1609, Winter of the Dead: A Novel of the Founding of Jamestown (17 page)

He can't tolerate that I have such an amazing story!
Nat wrote hastily on a page.
And now he makes my story his, and makes it more exciting that it is a princess and her father the Powhatan. Pompous! Self-important! And I hope the man never has chance to read my words.

But neither Nat's tale nor Smith's mattered much. There was work to do among the sick and dying of James Towne. Remembering the rescue made Nat feel grateful, and amid all the sadness, it gave him a sense of wonder.

He wrote,
My friend saved my life. And he is no savage. His name is Laughing Man.

28

September 2, 1609

John Smith was in the shallop with some of the soldiers when a powder keg exploded. It cut the man to pieces, burning him and tearing him at the same time. He is in his cottage, and although I've not peeked inside, they say it is all he can do to keep from screaming from the pain. He bites leather to keep his agony silent. There is talk he might die. Some say he should return to England if he is to live. What will happen here if he leaves? There is no one who can rule James Towne as well as Smith.

I think about Ratcliffe, Wingfield, and Percy. Did they plan this? Did they bribe one of the soldiers to light the keg in order to kill Smith? I will never know for certain.

Nicholas, Samuel, and I have been put on burial duty as well as gardening duty. There was a stocky and able boy who came with the August ship, one named Henry Spilman, but he was taken as a hostage to the natives just before Smith's accident, and so there are only three boys strong enough now for the digging of graves and removal of bodies. Over the past weeks, many of the new arrivals who were ill have died. I hate to touch the cold skin of the dead. I have to make myself think that they are indeed dead, no more than the carcasses of the deer and bear I have eaten. Mistress Ford must think me foul indeed, walking about with the stench of the dead on my hands. I wish that was not so, but I fear it is.

One of the dead early this morning was a little girl named Martha Angus. Her mother is also sick, but would not let go of the child when we went inside her cottage with our lanterns to remove the body. She just sat on the cot, crying, holding the child in a filthy blanket, kissing the crusted forehead and vomit-streaked lips. At last her husband took the child away and, as weak as he was, came with us to the newest place for bodies on the northwestern edge of the colony near the forest wall. The father made us promise that animals would not dig his poor child from the ground. I promised him, knowing it was a lie. At night it is all we can do to watch for natives, much less a determined fox.

There is little we can do. As I sit and write in the light of my lantern on this late night, I hear voices calling for Samuel and me. Another has died and we must take the body out.

Smith must recover. James Towne is failing.

29

October 3–30, 1609

J
OHN
S
MITH WAS
dying indeed. The dreadful wounds from the powder explosion had healed badly, and not even the surgeon knew how to put him right. Nat had at last found the courage to look in on the wounded leader, peering through the rear window of the cottage and heart sinking at the sight.

Smith was nearly a corpse, his face pale and scarred, his chest heaving with effort. The great cape hung, burned nearly to a rag, on the wall beside a cross. Reverend Hunt sat beside him, reading Scriptures aloud.

“He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake…”

Nat pulled away from the window and forced himself down to the fall garden to pull bugs from the pumpkins.

It was with much anxiety and sadness that the council president was put aboard a ship to go home. Prayers were offered up in the church that Smith return to England safely and that he recover quickly.

The citizens of James Towne watched the sail of Smith's ship disappear down the river past the trees. Nat and Nicholas stood side by side, staring after the boat. Nat felt as though the sun was setting, not to rise again.

Look out for yourself, Nat,
he thought.
Do you see what is happening? The colony is going to fall, likely to never rise again. Remember your own rule. Take care of yourself or you shall go down with it!

John Ratcliffe, who stood closest to the edge of the river, turned to the gathering and said, “Do not fear, gentlemen and ladies. Godspeed to John Smith, but he is in God's hands now. I have plans which our fine Captain Smith would never have approved but which I have no doubt will lift us from this mire and bring prosperity, wealth, and comfort to us all.”

There were murmurs, some of interest, some of doubt.

