1609, Winter of the Dead: A Novel of the Founding of Jamestown (10 page)

Nat had fared better than most men since May. He covered himself with river mud at times to keep mosquitoes and biting flies away, he slept lightly to listen for impending attacks, and he always hid away in his sack a portion of biscuit or dried meat from each meal so that when cold weather came, he would have something to keep going. As of now, he had many handfuls of salt beef and pork, some dried apples, and a number of rock-hard biscuits. Most of it was wormy, but Nat had pulled the worms out. It was not the first time he'd hoarded food. In London he could go days without finding a fresh supply, and keeping a bit aside was a wise boy's actions. If the other members of James Towne were smart, they would be doing the same.

Some of the buildings in James Towne were already complete, including the church, the storehouse, and cottages for the council members and some gentlemen. The structures were tedious to build, made of woven willow and hazel branches and plastered with thick mud and covered with thatched roofs.

But many men still slept in the rotting tents. Nat shared a tent with Samuel Collier, a young tailor named William Love, and an older laborer named John Laydon. Neither Love nor Laydon was a big talker, and the animosity between Nat and Samuel remained strong. This was good; Nat didn't have to endure late-night banter from any of them.

“There is a gold-seeking party leaving in the morning. Are you going?”

Nat looked around. Jehu was there, standing behind the stone on which Nat sat, slipping his own shirt on over his broad shoulders and scanning the river with squinting eyes.

“Gold? Now?” said Nat. “Those men are fools. Will gold feed them or protect them from attack? I think not. Gold is in my future, not my present.”

“Wise,” said Jehu. He sat on the rock beside Nat, picked up a stray; flat pebble, and flung it toward the water. It skipped four times and disappeared. “Can you do more than four?”

Nat took a flat stone and hurled it. It skipped three times before it went under.

“I've been thinking. There are many plants here in Virginia,” said Jehu. “Different from those in England, but some of which are edible, I'm certain. If only we had a way of finding out which we can eat and which are poisonous. We could then gather the good plants and dry them to add to our store for the coming winter.”

“We could ask the Powhatans,” Nat said sourly.

“We could,” said Jehu. “But the more we can discover ourselves, the better. We don't want to seem helpless to the natives, although I think they already see us as such. I have heard your belly growl, Nathaniel. Don't tell me you aren't hungry and that you don't want to ease that pain.”

“I hear my belly, but I don't feel it. I've been hungry much of my life. London was a harsh mother. Hunger is so familiar I scarcely notice.”

“Ah, but you will. Give it time.”

Nat threw another stone into the water. It skipped twice and sank. “Are you proposing we choose a committee to taste plants? Those that kill the men we will not eat and those the men survive we will harvest?”

“A committee, no,” said Jehu. “But volunteers might take small tastes.”

“There will never be such volunteers,” Nat said.

“I will volunteer. A small taste of a dangerous plant will likely only make one sick. Will you join me? If we discover new foods, what a great thing that will be. We can be of service to all the men here.”

“No,” said Nat.

Jehu nodded slowly. “I understand,” he said. He patted Nat on the shoulder and went back to the fort.

“He will only get himself killed,” Nat said to himself. “If not an arrow or bad water or an insect bite, he will intentionally poison himself. Idiot.”

Nat went back to the fort when Reverend Hunt rang the bell for the daily worship in the church, and Jehu didn't mention his plan again.

14

September 4, 1607

I've a little time to write. This ink and paper is from the bratty page's sack of goods. I sit in my smelly tent, but neither Samuel Collier nor John Laydon nor William Love, the three who share this tent with me, is here at the moment.

More than fifty of our men are dead now, with Captain Gosnold one of the number. Some men have been killed by the illnesses and starvation, others by arrows, and still another recently executed for treason against the crown. He dared to jump up during our worship service and shout that the king was a tyrant who cared nothing about us here in James Towne. Soldiers took him and dragged him out of the church and on the spot, without inquiry or comment, shot him under the order of the council. Poor fool! This action seemed to me more savage than savages, for surely the man was mad with fear and hunger.

