “I have sent my man to bring some steel goods, gifts for you—tokens of our good faith.”

  As they waited for Russell to return, they spoke lightly of the treaty, suggesting terms, waving acceptance. Smith could see in Powhatan’s sly, steady eyes that the old man’s promises were as false as his own. Russell was admitted once more into the longhouse. Several women followed, carrying baskets of hot food.

  “You must excuse me,” Powhatan said, rising on unsteady legs. “I find I have more need of the privy pit with each year that passes. My women will entertain you until I return.”

  The women laid out a small feast, corn dumplings swimming in oyster stew accompanied by baskets of dried mulberries and the soft, sweet meat of chestnuts. Smith’s mouth watered; his stomach clenched painfully, so sudden and fierce that he nearly cried aloud. He stuffed a dumpling into his mouth and muttered to Russell, “Brace. They will attack any moment.”

  Russell, too, packed his cheeks with food, frantic as a starving squirrel. When they had both gulped down all they could in a few moments’ time, Smith nodded abruptly. They lifted their bucklers, drew their guns, and barged down the length of the longhouse while the women screamed the alarm behind them.

  Smith threw himself past the door flap. He hoisted his snaphaunce and fired a shot into the air. White smoke, reeking of sulfur, spread in a ring above their heads and dissipated rapidly on the breeze. Russell pointed his gun at the nearest Indian, who was already drawing back, already holding his bow out to the side, as were they all, retreating a step or two from the perilous firearms but still tense and ready to spring.

  “Hold your shot,” Smith barked to Russell. “We may need it. I can’t reload as we are now.”

  They raced for the shallop, glancing over their shoulders as they dodged through the trees. An arrow punched into a tree as Smith fled past it; Russell lifted his buckler in time to deflect another shaft. Before they reached the riverbank, a charge of Englishmen came through the woods to meet them, yelling like devils, matches alight and glowing in the locks of their muskets. The pursuing Indians drew up short, shouting among the trees.

  “Back to the boat,” Smith said. The riverbank was not far off, where Scrivener waited on the shallop with a crew of men.

  They retreated in a body, bucklers raised in cautious defense. Smith watched the forest warily. The men milled at the landing boat, trying to organize themselves in the best way for a successful flight to the safety of the shallop.

  A gray shape moved among the trees. Powhatan emerged from the wood, dressed in his robe of wolfskin. He raised a hand to the Englishmen.

  “Chawnzmit, my friend. What is this misunderstanding? Why do you flee? Come, let us return to our talk of a treaty.”

  “Talk of a treaty, while I am surrounded by men armed with bows? I think not.”

  “I sent bowmen only to guard the corn I will give you.”

  “Guard it? From whom?”

  “From your own men, in case they tried to take it from you and overthrow your leadership. Look at them. They are ready to shoot at the least provocation. Starving men can never be trusted. Why should they not turn their guns on you?”

  Smith cut his eyes toward the Englishmen who stood with their muskets trained on Powhatan.

  “Look,” Powhatan said. “See the corn we bring you.”

  Scores of men emerged from the wood, each one straining with a basket heaped with food. Some carried corn, some beans, others small colorful gourds, but all brought a wealth of goods. Smith’s mouth watered. He swallowed convulsively as the line of baskets stre
tched down the length of the shoreline.

  Powhatan approached, his hand stretched forth in friendship. “Set down your guns, Chawnzmit. Allow us to prove to you that we are your friends, on this day and for all days to come. We shall watch over your guns while you load the food onto your boat.”

  For answer, Smith moved close to Powhatan’s side. He lifted his snaphaunce, pulled the wheel lock back into a cock. The click of steel was as loud as the pounding of his heart. Immediately he heard the metallic clamor of more firearms cocking as the men of Jamestown steadied their weapons.

  “Tell your men to load my boat,” Smith grated, his voice dangerous and low. “And to show we are friends, I will not kill you.”

