Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  And then he caught the movement in the trees. A shadow slid between the black boles of two oaks, silhouetted for a heartbeat against the far-off fires. Smith’s hand fell to the butt of his gun. In a flash, Jehu and Thomas were on their feet and shouting, grappling arms from their belts. Smith stayed low. His stare locked with Mahocks’s, whose sharp eyeteeth appeared in a chilling smile.

  “Ambush,” Smith shouted in English. “Get down!”

  The near-silent zip of arrows in flight rushed above his head. Two thick, percussive punches of sound, and then an agonized cry, the shuffle and thud of a man hitting the ground.

  Smith thrashed forward, scuttling like a crab around the edge of the fire, and caught Mahocks by the ankle as he was rising with bow in hand. Smith seized the quiver at the man’s hip and tore at it; arrows spilled into the fire, and Smith saw that not all of them were the delicate arrows used for hunting birds. Thicker, shorter shafts tumbled into the flames, the kind that could pierce hardened leather.

  Another flight of bolts sped from the trees. Emry screamed.

  Mahocks cursed and kicked viciously at Smith’s hand. Smith let go of the man’s ankle just long enough to lurch to his feet and take him by one arm. The man’s muscles were as tense and rippling as a serpent’s body. Mahocks reeled and jerked, striking at Smith’s face and clawing at his eyes with talon fingers. Smith pressed his face against the man’s shoulder to protect himself, and then bit hard until Mahocks yelled hoarsely. Smith held on like a bulldog; Mahocks, panting, said, “Run, Chawnzmit. It would be better for you to run than to try to fight.”

  Zip.

  Smith released his mouthful of Mahocks to cry out in pain. At first he did not know where he had been hit; the pain was loud and bright and everywhere. Then the sensation shrank in upon itself, concentrated to a fast throb in his right thigh. He glanced down. The arrow was still vibrating from the force of the impact, the fletching a white blur in the moonlight.

  “Okeus!” Mahocks shouted, as angry at the arrow in Smith’s leg as Smith was himself. “Don’t shoot, you fools! The tassantassa has me!”

  In answer, another volley of arrows sped past them and skittered in the earth a hand’s breadth from where their feet danced and stamped, as Mahocks struggled to get to safety and Smith fought to hold on. They grunted and roared at one another, all the while braced for the slam of arrow meeting flesh. Then Smith managed a lucky twist, twining his leg with Mahocks’s, nearly throwing the man to the ground. But he didn’t want him on the ground. Smith jerked Mahocks across his body, braced him against his chest, and spun so that the man’s naked back was between Smith and the unseen ambush.

  “You crow,” Mahocks spat.

  “Call them off.”

  For one heartbeat Mahocks hesitated, clinging precariously to Smith’s woolen tunic, dragging at him with his full weight. Smith’s injured leg tremored. He could not even reach for his gun; both arms were locked around Mahocks, and Mahocks was his only shield.

  “Call them off.”

  Mahocks sucked in a cold breath. “He’s a werowance,” he shouted into the darkness. His words were pale mist in the night. “You cannot shoot this one. He is a chief of his people.”

  Voices in the darkness. Smith strained to make out words, but they were speaking too fast, speaking over one another, and his heart was pounding in his thigh, his senses running hot and red and fast down his quivering leg. It was all he could do to stay on his feet, to hold Mahocks off-kilter and vulnerable, their ankles twisted together, ready to fall into a heap on the black earth.

  At last he heard low laughter in the trees, a voice as smoky and cold as the night itself. A shadow approached, towering, moving with silky confidence through the forest. The shadow stood over him, and although he could not see the man’s face, he felt arrogant triumph roll from him in palpable waves.

  “Chawnzmit,” said the shadow.

  Smith recalled the days just after his illness, when he had reopened Jamestown to trade. He remembered the fierce, wounded-animal stare of the man who came bearing the gifts of Powhatan. Do I surprise you? Smith had said, gesturing smugly toward his mouth, pleased at his own wits.

  He recognized the rich, chill timbre of the shadow’s voice.

  “Opechancanough.”