The
Susan Constant
and
Godspeed,
which left with Captain Newport in June, will be gone until early winter, most likely. No new supplies can be counted on until then.

Many men seem to think we have been abandoned, like the colony that was begun on Roanoke Island south of here years ago. They were left alone and when someone at last came from England to see the progress and bring more settlers, they discovered that the entire colony was gone. Everyone had disappeared. Taken away or killed by natives is the guess. Is that what will happen to us?

If Richard is alive, is he perhaps better off with natives than with incompetent Englishmen? I miss having someone to complain to about Samuel and Archer and the whining gentlemen.

This afternoon, while I was clearing thistled brush from the edge of the forest, I again spied a pair of eyes glaring at me from behind a boulder. Another animal, I thought, but this time a large one. I held still in case it was a bear, making no sound. No one working near me had any idea that there was danger so close, within several feet.

I continued to stare at the eyes. Then they shifted and widened, and I knew the eyes to be human and not animal. I felt a shout rattle my throat, but it did not come out. A Powhatan, so close he could have slit my throat as I bent to chop the brush. I prayed God that I would not be murdered where I stood.

“You pause there! Peacock, get back to work!” Captain Archer shouted to me. The man, who would never so much as lift an axe, had come out with those of us who would, and he was standing, throwing his hands all over and shaking his head madly, like a crazed fishwife.

I didn't know what else to do, with the Powhatan watching me. And so I did what I most often do, I began to act. When Archer looked elsewhere, I imitated him silently, throwing my own arms around, tossing my head back and forth and wagging my tongue.

The Powhatan began to laugh. I saw the bushes shake and I heard a high chuckle. Such a strange, soft sound! I had no idea a native could laugh. He parted the brush with his hands and smiled at me. It was a boy, a bit younger than myself, wearing bear grease and a leather cloth, his black hair unadorned and slicked back. He pointed at me as if he liked the joke, then let go of the brush and vanished.

I remind myself daily that I will become what I'd imagined back in London. An adventurer, a wealthy, independent man. I know how to plant crops now, and I have learned to cut and strip wood. It is a start. Gold may have to wait until next year. But I will have it.

Jehu continues his lone search for edible plants. I have told him I cannot feel hunger. That was a lie, but I will never show my discomfort. Jehu has discovered some berries which are quite good and dry quite well. He has found a tuber which is tough but meaty. As of now, he has only been mildly sick with a wild bean he tasted. God watches over fools, it seems. Maybe God will watch over James Towne.

15

September 7, 1607

“D
O THAT AGAIN
, young Peacock,” said John Laydon as he sat down on a tree stump with a tin plate of wheat gruel in his lap. The food was tasteless and watery, made of remaining grain from the bottom of the barrels brought on the ships in May and some tiny beans from the James Towne garden. Soon there would be no food at all except what the men produced themselves. Yet many gentlemen still refused to work. John Smith insisted that the council force everyone to work, but Wingfield, Archer, and Kendall would have nothing of it. They didn't want to make enemies of the gentlemen. At the moment, everyone, including the gentlemen, was seated within and without the fortress, eating the slimy gruel.

Nat was seated on the ground. His shirt was off and he could see his ribs straining at the skin of his chest. “Do what again?”

John Laydon leaned over and with a tired smirk said, “The imitation of Archer. I saw you the other day when we were cutting trees. You performed a hilarious rendition of the captain. I told several friends and they want to see it.”

Nat noticed that a couple of other men had turned and were grinning at him. Was Laydon serious?

Laydon said, “Archer is not nearby. Please. We need something to laugh at.”

The other men nodded.

Nat checked to make sure that no one else was looking his way, stood and went through the motions. He shook his head, snarled, jabbed his finger at Laydon, and jammed his hand on his hip, as he'd seen Archer do many times. John Laydon and the other men clutched their bony sides and howled with laughter.

“Good show!” said Laydon.

Nat sat and licked the remaining gruel from the plate.

In the days that followed, word spread around James Towne that Nat was a comedian. He was stopped as he drew water from the well, while knee-deep in the river digging for mussels, and even as he tried to sneak away to walk in the woods.