  The English made a brave show, standing armed over the bushels of beans and corn while the naturals loaded the shallop with extreme care. They did the job so methodically that by the time the goods and the English were aboard, the tide had run low. The shallop, sluggish with the weight of food and men, sank its keel into the mud and could not be persuaded to move.

  Smith spat a few choice curses at the naturals, in this tongue and their own. A few of them grinned as they slunk back and forth along the shoreline like wolves around a sheep pen.

  “It will be hours before the tide lifts us high enough to sail,” Russell murmured. “And by then, we’ll be in pitch blackness and cannot navigate.”

  “Aye. They have us, and no mistake,” Smith said.

  Powhatan raised his voice. It carried across the water, hoarse and gruff, thick with amusement. “It seems you are rather stuck, Chawnzmit.”

  “True enough,” he called back. He felt as mad as Ratcliffe in his palace; a wild laugh pressed at his throat, threatening to rattle loose and wing across the river.

  “It seems you had best come back ashore, you and all your men. We have plenty of food left in our stores. Let us feed you well, and we shall bed you down in a good longhouse. I give you a promise of safety. We are all friends here. Let us pass a night together as brothers.”

  The old man pressed a hand to his heart, grinning and chuckling.

  Smith had no choice but to return the gesture. Beneath the thin, ragged wool of his tunic, through the cold skin of his mail, John Smith felt his heart hammer like a blacksmith at his forge.

  The longhouse was dry and warm. In that, at least, Powhatan’s promise had been truthful. Smith set his own men guarding the door flap and the inside perimeter of the building, while outside Indian guards paced a black ring through the skiff of snow.

  “Now what?” Scrivener muttered, cradling his gun close against his chest.

  “You may as well try to rest,” Smith said. “We are stuck here until morning.”

  “Meanwhile, they will send their canoes out to rob us of every last kernel of corn. I have no doubt that the shallop is floating free this very moment.”

  “Wish we was aboard,” somebody agreed from the depths of the longhouse.

  “Sailing at night?” Smith mocked. “Have you a cat’s eyes, then?”

  “What if they cut the shallop free? How will we return to Jamestown?”

  If the naturals decided to cut the shallop free, they would not leave the English in any fit state to return to Jamestown. Corpses did not make the finest of sailors. Smith thought it far more likely that a few of them would be singled out to die bravely, subjected to the same trial they had given George Classen at Apocant, while the rest of the English watched. The survivors would be bundled back aboard their empty shallop and sent home to spread the news that Powhatan had finally struck in all his terrible power. And then, Jamestown would be left alone, the final handful of men allowed to starve or die of exposure.

  Smith felt little fear. Powhatan still held some small measure of respect for him, he knew—a grudging admission that Smith was a survivor, a leader, a man with the natural gifts of the werowance. He would not be left to starve. He would be offered the honor of a brave death. It would not be quick, and Smith would not be brave. But it was preferable to slow starvation and encroaching madness.

  Secure in this certainty, a blanketing peace fell over John Smith’s soul. He leaned back against the sapling frame of the longhouse and sighed, accepting his bone-deep weariness and the simple comfort of the warm, dry shelter. He was tired. He would sleep, and when he woke, he would die.

  From across the longhouse, a faint scratching sounded. The men near it looked around in startlement.

  “Chawnzmit,” a voice called in a half whisper, urgent and high. A child’s voice.

  Smith forced himself upright. He staggered on aching legs toward the sound. Small fingers poked into a crack between bark strips, pried, slipped.

  “Pocahontas?”

  “Hurry,” she said. “The guards will come back to this side of the longhouse soon.”

  He leaned against the patch of bark. It gave against its lashings; the frame of the longhouse creaked. Pocahontas worked her hands into the gap and tugged. The strips gave way, opened just enough for her to wriggle through onto the hard-packed floor.

  “Princess,” a few of the men said. They helped her to her feet, squeezing her shoulders with reverent hands, touching her arms and her hair, as if her presence might bestow on them enough luck to save their lives.

  She tipped her face up and stared into John Smith’s eyes. The dimple in her chin quivered.

