Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (20 page)

“
We know of the clothed people,” Powhatan said, after casting a wary look at his brother, Opechancanough, who had come to visit and sat silently in the circle of elders. “There are two groups, one living well to the south at a place called Ocanahonan, and another living far to the north among the Iroquois. Many summers ago, clothed men in great ships captured several of our warriors and forced them to go across the great sea.”

Smith held up his hands in a gesture of innocence.
“I have not taken your warriors, great chief. But my king has asked that I inquire about the people who left Roanoke.”

Powhatan nodded vaguely and the translator replied for him.
“We know nothing of them, John Smith.”

The moon had gone through a complete cycle in the time the Englishman John Smith stayed with Powhatan
’s people, and as he walked through the gates of the palisade to return to his fort, Gilda heard Pocahontas sniff. She turned to the older girl, who sat on a log by the fire, and saw that Pocahontas’s cheeks were wet.

“
Why do you cry?” Gilda asked, unable to understand. “You said you were ready for him to go.”

“
Have you never been in love, Gilda?” Pocahontas asked, looking up as tears spangled her lashes. She smiled sadly and shook her head. “Of course not, you are too young. But I have thought much about it. And I do not want to love an Indian warrior like these around me.” She lifted her chin proudly. “I want to marry a man of the clothed people. An Englishman.”

Gilda frowned.
“You would marry John Smith?”

Pocahontas sighed.
“Not him, he’s too old. But he said there are many men in Jamestown, the place where he lives. The men there have no wives, and they all have bearded faces and speak in the English tongue. They are strong and have sharp swords and guns of thunder—”

She broke off abruptly and smiled at Gilda.
“How can I make you understand? Have you thought, little sister, about the man you will someday marry? Of all the boys in our village, which would you like to be your husband?”

Gilda sat on the log beside Pocahontas and looked around.
Several boys scampered near the fire playing a game with a ball and sticks, but none of them appealed to her.

She looked up at Pocahontas.
“I will marry Fallon when I am old,” she said. “Mama told him to watch over me, and he said he would. When it is time, he will come back for me and we will be married.”

Pocahontas chewed slowly on her lower lip.
“Fallon? The boy with red hair who came to the village with you?”

Gilda nodded, and Pocahontas placed her hand upon Gilda
’s head. “He will not come back for you, Numees,” she said, her voice heavy with regret. “The elders decided that he should die and the warrior who took him away came back into the village that day with a bloody spear.”

“
Fallon is dead?” Confused thoughts whirled inside Gilda’s head. “Where is he?”

Pocahontas draped her arm about Gilda
’s shoulder and drew her close. “He is on the Other Side. He cannot be your husband, nor can the other boy who came with you. So you must marry one of our tribe, or, if the gods smile upon you, one of the clothed men.”

Pocahontas sighed and dreamily rested her head upon Gilda
’s, and Gilda remained uncomfortably still as she struggled to make sense of what she had just learned. Dead. Mama and Papa. Dead. Fallon. Dead. The silent, bleeding heads the warriors brought back from battle. Dead. Even Noshi? How could everyone be dead?

When Pocahontas finally released her, Gilda slipped from the log and sprinted out of the village.

Opechancanough watched the English man’s departure with a great deal of interest. He could not deny that the red-bearded man possessed both luck and courage, for he had outwitted death in the forest and in Powhatan’s village. The man was a skilled negotiator, too, for during his weeks at Weromacomico he had managed to charm himself into Powhatan’s good graces. Even now his brother’s face was wreathed in a smile of joyful anticipation of the gifts that would soon be coming from the English.

Opechancanough said nothing to his brother, but slipped out of the palisade to shadow the party of warriors who would escort Smith downstream to Jamestown.
Smith said little as he climbed into a canoe in the midst of the company, and Opechancanough imagined the man was trying to organize his thoughts and devise an explanation for reappearing in Indian dress after a month in the wilderness. A twisted smile crawled to his lips. Most of all, the Englishman would have a difficult time explaining why he returned home alone while six of his fellows rotted in the woods.

Opechancanough lingered in the shadows until the canoes were well away, then he emerged and knelt at the water
’s edge to drink. His body went rigid when the strangely musical tones of a child’s voice shattered the stillness of the afternoon. Upstream, alone on a rock, the strange blue-eyed child sat with her small feet dangling in the water. She spoke to the air, and Opechancanough pressed closer to hear.

“
Dear Lord and Father God,” the child said, lifting her voice and heart to an unseen god, “you have taken my mama and papa and Fallon and Noshi. But they told me you would always take care of me. Did they tell me a lie, God? If you—”

“
Be silent.” Opechancanough stepped from behind the tree where he had been eavesdropping and grunted in satisfaction when the child’s head snapped around and her jaw dropped in surprise. “What God hears a child?”

The girl
’s face went blank for a moment, then her eyes lit and she began to speak: “I believe in God the Father, who hath made me and all the world.”

Opechancanough felt as if she
’d hit him in the stomach. How could a mere child speak so confidently of these things? “Silence,” he barked, barely able to control his fury. “You will not pray to the God of the clothed men. He does not hear your prayers, and he will not answer you.”

“
But Mama and Fallon said he would—”

“
Did he hear your mama and the boy called Fallon?” Opechancanough demanded. “Nay! For they are dead. If I were to hit you now,” he stepped forward and pulled back his hand as the child flinched, “would your God hear and help you?”