  OPECHANCANOUGH

  Season of Popanow

  Chawnzmit was strong for a tassantassa; Opechancanough was willing to admit that much. After months of starvation and illness, after padding upstream from Apocant in darkness and winter cold—to say nothing of his admirably fierce wrestling match with the warrior Mahocks—the little yellow-bearded man still had the stamina to make the brisk march through the forest without stumbling or falling behind. The stout, broad chest puffed like a courting grouse. It seemed a point of pride with this Chawnzmit to keep pace with the Real People, even as his fear, well controlled but still evident in his blue eyes, grew.

  As the last night of the hunt deepened, the long line of fires slowly extinguished, contracting toward the central camp, where women and children waited to dress and skin the deer. The beasts had been driven into the clever traps of the hunters, fleeing the slow advance of the fire line, which drew into a great ring throughout the woods. In the center of the ring hunters lurked, draped in deer pelts and crowned by their solemn, slender heads. The hunters played their roles well, cajoling the deer with careful movements, soothing their terror of the flames, until at last the deer came within range of bowshot and the pelts were flung away.

  A satisfied chuckle rumbled in Opechancanough’s chest. Fitting, that he should draw tassantassas into his trap on the last night of the hunt. These small white men were obviously as simpleminded as deer, to be taken in by Mahocks’s false pelt and soothing words. When he had understood himself to be a captive, Chawnzmit had taken a copper bracelet from his pouch and offered it to Opechancanough, making noise about buying his freedom. Opechancanough swiped the thing from Chawnzmit’s hand and tossed it to Mahocks in one quick motion. Suitable payment for an effective lure. Mahocks had certainly earned it, and had nearly been shot in the process.

  The sounds of the hunting camp bubbled faintly through the wood. Opechancanough heard the echo and whoop of laughter, the occasional high note of a woman crying out in delight at the success of the hunt or at something else a man brought her. A good hunt always made a man hungry for more activity and put the women into a festive mood, free with their affections and glad to oblige. The sounds and the glow of the fire line seemed to heighten Chawnzmit’s dread. But it only showed in his tense, wide stare. Chawnzmit’s gait never faltered, nor did he wheedle or plead. He moved with a brave acceptance, striding toward captivity with a dignity that was nearly worthy of one of the Real People.

  This, of course, only after his attempt at escape.

  Shortly after Opechancanough had tossed the copper bracelet to Mahocks, Chawnzmit had made a break for freedom. His crashing sprint was easy enough to follow through the dark woodlands. Opechancanough’s party would have apprehended him easily as he lumbered off toward the river, even if he had not fallen into a quagmire. Chawnzmit’s howl of dismay as he plunged into the half-frozen bog was a sound more animal than human. He was stuck fast in the thick mud, and though he bared his teeth like a harried wolf, he allowed the party to pull him free of the quagmire meekly enough. Opechancanough did not begrudge the tassantassa his attempted flight. It was the man’s only undignified moment, and no one could expect a white man to be unfailingly brave.

  Smoke was thick in the air, sharp in the eyes. Up ahead, the hunting camp bustled through the trees. Rhythmic, panting cries rose from somewhere nearby; in the deep shadow of night Opechancanough caught the shape of a woman, arms braced against an oak bole, a hunter rutting her from behind with his apron twisted to the side. Opechancanough turned an amused eye to Chawnzmit. The white man stared in obvious bewilderment. The honest lust of a good hunt only seemed to dee
pen his fear. Perhaps it was because he now knew himself to be prey, just as the deer were prey, manipulated and conquered by a force much greater than he.

  The hunting camp was lit by a high, pale moon and the red glow of one great central fire. As the last of the hunters returned, they tossed their torches into the fire and stretched sore muscles, slapped the backs of friends, and pulled women against their bodies. A row of slain deer stretched along the ground; a group of women laughed as they hauled one by its forelegs into the firelight to be skinned and cleaned. A viscous trickle dripped from its nostrils, tracing a black snake track through the earth. The salt odor of blood and offal moved in a slow current beneath the friendlier smell of the great fire.

  As Opechancanough passed with his captive, a cluster of Pamunkey women set up a trilling victory cry. Their eyes were full of firelight, shining with an inner heat; their spirits were intoxicated by the power of the hunt. One of them seized his hand.

