Blue Birds

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Blue Birds Page 10

by Caroline Starr Rose


  “I have gone to the Croatoan,

  explained our mistake.

  My people won’t try again to harm us

  as they did that day onshore.”

  “He’s the Queen’s man,”

  the Governor says.

  “Three years I’ve trusted him.”

  “And how does that

  protect us?” Father says.

  The Governor strokes Virginia’s cheek,

  who’s cradled in his daughter’s arms.

  “If there is any reason

  for you to leave

  before my homecoming,

  carve where you’ve gone

  on the trunk of a tree.

  If there’s any sort of danger,” he says,

  quietly this time,

  “include a cross in your carving.”

  He knows we are not safe here,

  yet he departs,

  abandons us

  to Roanoke.

  KIMI

  All but the small boat

  sail to deepest waters.

  The men watch the village,

  say the English remain.

  It is a comfort knowing

  my friend stays near.

  Alis

  KIMI

  It consumes me,

  the attack the Governor

  spoke of just this morning

  before he sailed away.

  Here,

  in the quiet,

  I must try

  to make sense of things.

  Her face is grave

  as she greets me.

  “Wingina?”

  It pierces me

  to hear her say

  my father’s name.

  “Kimi, please tell me

  what happened

  before we came.”

  I cannot make out

  all her words,

  but see the sorrow heavy

  on her brow.

  I use my hands

  to paint pictures.

  “Wingina. Alawa.

  They are gone.”

  My palms

  upturned

  toward the sky.

  Her hands are empty.

  Her eyes fill with tears.

  “The soldiers?” I whisper,

  moving my fingers

  like a consuming flame.

  “Wanchese’s fire?”

  I show her of the burning,

  those who escaped

  to the canoes.

  Her words and movements

  confirm every awful thing.

  Tears spill down her cheeks.

  Did the attack take someone

  dear to her?

  The English,

  my countrymen,

  have brought upon the Roanoke

  the same fear and horror

  we feel for them.

  These Englishmen

  know nothing

  of what happened?

  “A Roanoke man.”

  I hold one arm straight ahead,

  draw the other back.

  “He had an arrow.

  How it frightened me.”

  “Chogan.”

  I don’t believe

  he would have harmed her,

  an unprotected girl,

  but how can I know

  if she was truly safe?

  When friends

  become enemies

  how quickly

  things can change.

  Didn’t the very man

  who gave Alawa her ribbon

  later attack my village

  the day Wingina died?

  It has been one life for another.

  Death on both sides.

  The English

  have wronged us.

  But there is suffering

  we have also waged.

  Alis

  It’s been three days

  since the Governor left us,

  and things are different now.

  People group together,

  scattered in bands across the common,

  huddles that form and break,

  reform again.

  They stoke fears,

  nurture worries,

  imagined threats the center

  of every conversation.

  Community chores that once happened

  without direction

  have begun to dwindle,

  each family looks

  to protect its own members,

  each man focuses only on himself.

  Father speaks

  of a Roanoke attack

  to any who will listen.

  Already,

  he’s drawn many to his side.

  KIMI

  “You wear your pearls so beautifully.”

  Mother pauses in her weaving.

  “Such a strong woman you’ve become.”

  She straightens the strand about my neck.

  “Why is it then you sometimes leave

  the fields before the others?”

  Mother thinks I’ve been idle,

  but never have I worked so faithfully.

  “I move quickly about my tasks

  weeding and tending.”

  So I might go to Alis.

  Mother doesn’t answer

  but her eyes never leave me.

  Our women are woven together

  in ways that form a dance.

  It is difficult to step

  outside

  without breaking the pattern,

  upsetting the rhythm.

  I must not draw

  Mother’s further notice.

  KIMI

  Each day,

  the English boys

  march through the forest.

  Their guns swing toward all sound,

  as though danger lurks nearby.

  It is the deer they’re after.

  I’ve seen enough

  to know they sometimes make a kill,

  but they also circle closer to our borders,

  hint at an attack.

  I have overheard my uncle

  speaking with his men.

  An opportunity will arise, he says,

  the perfect time to show our might.

  If these boys fear my people striking,

  if they long to fight,

  their wait is almost done.

  Alis

  The bo
ys

  roam each afternoon,

  act as if they’re hunting,

  though it’s Indians they want to find.

  KIMI

  What can I give Alis

  that will show her she’s my friend?

  What might teach her

  she’s helped ease my pain?

  What will guard her

  from what Wanchese has planned?

  I touch the pearls at my neck,

  remember the pride I felt

  when Mother gave them to me,

  her tears warming my skin

  as I left childhood behind.

  What more than these?

  There is nothing dearer to me,

  save the memories of my sister.

  For her I could do nothing.

  The wooden bird

  brought the two of us together,

  but will it protect Alis?