“Psst,” said one soldier standing on the bulwark. “Peacock, show me an imitation of our council president, the dreaded Edward Maria Wingfield.”

Nat wrinkled his nose and made his lip twitch. Then he stomped his foot and leaned back, pretending to down a mug of the beer Wingfield enjoyed so much, then staggered as if intoxicated. The soldier chuckled heartily.

“Hey, there, boy,” said the gentleman Benjamin Beast as Nat passed Beast's cottage late one evening on the way to his own tent. “Come in, I've something for you to do.” Nat went inside the cottage, which was dark and stank of diarrhea and vomit. There, another gentleman named George Walker was sick, rolled up in a blanket and shivering.

“My friend is ill. I want you to cheer him,” said Beast. “We understand you have a talent for satire. Please perform as Captain Smith, that crooked, impudent old arse!”

So Nat pretended to be Smith the way the gentlemen saw the man. He tossed back an invisible cape, tugged at a neck ruff, and crossed his eyes as if on the verge of insanity. Then he went into a mock battle with invisible Turks, cutting off heads and bowing. Beast and George Walker chortled and nodded, then gave Nat his leave. Beast pressed a bruised half apple into Nat's hand as a thank-you.

Back in his tent, Nat lay down on his straw mattress near the dozing, whistle-nosed Samuel Collier, and took out pen and page. He wrote,
If entertaining keeps me in good graces with the men of James Towne, so be it. I will not always have to perform at their beck and call. But for now, if they want a drunken councilor, I'll give them one. If they want a lazy sailor, they can have him. If they ask for a constipated gentleman, thus I shall be.

16

September 12, 1607

“W
HAT IS WRONG
with your face, boy? It is covered with maggots! Let me get them off before they eat your eyes!”

Nat dropped his hoe and straightened from his work in the wheat garden, beads of sweat rolling down his face. Before him, standing unsteadily with a sword in trembling hands, was Jehu Robinson. Two other gardeners stopped their work and stared.

“He's gone mad,” one man hissed.

“Nathaniel Peacock,” said Jehu. His words were slurred. “You've got worms all over your head. Hold still while I chop them away!”

Jehu wrapped his fingers around the handle of the sword, and with a grunt, swung it up and over. It arced by Nat's ear and Nat jumped out of the way, swearing.

“Jehu! What have you eaten? You are delirious!”

“Nat, wait!” said Jehu. “The worms are in your nostrils now. You will smother to death!” He lifted his sword and lashed out at Nat again. Nat again darted out of the way.

“Jehu, drop the sword!”

The two men in the garden ran out of the gate and up toward the fort, calling for help. “We've a madman!”

Jehu continued to wield the sword, Nat continued to dodge him. The man's awkward movements made it easy to keep away from the blow of the deadly blade. “Please, Jehu,” said Nat. “What have you eaten that has you so crazed?”

Jehu paused for a moment, then pulled several leaves from his pocket. They were ordinary-looking, with thorny stems. “These taste peculiar,” Jehu said. His eyes went shut, and then opened again, filmy and senseless. He dropped the leaves.

“Put down the sword,” Nat said. “Please.”

“But the worms…!”

“There are no worms, man, listen to me!”

There was whooping and shouting now at the fort. Nat looked up and saw three soldiers rushing down to the wheat garden, muskets at the ready.

“Drop your weapon, Jehu!” said Nat.

Jehu spun around on his toe and saw the soldiers racing at him. He shivered violently and raised the sword. “Devils!” he screamed. “You've devils in your midst!”

“Jehu,” said Nat. “There are no devils. Lower the sword.”

“Don't you see them?” shrieked Jehu. “God help me, they are sharp-toothed devils, come to slay me!”

“No!” said Nat.

Jehu charged forward, out of the garden and up the ridge toward the men, brandishing his sword. There was a moment of silence as the men paused to aim the muskets and then there was an explosion as three muskets fired. One musket ball struck Jehu in his right shoulder, shattering it instantly and making him drop the sword. The other hit his right knee, and he collapsed with a wail on to the ground. The third lodged in the man's gut, and his shirt flowered with a bright red blossom of blood.