1609, Winter of the Dead: A Novel of the Founding of Jamestown (15 page)

The rats had done serious damage. They had chewed holes into the crates and barrels and had been living inside, eating their fills and leaving rat droppings everywhere. Much of the food was ruined, because it was impossible to separate urine-soaked corn from the dry, the feces-coated peas from the clean.

“I hate rats!” said Nicholas as several ran across his feet and he batted them into heaven.

“And they hate us,” said Nat.

By dark, there were still rats in the storehouse, and so Nat and Nicholas were up early the next morning to continue the job. They whacked the creatures as they ran, crushing them beneath the clubs. Nicholas, rolling a barrel over to check for more, was suddenly pounced on by a large, gray creature that ran up his leg to his face.

“God!” he screamed.

The rat bit his cheek before Nat could slap the rat away and crush him beneath his boot.

“I'll have rabies!” cried Nicholas, dropping his club and holding his face in both hands. “God help me!”

“God help you,” said Nat. Nicholas was right. There was no telling if he would die from the bite or if it would just take the course of a swelling.

At last the place was rat-free, and the bodies of full-grown rats and clusters of dead baby rats were taken into the woods and pitched. Nat, with a sense of sour humor, nearly asked Nicholas if he wanted to have a rat-tossing contest, but decided against it. But as the last rat crashed into the undergrowth, he said, “It is possible that those creatures will one day look tasty. That the time will come when we wish we had rats for a meal, and hadn't been so hasty as to throw them away.”

Nicholas wiped away a tear and returned to the fort.

Nat didn't go back into the fortress immediately, but down to the river, where some of the sailors had launched the shallop. Smith, as usual, stood by supervising, his hands and his hips and his head tilted proudly. He spied Nat and called him over.

“Peacock!” he said. “You boasted at many skills when first we met. I've got men going to Point Comfort to fish. We must have something to fill our bellies. Are you a fisherman as well as farmer, soldier, cook, and carpenter?”

“Yes, sir,” Nat said cautiously.

“Then climb aboard and take an oar. I expect you to return with nothing less than brimming buckets.”

Nat's stomach clenched. “Is this truly a fishing trip, sir, not an expedition of exploration?”

Smith didn't seem to notice the hesitation in Nat's voice. “Yes, to the Point, or haven't you noticed we need food? Get aboard!”

Nat climbed into the shallop and was given a place near the back. He'd not left James Towne by boat in a long time. It might have been a pleasant change if he was not aware that this might be more than a fishing expedition. It might be another trip of human trade.

But the shallop did indeed row for the Point down the river at the mouth of the bay. Gulls followed the shallop, seeming to think that these men had something they might want. After a half hour of circling, they went off to another adventure. Nat's arms, much stronger and tougher after two years in Virginia, had no trouble working his oar through the water of the James.

The men landed on the sandy beach, hopping out into the small waves of the waist-high water and pulling the shallop half ashore. A sailor named Jonas and other named John drew out the huge net and spread it on the beach, inspecting it for tangles and tears. The other men took their shoes off and put them in the tall grasses, laid their muskets beside their shoes, and then joined in the stitching of the tears. As Nat and John nimbly knotted the thin ropes back into place, Jonas said, “Ye think the shallop would take us back to England safely?”

The men chuckled. “Aye,” said John. “Let's board now and we'll be home to our families in, what, three or four years, ye think?”

“Let's be off then!” said Jonas.

And then John hit the beach on his belly, and motioned the others to do so as well. Into the sand he sputtered, “Lord help us, its savages!”

There were curses and swearing, and the men looked helplessly at the muskets they had left by their shoes.

Nat could see them now. There were two canoes, each with four or five natives, paddling south past the Point. Who were they? Where did they come from? Were they the Indians from Cape Henry? Were they from farther north, or perhaps up the James River itself? There was too much distance to see their costumes clearly.

“Does it matter?” Nat muttered to himself. “If they see us, we are dead.”