“Fear not, I am back in charge.” With that, the man brushed through the crowd and strode back up the embankment and into the fort.

Nicholas shook his head, picked a piece of grass from the riverbank, and stuck it in his mouth to chew. “We're in trouble now if we weren't already,” he said.

“We are for certain,” said Nat.

In the weeks that followed, Ratcliffe did nothing to lift the colony from the mire. He spent his time with his gentlemen friends, mingling only with the other settlers at church services. With no supervision now, stealing among the citizenship became commonplace at night when guards were groggy and not very alert. The hogs and chickens, which Smith had ordered left unbutchered until spring, were snatched, one by one, and killed and eaten by those with enough energy to do so. It was a subtle but relentless feeding frenzy under the cloak of night.

And hunger was a great equalizer.

Nat stood in the doorway to his cottage long after Samuel and William had fallen into restless sleep. It was warm for an October night, and the breeze coursing through the fortress carried mixed scents of dead leaves, mud, and sickness. The stars overhead spattered the black sky like sparkling sand. From the cottages within the fort walls and those without came the sounds of coughing, groaning, crying, snoring. An owl cried from the forest.

Few men have been caught or put on trial for stealing from the animal pens and the storehouse,
Nat thought.
At this moment, there are but five men inside the jail accused of taking grain, and these men were obviously clumsy! Why shouldn't I give it a try? I am perhaps the best-trained thief among us, and my stomach grumbles while there is food to be taken!

“Yes,” he whispered. “But when you have stolen in the past, it never robbed another of a chance to live.”

But if I don't take it, someone else will,
he thought.
Would I rather the food be taken by Wingfield or Ratcliffe, or perhaps the watch guard, or some other gentleman? It shall be taken regardless. It might as well be me.

Nat snatched a small knife he had by his cot into the side of his shoe, stepped outside, and walked quietly around the cottage, past the empty pigpen to the chicken house, then held tightly against the wall and listened for any sign he'd been noticed. The helmeted guards on the bulwarks were not talking to one another, so Nat guessed they were too tired to chat or, God forbid, possibly dozing. The night watch had passed Nat's cottage just a minute earlier with musket, pistol, and lantern in hand, but he would not be around again for another few minutes. Nat knew that if there was a chicken left to be had, he would have it.

The door was latched, but there was a small window with reed-woven shutters tied closed. Nat cut the rope and pushed one side of the shutter open. The window was small, but Nat was thin now, and bony. He worked one arm through the window, then his head and shoulder, hearing with relief the soft chortle of a hen somewhere in the darkness. His second arm went through and with a bit of kicking, he fell headlong into the rotting straw of the chicken house.

Scrambling up, he put his head to the window to listen and look for the night watch. Again, nothing to see but darkened cottages and sheds, the massive, shadowed wall of the fort, and the silhouette of the guards on the bulwark.

There were several chickens in the house, ones John Smith had ordered left alone until spring with the other animals. Smith was right to make such an order. Taking these animals and the grain from the storehouse in the fall was just asking for dire circumstances come late winter and early spring.

But stomachs hurt now. And, as Nat had decided back at his cottage, if these birds didn't go to him, they would surely go to another thief.

He sat quietly until one of the five remaining chickens came pecking within arms' reach. Then he dove on it, snapping its neck with one swift and easy move. The other chickens, sensing danger, scrambled off. He cut off the head, threw it into the dark, and let some of the blood drain into his mouth. It was hot, salty, and thick, but not foul as he would have thought two years ago. The rest of the blood, he let drain into the straw. Then he began the job of stripping feathers. It was difficult, but he ripped as many off as he could, tossing them to the floor.

Stuffing the headless, nearly featherless bird into his shirt, Nat climbed back out through the window, tied the shutter back as best he could, looked carefully for the watch, then sneaked back to his own cottage, where Samuel was thrashing in sleep and William was speaking in his dreams. Nat hid the chicken beneath his cot. When he was really feeling hungry, he would cook the bird and eat it. It was his now. Nobody could lay claim to it.

