Pocahontas

by Joseph Bruchac

  On the ninth of November, with eight men and myself for the barge, we went into the country of Chikhamania for three or four journeys to get provisions for the year following. Three hundred and four hundred bushels were gotten each time, and I unloaded seven or eight hogsheads at our fort. Yet, what I carefully provided, the rest carelessly spent. Wingfield and Kendall, seeing all things at random in my absence, the president's weakness and Martin's never-mending sickness, strengthened themselves with the sailors and other confederates to regain their former credit and authority. Their plan was to take the pinnace, which I had fitted to trade, to alter her course, and go for England.

  I might not have known of this plot had it not been for God's grace in touching the heart of Amocis, a salvage, who now came often to the fort and called himself "best friend" to me. He called out to us as we went up the river, gesturing us in to shore.

  "Your enemies," he told me, "do take your great ship to England."

  Thus it was that I had the plot discovered to me and unexpectedly returned. The pinnace was already set to sail, and much trouble I had to prevent it. I went quickly to the sacre, a thirty-five-hundred-pound piece that shoots a five-and-one-half-pound ball.

  I had seen that cannon placed toward the river to defend the fort should a Spanish ship find our town. Jehu Robinson, Thomas Emry, and the laborer George Cassen had been in my company aboard the barge. They were by my side as the sacre was brought to bear upon the pinnace and we fired one shot in warning over the bow.

  "Stay, or sink in the river," I called to them on board the pinnace. They stayed.

  On the following day, our president had occasion to chide James Read, the blacksmith, for his misdemeanor. In return, the smith not only gave him bad language but also offered to strike him with some of his tools. For this rebellious act, the smith was brought before a jury and condemned to be hanged. Upon being brought to the ladder, Read looked about him, as if hoping for a rescue. Yet none came. The rope was almost about his neck when he saw no other way but death with him.

  "Hold," he cried out. "I beg forgiveness, good sirs! Turn me off the ladder and aye, I shall reveal ye a dangerous conspiracy."

  Brought down, he was taken into a tent with Ratliffe, Martin, and me. Then, sweating much, the blacksmith confessed that among them was a gentleman who was a spy for the Spanish.

  "This gentleman, sirs, ye have held before in chains. He is himself a Catholic, a Papist, sirs. He hath promised gold and safe passage to England for me and, aye, others of our company should we free him, good sirs."

  "Tell us his name and we shall spare you," Ratliffe said. The smith's answer came quickly.

  "That man, good sirs," Read said, "is Captain Kendall."

  It was remembered then that the smith had come aboard the pinnace about some business some three days before. Master Kendall was called before the jury.

  Though a base, Papist traitor, Kendall still showed that there was iron in his spine. He stood straight as the charges were read. Before our president could speak his judgement, the condemned man spoke.

  "Your Master President," Kendad said, "lacks authority to pronounce judgement. He sayeth his name is Ratliffe. Yet I know that to be false. His real name is Sicklemore. Thus, being false in name and named president under a name not his own, he hath no authority to pronounce judgement."

  Ad eyes turned then to our president, whose face was now the color of sailcloth. We waited for him to deny that accusation, yet he did not. From then on I had little trust in President Captain John Ratliffe Sicklemore, whose reasons for hiding his true name were never discovered.

  Martin broke the silence. "None may question my name or authority as member of this council," he said to Kendad. "For your crimes of treason, you shad be shot to death."

  And so, within the hour, George Kendad was.

  21. POCAHONTAS: The Hunt

  All things move in a circle. That is how things were made by Ahone. Just as the Great Sun is a circle and the Moon is a circle, moving with the stars about the sky, so our land is a circle surrounded by the great waters. The days circle and return again and so also do the seasons. Our lives, too, are circles. The time comes to plant and passes by and returns again. The season comes to hunt and passes by and returns again. It was made that way by Ahone, who saw that it was good.

  COHONK

  TIME OF GEESE FLYING

  EARLY DECEMBER 1607

  IT WAS A FINE, cold day with small flakes of snow in the air. I watched those snowflakes dancing. I could see my own special name, the name that only my closest friends and family call me, in the feathery snow as I walked around the edge of my father's village. In some places the snow was as deep as my ankles, but in other, sheltered spots the ground was bare and not even frozen. I had picked up several round stones and was rattling them in my hands as I walked along. The sound they made was something like that made by the horns of a buck deer as he strikes his new antlers against a small tree to rub off the dried skin.

  This season is the time for hunting deer. Two days before, the hunters from many villages joined together and left for the hunt. My uncle Opechancanough was chosen to be the leader of the communal hunt. As I walked I remembered my father's face while he watched the hunters. Although he certainly appeared calm to ad others, it seemed to me that my father was a Utile sad as the hunters gathered to do the hunting song, danced in a circle about the village, made their offerings to the stones, and then set out.