  “Lie with me tonight, werowance,” she said in a voice dark as smoke. Her skin was smooth between its small, hard calluses, and the heat of her spirit flowed into his own veins, crackling like red sparks against a nighttime sky. She did not even seem to see the tassantassa who trudged along at his side, so overcome was she by the pleasures of the night.

  Opechancanough shook off her touch. He could hardly make out her face, didn’t even know the woman’s name, though the crossed bows of Pamunkey tattooed on her lithe arm told him she was one of his own. It had been far too long since he had locked a woman tight in his arms, felt her writhe and press against him, heard a female voice whisper against his neck. The heat of triumph was high in his blood; he was as hungry as any man tonight. But Chawnzmit must be tended to. Opechancanough would see to the man himself. A werowance of the white men—if indeed Chawnzmit were a werowance—was not the sort of treasure one could entrust to any other man’s care.

  Temporary houses had been erected for the hunt, built of thin boughs rather than the sturdy saplings of springtime, and covered by well-used bark sheets. Opechancanough found his beyond the line of slaughtered deer. Chawnzmit’s pale eyes dropped to the carcasses and flashed away again with a flicker of fear. Opechancanough held the door flap open. Chawnzmit paused, staring up at his captor with a wily defiance, then ducked his head and went inside.

  Some woman had kindled a small heart fire. Opechancanough stoked it, called for blankets for the tassantassa, and dismissed his men to the festivities. When the fire was well fed, Opechancanough jerked his head toward Chawnzmit.

  “Take off those wet clothes.” He tossed the bundled blankets to the white man. “Hang them from the walls to dry.”

  Chawnzmit moved slowly, carefully, his eyes always on Opechancanough. He dropped a leather belt, weighted by the intricate metal parts of a gun, onto the ground behind him.

  “I’m cleverer than to steal your weapon inside a house, Tassantassa. I saw how you fought Mahocks. I am not foolish enough to try it here, alone with you.”

  Chawnzmit’s thick beard moved with his slow smile.

  He undressed faster, stripping away many layers of leather, rattling metal, and the sour-smelling cloth the white men favored. His small body was furred with a mouse-brown pelt, the hair spreading up an abdomen light as a fish’s belly, marking Chawnzmit’s chest with a pattern not unlike a bird’s spread wings. The man peeled off two layers of his odd one-piece leggings and tucked the dry blankets around himself. He sank onto a mat by the fire and looked at Opechancanough expectantly. His fear seemed gone, replaced by a curious, questing wariness.

  “And so,” Opechancanough said, “I have you.”

  Chawnzmit nodded without a trace of confusion. He had grown even more skilled with the Real Tongue since Opechancanough had last seen him at the white men’s fort.

  “What were you doing as far west as Apocant?”

  “Trading.”

  “In the hunting season?” Opechancanough leveled a skeptical stare at his captive.

  “And seeking,” Chawnzmit confessed.

  “Seeking what?”

  “A river passage west.”

  Opechancanough frowned. “For what purpose?”

  Chawnzmit leaned back in his blankets, appraising Opechancanough with those unsettling blue eyes. Instead of answering, Chawnzmit reached for his leather carrying pouch with a slow, careful hand. He withdrew a small bauble, a metal disc that fit in the palm of his hand. Chawnzmit passed it to Opechancanough with a look of great significance.

  He took the disc, feeling its cool weight, and tapped its hard transparent cover with one finger. A series of black tick-marks decorated the circumference; a few bold symbols were spaced at regular intervals around the edge. A slender dark stick balanced in the center, vibrating faintly with the rhythm of Opechancanough’s pulse. He tilted his hand, and the stick remained oriented toward one of the symbols. He rotated the disc in his palm, yet the stick maintained its position, floating above the indecipherable markings, pointing always in one direction no matter how he turned or tilted the thing, no matter which markings he attempted to align with the stick’s arrow-sharp point.

  “What is this?”

  “A thing my people use,” Chawnzmit said mysteriously.

  “For what?” It was a good trick, keeping the little arrow pointing always in one direction, but Opechancanough could not fathom a use for the disc, other than amusement.