As he lay down for just a couple of hours sleep, pulling the mildewed blanket up to his chin, the cottage door slammed open. It was the night watch, waving his lantern.

“Peacock!” the man said sternly.

Christ have mercy!
thought Nat.
I'm caught!

“Sir?”

“And Collier! Up, the two of you. We've a dead man, Alexander Peavey, in a cottage outside. His brother alerted me. We need the body taken out.”

“Oh, sir,” said Nat. “Of course. Samuel, up, boy! We've work to do.”

Nat put on his shoes, pretended to wipe sleep from his eyes, and went to the door. Behind him, Samuel fumbled for his own shoes.

The night watch raised the lantern and stared at Nat, frowning. “What is that? You've got blood on your face, boy!”

Nat touched his face. How careless he'd been! “I bit my tongue while sleeping, sir,” he said humbly. “Dreaming the tongue was a slab of beef.”

“And the blood on your shirt?”

Where I carried the chicken,
Nat thought, and quickly said, “I bit my tongue quite hard, sir. It is paining me dreadfully, you can imagine.”

“I can imagine indeed,” said the night watch, looking at Nat, at his shirt, and at Nat's cot.

Then Samuel was there beside Nat, shivering in spite of the seasonable temperatures, saying, “Why do they have to die at night? Can't they wait a bloody few hours?”

The cottage was on the south side, outside the fortress, and it took a good two hours for the two of them to take the body out and bury it quietly near the forest. When Nat and Samuel returned to their own cottage, the sun was beginning to show to the east past the trees and down the river.

And the chicken Nat had stolen had been stolen.

30

November 1609

Most of the provisions were gone by the middle of autumn, and the citizens of James Towne began to wail to the councilmen to save them from starvation and destruction. This fall, the number of settlers was larger in spite of the deaths, and the fear of hunger seemed triplefold with the masses.

In early November John Ratcliffe declared loudly hat he would rescue the colony. He would take the shallop upriver and meet with the savages whom Smith had befriended and bring back plenty of grain and meat. Those who had the strength had gone down to the pier to send them off, and with as much pomp as he could muster, Ratcliffe herded forty-eight men into the shallop and they paddled west. Nat watched until the boat could no longer be seen beyond the bend.

“Will they have luck?”

Nat turned to see Mistress Ford behind him. She wore the same blue gown she had the day she had arrived in James Towne, but it was cleaner now. She smiled softly, a sadness at the corners of her mouth.

“Possibly,” said Nat. He didn't want to lie to this woman. She seemed strong enough to take the truth. “But it can be very dangerous. The Powhatans have ideas different from ours. They do not believe we should be here, but at times they tolerate us. It is a mystery, and we are at its mercy.”

The woman nodded. Then she said, “Do you have a moment? I need help.”

Nat had meant to spend time skinning the few groundhogs that several men had brought to the fort the day before. The meat had been consumed already, but the skins, when cured properly, could be stitched together to make a blanket for the upcoming winter. But he said, “All right.”

Mistress Ford led Nat to a cottage near a small sheep shed on the eastern side of the fortress. “This is my home,” she said. “My name is Audrey Ford. I live here with Sally Martin and the couple Peter and Martha Scott.”

I know,
thought Nat. There wasn't a settler he didn't know by name now, or a cottage whose residents he couldn't name. But Mistress Ford, clearly a lady in spite of this land of despair, was still a lady, still gracious and polite.

He returned the official greeting. “I am Nathaniel Peacock. A pleasure.” He bowed. It had been a long time since he'd bowed to anyone.

“Sally is dying,” said Mistress Ford. “Of dysentery.”

Nat stopped at the open doorway. Audrey went inside, then bid Nat come, too. He stepped into the shadows.

Sally was a specter beneath a fouled blanket. Her face had caved in on itself and most of her hair had fallen out. Her eyes were closed.

“I promised her she would see the sun once more before she died,” said Audrey quietly. “I tried to lift her and take her out, but she is so limp I can't get hold of her to lift her. Will you help me, sir? It is her last wish. God will bless you, and so will Sally.”