  This montoac,

  what good is it,

  if I leave her helpless?

  September 1587

  Alis

  Mother shakes out an apron,

  her golden hair swept back,

  her blue eyes full of light.

  She hums as her iron glides.

  Her strength since Samuel’s birth has returned.

  “What is that noise?”

  She peers out the window.

  There is such commotion,

  I open wide the door.

  “Indians!”

  George rushes through the village,

  hollering so loudly,

  Virginia startles in her cradle,

  Samuel begins to cry.

  “I was hunting,"

  he says to those who've gathered.

  “Ran back when I saw them.”

  George stumbles to a nearby bench,

  sweat rolling down his face.

  “Two other boys are out there still.”

  Long into the evening,

  men swarm about with muskets,

  trickle through the palisade,

  searching for the others.

  George is never far from Manteo,

  as if the two patrol together.

  But when George steps behind him,

  though he does not fire,

  he trains his musket

  on the Indian’s back.

  Alis

  Mr. Dare said

  now that he’s a father,

  he couldn’t rest until

  those missing boys were found.

  Mr. Dare was

  with the first who checked

  the woods outside our borders.

  He has not

  yet

  returned.

  Alis

  I wake to shouts outside our window,

  torches flickering past.

  Father jumps from bed,

  rushes outside.

  “Mother?” I call.

  “I’m here, darling.”

  I climb into the warmth

  Father has left behind.

  Mother strokes my hair,

  Samuel nestled between us.

  I pull close to her,

  try to block the ever-rising voices.

  Father bursts through the door.

  “The boys are safe,

  said they lost their way,

  but Dare,"

  Father stops,

  cleans his throat,

  “he’s been

  shot through

  with arrows.”

  Alis

  All are screaming,

  rushing, running

  to the square.

  Two men drag his feet,

  arrows buried in his chest.

  “Ananias!”

  Mrs. Dare falls to the ground

  beside her husband’s body,

  her sleeves thicken with his blood.

  It is daybreak

  before Mother can persuade her

  to hold her wailing child.

  KIMI

  All day is spent

  in feast and celebration.

  My people deserve peace.

  But I no longer believe

  war is the only way

  to find it.

  KIMI

  Wanchese says

  we teach our enemies their wrongdoings,

  demonstrate the errors of their ways,

  like the man he killed

  after Wingina was beheaded,

  and the fire he set

  that frightened the others away.

  Did the English understand?

  For they came back again.

  There was the man who hunted crabs.

  How quickly he was slain.

  Yet the English have remained.

  Now our men celebrate

  the man killed in the forest.

  But this I wonder:

  If the English

  know nothing of our purpose,

  these lessons are lost on them,

  mean no more than

  violence like their own.

  Alis

  I stroke my brother’s cheek,

  place my thumb in his palm.

  His soft fingers wrap around mine,

  his feet kick as he laughs.

  Virginia is

  without a father now.

  Since his death,

  even through his burial

  near the bones and Mr. Howe,

  Mrs. Dare has worn the dress

  stained with her husband’s blood.

  Alis

  Mother bustles into our cottage,

  allows the door to slam behind her.

  Both my hands fly to the cradles to keep the babies still.

  Her face is hardened in a way I’ve never seen.

  She bangs her bowl on the table,

  kneads at dough so roughly

  I am certain it is overworked,

  will never start to rise.

  My shoulders ache with rocking,

  yet I dare not let the babies stir,

  for I will not miss this chance to speak.

  “What is it?” I whisper.

  “Leave it be, Alis.”

  Her response stings;

  my gentle mother doesn’t speak like this.

  “I’m no longer a child.

  If it’s about our village,

  it does concern me.”

  Mother’s eyes grow wide at my impudence,

  narrow just as quickly.

  “Very well,” she says slowly,

  “if you must know,

  there’s talk of Manteo amongst the women.

  Mrs. Archard and I believe he’s against us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mother stops her kneading,

  tucks a honeyed strand of hair beneath her kerchief,

  pulls a chair from the table.

  “You are too young to make sense of this.”

  “Mother,” I say,

  “you cannot keep the truth from me.”

  Few things go unnoticed here,

  a reminder I must take care

  with the secrets I keep.

  Mother strokes Samuel’s wispy hair.

  “Your father says Manteo

  was the last to return

  the night Mr. Dare was slain.

  Manteo said he was searching for the boys,

  but they’d already found their way home.”

  She pinches her lips together,

  her face as stern as Mrs. Archard’s.

  “It makes me wary.

 
Just how loyal can a savage be?”

  But I know I trust him.

  Manteo lets me go to Kimi,

  has kept this to himself.

  “For whatever reason,

  he has cast his lot with us.”

  Mother shakes her head.

  Her silence speaks more disapproval

  than words ever would.

  Alis

  Toward evening the sun relents.

 

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