  I continued thinking about my father as the snowflakes danced. Although he is still strong and tad and no one questions his power, he has gray hairs on his chin. Even a Mamanatowic cannot stop the turning of the circle. Not only does a Great Chief not usually leave his people to go into the forest and hunt, my father knows that he is now too old for hunting. I wonder what will happen when the time comes for him to take that road toward the rising sun. When that day comes, I will no longer be the favorite daughter of the Great Chief. I will lose the special place I now enjoy. The leadership of our people will go to my father's brothers. I will no longer be Amonute, the favored one. I will simply be Pocahontas.

  "Nechaun, my child, things always change."

  I have heard my father say that to me many times. Although he is hard as a stone with others, he can be as gentle as a summer breeze when he speaks to me. He first said those words to me when my mother died. He spoke those same words two seasons ago when the puppy that had been following me around fed into the river and drowned. It seems as if I only hear those words when my eyes are wet with tears.

  Like a good daughter, I accepted my father's words then and nodded silently. But if I had spoken, I think I would have said, "Yes, but why can they not change for the better?"

  Another change, which I have mentioned before, is that the deer are scarcer than in past years. Almost everyone now blames the Coatmen for this. The Tassantassuk are so hungry that they try to kill every deer they see. I do not mean to say that they are successful at this. They are too blind to be good hunters. Unless one of our people is guiding them, the Coatmen can hardly see a deer in the forest when it is close enough to hit with a stone. But their constant hunting makes the deer wary of all humans and frightens them out of our hunting grounds.

  I took one of the stones I had been rattling as I walked and threw it at the trunk of an oak tree. It struck with a satisfying thunk and bounced down to vanish into the snow.

  Then I noticed two men sitting beside the small fire that is kept burning near the place where the pawcoransak, the memory stones, are placed. It was Rawhunt and Amocis. The two had been talking about the deer hunt, but they stopped when I came up to them.

  They both smiled to see me. It was the proper thing for them to do. One should always be pleased upon seeing the favorite daughter of the Mamanatowic. However, I know that both of them also like me. I am a very easy person to like.

  "The hunt will be good," I said. I have heard my father say those words to the hunters before they set out, so I know they are good
words to speak.

  "Amonute," Rawhunt said with a nod, "if you say so, then it must be so. It must be so."

  His voice was so serious that it made me laugh.

  "Is it because of the Coatmen that the deer are harder to find now?" I asked, sitting down in front of them. "Have they killed too many deer?"

  At that both men laughed, but Rawhunt's face quickly grew serious.

  "Amonute," Rawhunt said. "Listen. Those foolish newcomers seem to know nothing, nothing, about how to track a deer or where deer can be found. Our people know where the deer live and how they move back and forth between one place and another in the forest. Thus we go to the place where the deer will be even before the deer get there. But the Coatmen stumble through the woods as if they were blind, making more noise than a wounded bear. Also, those Coatmen do not seem to have any hunting medicine. They have no way of calling the deer to them, as we do. In fact, ad that they do has driven the deer away. I think it is not because the deer are afraid of them. I myself think it is because the deer are disgusted with the Tassantassuk."

  "That may be so," Amocis said. "That the Coatmen drive away the game animals is one reason why our people are displeased with the Coatmen. The Paspahegh people are the most upset. As you know, those Coatmen placed their camp right in the middle of the Paspahegh hunting grounds, where no wise person would ever think to live. Why would anyone five there in that low, swampy place, where there is not even one single spring with good drinking water? If those Tassantassuk had even as much sense as a little child, they would have moved their camp long ago."

  I rattled the rest of the stones in my hands. "Then why have they stayed there?" I asked.

  "They are stubborn," Amocis said, smiling in that sly way of his. "I have watched them long enough to see this. They are so stubborn that when they do something wrong they will make ten more mistakes before they admit they are wrong." He held up his hand and began to raise his fingers one by one as he counted off ways the Tassantassuk had shown their stubbornness. "Necut," he said, "they placed their camp in a marshy place but refused to move it even after the little biting ones came in swarms and began to eat them alive. Ningh, they still kept casting their nets in the river long after all the fish had gone away. Nuss, they continued drinking the water from the river even after the water had become so salty that it made them weak and sick. Yowgh, they keep wearing all of their heavy clothing even in the hottest time of the year, when you can see that they were sweating to death. Paranske, they have refused to bathe even after they began to smell worse than rotting fish. Comotinch, they kept trying to grow crops on land that was no good for growing anything other than marsh grass."

  It seemed that Amocis was ready to keep counting until the sun set. Amocis loves to count things.

  Rawhunt held up his own hand. "That is enough, my clever friend. That is enough. You may be right. But I have not finished my answer to Amonute about the deer. To be fair, the deer are not just scarce because of the Tassantassuk. I do not know why, but the herds of deer began growing fewer even before the season when three great swan canoes came into view, even before that season."

  Rawhunt pointed with his lips at the pawcoransak, the carefully piled stones that keep the memory of important things. On one of them, the stone for the hunters, offerings of deer suet and tobacco had been made.

  "The stones tell us that this is so. There were great herds of deer in the time of my youth, and hunting them was much easier than today. Now it is not so, not so. For whatever reason, to find enough of them to provide us with skins for clothing and meat to dry for the winter, we must have a communal hunt. With many men and fires, we are able to drive the deer into the circle, where we can kid them."