  “It tells our boats where to go. It guided us across the sea to this land.”

  Opechancanough tilted the disc again. The arrow trembled, then swung to point again in its accustomed direction. He handed it back to Chawnzmit. “Your boats—tell me more about them. Are there more?”

  “So now we arrive at your purpose,” Chawnzmit said. His eyes and mouth were tight with smugness.

  “Well?” said Opechancanough, impatient.

  The tassantassa shrugged. “More? Many more. An uncountable number more.”

  Opechancanough felt his heart still. “Are all of your people coming to Tsenacomoco?”

  Chawnzmit shook his head at the unfamiliar word.

  “This land,” Opechancanough snapped.

  “All of us? I don’t know.”

  It was an evasive answer, one that made Opechancanough’s jaw clench at the man’s arrogance. Here he was, a captive shivering in a blanket, two of his men slain, and still his spirit was undaunted, even supercilious.

  “You are a chief of your people,” Opechancanough said. Not a question.

  Chawnzmit’s bushy head jerked on his shoulders. “Yes,” he said after a pause that was just a moment too long.

  “That is well for you. We would have killed you if you were not.” Even in the firelight, he could see the man’s face blanch. Opechancanough concealed his amusement behind a scowl. Chawnzmit’s fear was a useful tool, and Opechancanough would offer no hint that his threats might not be real. “Of course,” he went on, “werowances are only kept as captives so that they may have a fair chance to demonstrate their bravery before they are put to death.”

  He could have laughed aloud at the white man’s reaction, another of those uncaring shrugs. It would have been more convincing without the sudden tension around the sharp eyes.

  “But then, I do not believe you are a werowance, Chawnzmit.”

  “Do you not?”

  “I don’t think the other tassantassas do as you say. You do not command them. I am a werowance myself. I know the look in other men. I can recognize one of my own, even through white skin and a beard thick as a bear’s fur.”

  “Well, then.” Chawnzmit lifted his carrying pouch again. “I shall demonstrate my own command to you, werowance.” He took another strange object from the pouch, a small folded packet of what looked like very thin bark. Chawnzmit laid it before the fire. “In the morning, when this has dried, I shall use it to send a message to my men.”

  “Yo
u will not be allowed to speak to your men.”

  “I will not need to speak to them: such is the power of my command. We shall send a messenger, one who has never traded with the fort, who knows nothing of our tongue. And yet my men will do as I say; you shall see.”

  Opechancanough could not help but laugh. “A messenger who doesn’t speak your tongue? Very well, Chawnzmit. Show me the power of your command.”

  The thin bark-like stuff was dry by the following morning, and Chawnzmit used a slender stick to make a few black marks on one sheet.

  “I will tell them,” the tassantassa declared, “that I am well, so they will not come looking to avenge my death. I wouldn’t want you harmed, Opechancanough.”

  “Very kind of you,” Opechancanough said wryly.

  “I will also instruct them to send gifts for you. What do you desire?”

  Opechancanough’s gaze traveled to the gun hanging from Chawnzmit’s side. Its end brushed the mud stains on the man’s leggings.

  “Other than a gun,” Chawnzmit said. “My mamanatowick has instructed us not to part with any of our guns.”

  “An axe, then. A good one, suitable for throwing.”

  Chawnzmit nodded and added a few more marks to his message. Then he folded it carefully and handed it to the chosen messenger, a very young warrior who had never been near the white men’s fort. The youth was eager to prove himself worthy of the task, but he took the message from Chawnzmit’s fingers with the wariness of a man handling a snake.

  Opechancanough kept the tassantassa confined in his own house while they waited. Daily he pried at Chawnzmit for more information, seeking to discover whatever weaknesses the white men had. His captive was cautious, though, and more clever than Opechancanough cared to admit. Always Opechancanough’s questions were met with meticulous evasion, or worse, sly counterattacks designed to make the werowance give up his own people’s secrets. The thought of an uncountable number of the white men’s boats gnawed at Opechancanough’s spirit, though reason told him that Chawnzmit must have lied about that, just another bluff to throw his captor off balance and put the white man at some advantage.