“Ye've got a pistol, John,” whispered Jonas.

“Oh,” said John into the sand. “And you think I'll take the lot of them with one pistol? I'll kill one or two, and by then they will have come to shore with arrows and hatchets at the ready.”

“I mean in case they see us, fool,” said Jonas.

“Hush!”

The Englishmen lay as still as they could. It was worthless, Nat knew, because the shallop was huge and couldn't be missed, sitting there on the beach like a dead whale. It was just a matter of a few more seconds.

And then, as the faces in the canoes turned to stare at the shallop, Nat thought he recognized one of those faces. It was tanned, but seemed to not be of a native, but of a white man. An Englishman. An English boy.

Impossible.

“They've spied us, Jonas!” said John. “What are we to do?”

“Lie still and wait. We've got no other options!”

Impossible,
Nat thought.
I'm only imagining things. I want Richard to be alive and so have allowed the sun on the water to play tricks on my mind.

Either divine or some other mystical providence must have smiled, because the natives continued to steer their canoes, watching, yet doing nothing else, until they could no longer be seen.

“They were afraid,” said Jonas, jumping up and brushing off his trousers. “They know of the strength of the Englishmen!”

“They felt sorry for us,” said John, grasping the repaired net and walking it to the edge of the water. “They decided we weren't worth the bother.”

There was chuckling again, but this time is wasn't as hearty.

And as the men took the net into the briny waters to reap, hopefully, a harvest better than what they'd gleaned from the earth outside the fort at James Towne, all Nat could think about was Richard. Had that been he? Or had it been an illusion?

He threw himself into the fishing to try to forget. To not know.

But the fish the crew took back to James Towne three days later was much less than desired.

26

July 4, 1609

God help me, did I see Richard on the bay or was I dreaming? I can't know anymore. Sometimes my mind is muddled with fatigue and hunger, and it makes me want to rip something apart to get away from it! I can't bear feeling out of control! I can't bear feeling my mind is playing tricks on me!

Sometimes when no one is looking, I slap my own face to bring my mind back around to myself. I see the same numbness on the faces of others, too, and it angers me to succumb as they are!

This is our third summer here in Virginia, and we have gone into it with less strength, less vigor, less health and hope than any summer prior, and I fear unless a miracle occurs, we face a winter which could well be our last. As a body needs reserves of fat to live, a soul needs reserves of faith. There is little faith in James Towne. Old and new settlers alike talk among themselves, longing to go back to England, longing to abandon the cottages and fort and let the woods grow back to reclaim it.

Rats are in the storehouse again, but neither Nicholas—who did not die of rabies from the rat bite but whose face grew like a bloated tomato and then subsided to leave it somewhat lopsided and loose—I, nor any other boy here has been put to chasing them and killing them. As most of us are considered in fair health, we are needed to keep watch and tend gardens and make repairs on cottages which mold and rot before our very eyes. And so, what little grain is scraped from the storehouse barrels and from off the floor is cooked up as it is, with the rat droppings boiled in with the food.

Men are ill, writhing in agony in their sweat-soaked beds. Two died yesterday. This morning another died.

John Smith demands everyone but those who are on the brink of death be up and wielding muskets and axes and fishing nets. He threatens constantly, mustering everyone together each morning by the door of the church to lecture us and wave his hands at us as his cape billows behind him like the great hand of God. I have witnessed Smith draw up the sick and wheezing Edward Pising from his bed and push the man, stumbling, out of the fort and into the garden beyond to hoe a patch of peas.

A miracle is what we need!

Who told us there was gold here? Piss on him! If there was some to be had, I wonder how it would taste on the tongue. I wonder how it would feel in the belly.