  I rattled my stones again. "So it is as I said, is it not? We will have a good hunt. It will be one that our people remember."

  Then I carefully selected two of my best stones. I handed the first one, a white stone with small dark lines on it, to Rawhunt. He accepted it from me very carefully and touched it to his forehead. Amocis took the second stone, which was almost completely black, rubbed it between his palms, and then placed it into the pouch that hung from his waist.

  We sat together in silence. Then Rawhunt sighed.

  "Yes," he said. "Yes, Amonute. I think this hunt will be one that our people will never forget."

  22. JOHN SMITH: The River of Chickahominy

  The 10th of December, Master Smyth went up the river of the Chechohomynaies to trade for corn. He was desirous to see the head of that river, and when it was not passable with the shallop, he hired a canoe and an Indian to carry him up further. The river the higher grew worse and worse. Then he went on shore with his guide, and left Robinson and Emmery, in the canoe, which were presently slain by the Indians, Pamaonoke's men....

  —FROM A DISCOURSE OF VIRGINIA,

  BY EDWARD MARIA WINGFIELD

  DECEMBER 3RD–6TH, 1607

  AFTER THE EXECUTION of Kendall, the traitor, there was much ado for to have the pinnace go for England. Gabriell Archer seemed the main author of this new plan and spent many fine words in setting it forth. No serpent's tongue ever spoke sweeter. Captain Martin and I stood chiefly against it and in fine after many debatings, pro et contra, it was resolved to stay a further resolution. I saw that our good recorder, Master Archer, was now even more self-important than had been Wingfield. Alas, his jealousy of my position and reputation grew each day, though I did nothing wrong. Thus it always is that petty men envy their betters and seek to cause their downfall.

  Now, with the winter approaching, the rivers became so covered with swans, geese, ducks, and cranes that we daily feasted with good bread, Virginia peas, pumpions and putchamins, fish, fowl, and diverse sorts of wild beasts as fat as we could eat them. So it was that ere long none of our Tuftaffaty humorists, those cranks in fine clothes, desired to go for England.

  But our comedies never endured long without a tragedy. Some idle exceptions were muttered against me for not discovering the head of Chickahominy River. It need not to be said which marksman sought to wound me with such arrows of criticism. Taxed by the council to be not slow in so worthy an attempt, on the third of December I set forth in the barge, taking with me eight of our men, to finish this discovery.

  It was not an easy passage. It was only with much labor that we proceeded so far by cutting trees in sunder. Then the river became narrower, only eight or ten feet at a high water, the stream exceeding swift and the bottom hard channel. Rather than to endanger the barge by going further upstream to seek a lake that might rise there, we resolved to hire a canoe. We then returned the barge to Apocant, where there was a broad bay. There we anchored in the middle of the bay, wed out of danger of shot.

  On my earlier voyage up this river, certain Indians had hailed us with the cry of "wingapo," placing their hands upon their breasts in proof of friendship. One of them, known as Nauiraus, had conducted us before on another voyage and learned to speak wed our language. He often had offered to conduct me about his country, for his people were eager to trade with us. So it was that he and a friend joined us with their canoe early on this present voyage. They assured me that they could now guide me up the river and that ad would be well.

  I chose two men who had proven themselves somewhat in the past, Jehu Robinson and Thomas Emry, to go with me in the canoe of the naturals.

  "Listen wed," I then said to the six men left in the barge. "Mark my words. None are to go ashore until my return."

  Some wise men may now accuse me of too much in indiscretion. Yet they might have done the same if they wed consider the proven friendship of the Indians in accompanying us and the seeming desolateness of the country around us, a vast and wild wilderness. Nor could they have predicted the foolishness of the men left in the barge. Alas, I was not long absent before my men ignored those last orders and went ashore.

  Their want of government gave both occasion and opportunity to the salvages who had concealed themselves along the river. They surprised
one George Cassen, who decided to wade to the shore. He had scarce set foot on the sand before he was taken and bound to a tree. Ere long the unfortunate Cassen had been forced to ted them that his Captain, John Smith, had taken a canoe up the river and into the marshes to hunt fowls. Whereupon the salvages slew Cassen and set the tree to which he was tied afire.

  The five remaining men aboard the barge narrowly escaped being cut off by the Indians. They hied back to James Town like rabbits fleeing the fox, bearing word that John Smith had surely been taken, tortured, and killed.

  Little dreaming of that accident, I had by now been led by my Indian guide twenty miles further into the desert. There my two men and I went ashore to refresh ourselves and make a fire to bod our victuals. Seeing it would be some time before our food was cooked, I decided to see the nature of the sod about us. Nauiraus was eager to show me about.

  "Many fat fowl to shoot in marsh," he told me.

  The other Indian, having made a good fire, now said that he would walk along the river to gather more wood. Declaring themselves weary from our long journey, Master Robinson and Emry chose to wait by the warmth of the fire.

  It seemed that there was nothing to fear. Yet, long years of war had taught me to be ever at the ready. Alas that my men, one a gentleman and the other trained only to be a carpenter, did not share that readiness.