She sat mute before his flashing anger, and Opechancanough clenched his fist to calm the storm of hate that had arisen in his heart.
“Once I prayed to this God, too, the God of Jesus the Christ,” he said, his voice a thin whisper over the sound of the river’s flow. “Once I gave my allegiance and my power to the priests of the clothed men’s God, and they cursed my father’s lands. So I turned again to the gods of my fathers, the spirits of the earth and woods, of rain and the sun.”

He lowered his hand and folded his arms, and the girl
’s lower lip trembled in apparent relief. “If you wish to remain with the Powhatan, you will not pray to the God of the clothed men again. He will not hear you.”

He waited until she lowered her head in submissive defeat, then he melted away into the woods and left her to ponder his words.

Fifteen

O
n the second day of the new year 1608, Smith entered the fort at Jamestown amid relieved cheers from his fellow colonists. He smiled good-naturedly at his comrades’ comments about his savage garb, but kept a serious face before the Indians. They would not understand the jokes that were flying about Smith’s lack of proper modesty.

“
We had supposed you dead,” John Ratcliffe called from the doorway of his headquarters, his surprise at Smith’s appearance with an entourage of Powhatan warriors evident upon his face. “What became of the men with you?”

“
I alone survived the attack on the trail,” Smith said, noticing that Ratcliffe’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “But I have secured a peace with Powhatan, and have promised the chief a grindstone and two cannons in exchange for my freedom.”

“
Two cannons!” Ratcliffe said, blazing up at him. “I would liefer surrender the fort! Have you gone mad?”

“
Never fear,” Smith answered, winking at Ratcliffe. He turned toward his Indian guides and pointed to the demiculverins mounted atop each of the three points of the fort. The entire company of warriors climbed ladders and surrounded the cannons as if they expected to carry them off, but found they could not budge the heavy armaments.

“
I don’t believe they’ll be taking the cannons,” Smith said with a wry smile, turning to his president. “They have found them somewhat heavy.” Smith lowered his voice. “They will be content with the grindstone and a few trinkets. Send them home with full bellies and garments for their backs, and the peace will be preserved.”

Ratcliffe signed in resignation, then gave the order.

Though by January the number of men at Jamestown had dwindled to less than forty, those forty had the hearty appetites of recovering invalids. They pointed long fingers of accusation when Smith arrived, well fed, healthy, and alone, from the wilderness. Many demanded Smith’s execution, holding him personally responsible for the deaths of the six men he had taken into the woods, but Smith managed again to forestall his hanging by promising that he would bring food to the hungry colony if given a proper opportunity.

Confident now of his position among the English and the Indians, he took chances that would have of certain led to his death had he attempted them a month earlier.
‘Twas with no hesitation whatsoever that he directed a new company of men to journey up the Pamunkey River to trade with Opechancanough, the silent chief who would not act without his brother’s approval.
He will dare not touch us now,
Smith thought, confident of Powhatan’s loyalty,
and the stored corn which I saw in his village will pay for the those lives lost at the hands of his murdering warriors.

When Smith at last stood before the towering Opechancanough, he offered a trade
—ten tons of the Indians’ plentiful corn for two copper pots, but the werowance merely shook his head, unwilling to do business. From behind him, Smith heard the silvery swish of steel and knew that his men had drawn their swords. In response, Opechancanough’s warriors tightened the circle around the intruders, their eyes burning hotly toward the English.

Smith
’s temper flared in the new light of his confidence. With his right hand upon the hilt of his pistol, he reached forward with his left and yanked on the hank of dark hair which hung over the werowance’s shoulder. Dragging the chief forward through the crowd of warriors to the gate of the palisade, Smith pointed toward the river trail. “You will fill our boats with twenty tons of corn,” Smith said, clearly enunciating his rehearsed demand in the Indian tongue. He glared up at Opechancanough as the nose of his pistol kissed the skin over the chief’s heart, “or I will promptly lade my ship with your dead carcasses.”

A cold wind blew past the pair with soft moans, then Opechancanough gave a curt order to his warriors.
Abruptly, the savage circle broke and began to move toward their storehouses, and Smith pulled his pistol from the chest of the werowance and settled it into his belt with a self-satisfied sigh. Now that he and Powhatan were allies, no one would dare stand against him.

Opechancanough coiled himself into the flickering shadows of sunset as the English ships slipped away from the riverbank.
The muscles in his face were set in a mask of rage; not even his bravest warrior had dared to approach since the Englishman had manhandled and threatened the chief. The rage in him was a living thing, but like all living things it had to be tamed, trained, and bidden to wait for vengeance. The Englishman had dared to touch him, had dared to press the iron gun against his flesh. One day, Opechancanough vowed silently, that man’s flesh would be torn, the Indian he had so carelessly humiliated on this day would devour his nation.

Soon after Smith
’s return from the wilderness, the settlers lifted praise and thanks to God, for Captain Newport arrived with replenishments of supplies and additional settlers. The newly established English/Indian peace flourished, and a brisk trade developed between the two peoples that quickly escalated the price of corn. Trouble broke out on occasion as the Indians, accustomed to community property, “picked up” items that belonged to the English, and on one occasion John Smith detained four warriors from Powhatan’s tribe as hostages until a litany of stolen items had been returned. In a shrewd move, Powhatan sent Pocahontas down river to act as ambassador to the English, and the thoroughly charmed English welcomed the dancing, cartwheel-turning teenager and forgave their grievances with the savages.

Throughout another long year they worked and sweated a living, and in September 1608, the council formally elected John Smith president of Jamestown.
The disgruntled John Ratcliffe returned to England.