27

August 11–12, 1609

S
AMUEL
C
OLLIER RETURNED
to James Towne in July at the request of John Smith, not flayed or half dead but seeming healthy and tattooed with some marks peculiar to the Powhatans. His red hair was cut short and the blemishes on his face had disappeared. He had gained a fair knowledge of the language of the natives but had lost his curt personality, and a cautious silence had taken its place. Nat was not displeased to see his old hut-mate, but Samuel seemed to have less interest in complaining about day-to-day events, which took much of the fun out of having the page around. Samuel moved back into Nat's hut, but spent most of his time by Smith's side, sharing what he had learned. Nat picked up some words which he hoped to try out secretly with Laughing Boy if the chance came,
wingapo
—“welcome,”
chespin
—“land,”
rawcosowghs
—“days,”
toppqough
—“nights,”
netoppew
—“friends,” but refused to directly ask that Samuel tutor him. One night, when he could no longer hold his question, he called to Samuel from his cot, “Did you see Richard Mutton among the natives? He has been gone a long time, but I wonder if he is still alive.”

“No,” said Samuel matter-of-factly. “I did not see him. There are at least thirty-two tribes under the Powhatan. Forget Richard. His fate is known only to God.”

Gabriel Archer left Virginia in midsummer, back to England to obtain more settlers and supplies, but the ever-arrogant Edward Maria Wingfield was still in the settlement, and Nat often saw him huddling together with the young gentleman George Percy down by the river as if they were plotting. Smith had not been hanged back in the West Indies as planned. Would these men try again to take revenge against the captain? Would they strangle Smith in the night? Would they stab Smith behind the storehouse?

Heat, flies, bad food, and jealousy were a perilous combination.

Pocahontas, who had visited the fort throughout the spring of the year, had not been back in a while. Nat wondered if the Powhatans were angry once more with the Englishmen. It was difficult to know when they would be friendly and when they would not, although John Smith had usually been able to make temporary peace with his ability to converse and reason. The Powhatans had different views on the use of land. According to Smith and now Samuel, they believed that the land could not be owned by anyone, that one might as well try to buy the sky and the sun. And so fear or anger would break out and there would be an attack. To most of the settlers, it seemed as if the natives acted on whim alone, but Nat knew English behavior must seem like whim to the natives. It was a relationship that seemed to have no clear answers. And the Englishmen, once again, were forced to rely on their own food supplies.

Nat had become an experienced gardener. He knew how deep to dig for planting beans and peas. He knew how to tend the new stalks of corn so they wouldn't shrivel. He knew which insects would eat the plants and which would eat other insects. The men who had survived from the first year as well as the newer settlers watched him and listened to his advice.

“I beg your pardon, sir! Don't pour that on the corn,” he shouted as one little bearded silversmith tipped over a bucket of water he'd drawn from the James River. “It's got salt in it. It will stunt the growth. It is best if you use well water.”

The silversmith snarled, “Preposterous. We can't spare well water for plants. We need it for drinking.”

“We need corn, sir. Please fill your bucket with well water.”

The man drew up his face as if he wanted to argue, but William Love, loosening the soil around the melon garden next to the corn, interrupted, shouting over the rail fence. “Nathaniel knows what he's talking about. Do as he says.”

Grumbling, the silversmith left the corn garden and took his bucket past the new cottages and through the gate of the fort.

“Hello, Nat!” It was Ann Laydon, a basket on her arm half full of berries she had found in the brush at the edge of the clearing. The skin of her face and hands had grown red with the weather, and her belly was round beneath her skirts. She had a baby due in a few months. “Find any treasures under that corn?”

If no one had been within hearing distance, Nat would have scolded her severely. But he just sighed and looked back at his work. There was a little pleasure in knowing that it irritated Ann greatly to be ignored.

“Your skin has become as dark as a savage in this sun,” said Ann. “Does that mean you want to be like them?”

Nat rubbed a mosquito bite on his chest and chopped the soil around a corn plant with his spade, softening it and working out stones.

“Do you hear me, gardener?”

Nat pushed the loosened soil back around the plant.

Ann stomped her foot. “You are impolite indeed! Do you hear me?”