  “Why are you here, Pocahontas? You’re in danger; you know that.”

  “I shouldn’t be here. I should leave you all to your fates.”

  He stepped back, struck by her bitterness. It seemed an emotion too real for this sportive, sweet child, too adult.

  “I saw the temple burn, Chawnzmit. I saw what your men did to our sacred place.”

  “I am sorry for it. I never ordered it. I would have stopped it, if I could.”

  She dropped her piercing, fierce, unchildlike black eyes and he exhaled in relief.

  “I know,” she said. “I am here only because I believe what you said, those many months ago. Do you remember, Chawnzmit? You told me . . .”

  “That the alternative to what we do is not love, but war.”

  “Yes. I believe it. After what I have seen, I understand that there can be no love between us. Tassantassas and Real People can never live as one. We can never love. But neither do I wish war. My father is old. War would break him—kill him. He is too old now to die bravely in battle. He would die weeping and ashamed, and I would consign his bones to darkness.”

  He took her hand. He could think of nothing else to do, no word or gesture that could bring comfort to her wracked soul. Her fingers were limp and cold in his hand.

  “I do not wish for war,” she went on in her stilted English, “therefore I come to warn you. Soon my father will send food for your men, and the warriors who bring it will wait until your starving men are eating. While they are distracted by the food . . .” Her voice stopped abruptly. The crunch of moccasins in snow moved along the outer wall and then faded into the night. She exhaled, squeezing her eyes shut as she drove away the momentary fear. “While they are distracted by the food, my father’s warriors will draw the swords from your men’s belts, and cut them down with their own blades.

  “Your people are cruel, and broken deep in their spirits. But this ambush will only lead to more attacks, more temples burned, more lives lost. So I am here to put a stop to it. Take your men and leave, Chawnzmit. Leave and never trouble my people again. You must stay far from us, and we from you. It is the only way any of us will survive—it is the only way we might have peace again in Tsenacomoco.”

  Smith nodded, and kept nodding, stunned to speechlessness by her bravery, and wounded by the curious pain he felt on her behalf. She was so naïve, so full of hope where there was no hope to be found. And Smith knew it was he who had instilled it in her, he who had led her to trust.

  God will damn me for breaking your
heart, he told her silently. And I will deserve it.

  He caught her chin in his hand and held her gently while he gazed one final time into her face. In all the New World, and in the Old World, too, she alone was a kindred soul. She alone could he trust and esteem. And even she was changing—already changed—touched by a deep, harrowing sadness, her eyes brimming with the power of a revelation he could not understand.

  He would give her some token of what had been, some small thing to remember him by. He sensed they would part forever now. He could feel the truth of it crackling around them like sparks from a bonfire. He reached into the pouch he wore for trading and pulled out a string of blue beads. Wordlessly, he offered the string to her.

  Pocahontas looked down at his hand but she made no move to reach for the beads. When she looked up again, her face was twisted with tragedy. A hot flood of tears washed her cheeks.

  “Chawnzmit,” she said, “you think to buy this information from me?” She shook her head, disbelieving and sad. “I give it freely.”

  She ducked into shadow, pressing herself against the panel of bark, and with a twist of her body she was gone, silent as smoke dissipating on a night breeze.

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  Season of Popanow

  The messenger from Werowocomoco was near collapse. He had run through the forest from the capital to Pamunkey-town. With Chawnzmit on the loose, manning his strange white-winged boat with its thunderous weapons, the river was no longer safe. It took a long time for the messenger to catch his breath. He sat well back from the heat of the heart fire, wheezing, eyes shut, one hand pressed to his racing heart, until at last he was able to gasp out a few words: “They are coming.”

  Opechancanough, pacing up and down the length of his longhouse, eyeing the empty bedstead where Tsena-no-ha had slept, allowed himself the smallest of smiles. “Good.”

  When the messenger had recovered enough to gulp down a gourdful of water, Opechancanough crouched beside him. The young man’s body still trembled violently from his heroic exertion. His face was pale and slightly green around the mouth.