Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  Several weeks after they settled in Orapax, Koleopatchika rose early on a bright morning and began stripping the old bark strips from the longhouse. The intrusion of sunlight into the peaceful dark of the house’s interior chased Pocahontas from her sleeping mats. She helped her aunt thread the strips upward and backward, freeing them from the lashed-sapling frame, while Matachanna and Nonoma trampled flat the new sprouting grass, creating a wide bed on which to lay the bark.

  The bark was stretched out to dry in the sunlight. The trek from Werowocomoco to Orapax had been hasty, and bark strips were not the only household necessity damaged by Powhatan’s flight through the wintry forest. Pots and baskets had to be set beside roaring fires before they dried enough to store food, and the sleeping furs were chilly for several nights until they, too, finally gave up their dampness.

  The warped bark from their old longhouse had let too many drafts into the new yehakin; Pocahontas looked forward to tight, smooth walls once more, and a house that held in the warmth of the heart fire and its thick, homey smoke.

  By the afternoon, the springtime sun had flattened the curled and kinked ends of all but a few of the strips. Nonoma and Koleopatchika smiled and gossiped as they wove the dried bark back into place. Matachanna took up a good flint knife and a carrying bag, and made her way into the forest to pare new bark slices from the wide boles of ancient trees.

  Though she had not been invited, Pocahontas tied her own knife to her waist with a strip of leather and ran to catch up with her sister.

  They did not go far. It was unwise to wander beyond the boundary posts of Orapax. One never knew when the Massawomecks might come sneaking through the outer fringes of Tsenacomoco. Fortunately, Orapax had been so long unused that plentiful bark was ready for the taking within shouting distance of the town. Matachanna set to work on a vast birch, scoring the trunk with her knife, the lines even and neat. The sap of springtime was high and sweet in the trees, and gave off a pleasant scent like the nectar of flowering herbs.

  Pocahontas chose the tree beside Matachanna’s. Now and then as she worked she licked the birch sap from her knuckles or the handle of her knife. It prickled and danced on her tongue.

  “The sap is sweet this year,” Pocahontas said. “That is some consolation, if we must live at Orapax.”

  Matachanna made no reply. She did not look up or smile, either—she only sliced methodically at her birch tree, face turned carelessly away, as if she worked alone.

  It had been this way since Chawnzmit’s attempt to raid Werowocomoco. The final weeks of winter had passed in agony for Pocahontas as she strove to make peace with her sister but met only icy disregard.

  She threw down her knife. “Enough, Matachanna. Please. Won’t you tell me why you are so angry?”

  Matachanna worked her fingertips beneath the edge of her bark and pulled. The bark came away in one long, perfect strip with a sound like a blade cutting through buckskin. The bark’s pale underside filled the forest with its sweet perfume. Pocahontas waited while her sister rolled the strip carefully and tucked it inside her bag. Then Matachanna turned to Pocahontas with a frown so direct and accusing that she stumbled back as if shoved.

  “I know it was you who freed Chawnzmit.”

  “I . . . I didn’t free him.” That was true; she had only warned him of the coming attack. Chawnzmit had freed himself. Matachanna’s scowl bore down upon her, and under the ferocity of her sister’s gaze, Pocahontas hung her head. “I told him what Father had planned, that the warriors were to kill the tassantassas with their own blades.”

  “Pocahontas, how could you?” Matachanna’s dismayed wail set a flock of pigeons clattering up out of her birch tree, winging in a panic through the wood.

  “I did it to stop the . . .”

  “After he burned Uttamussak!”

  “It was not Chawnzmit who burned the temple.”

  “What does it matter? One tassantassa is exactly like another. And everybody knows Chawnzmit commands the white men. Whatever any of them does, he does by Chawnzmit’s orders.”

  “If only you had heard the things Chawnzmit said, Matachanna! We spoke, he and I, that day when I got Naukaquawis out of their fort.”

  “No doubt you did speak to him. No doubt you told him all our people’s secrets.”

  “I would never . . . !”

  “You should have left him alone in that longhouse—Chawnzmit and all his vile men. You should have let Father do what had to be done. We would all be better off if the tassantassas were dead—every last one of them, starting with that crow Chawnzmit.”

  “Don’t you see, Matachanna? If we initiated open war with the tassantassas, it would never end. Their weapons are greater than ours. Before we could destroy them, they would take as many Real People with them into death as they possibly could! What I did, I did for the Real People.”

  Matachanna laughed bitterly. She seized another strip of bark and ripped it viciously from the tree. “Oh, indeed. You thought only of the Real People. You may be able to lie to Father, Pocahontas, but you cannot lie to me. I see you for who you truly are. What you did, you did for yourself. Because you want to be a werowansqua. Well, look around you. See where your selfishness has landed you, and all the rest of us, too. Orapax.” She kicked a stone; it flew into a nearby thicket, crackling among the branches. In the momentary silence that followed, the sound of the rushing falls seemed to grow in volume. It was as if the place itself closed slowly in upon them, hiding its subtle menaces behind a soft cloak of springtime green.

  Pocahontas shook her head in wordless sorrow. She remembered the feel of the unknown werowance’s bones beneath her hands, the dark, compelling smell of shadow and tobacco and herb. She remembered the Okeus’s face wreathed in flame. “No, Matachanna,” she said. She choked on her own voice, and it came from her chest in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t want to be a werowansqua. Not anymore.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be your friend. Not anymore. I told you a day like today would come when I’d finally had enough of your selfishness.” Matachanna sheathed her knife, slung her bag onto her back, and settled the wide strap across her forehead. “Good-bye, Amonute.”

  Pocahontas watched Matachanna stomp down the overgrown trail. The bag of bark strips flopped from side to side as she hurried toward Orapax. Pocahontas picked up her knife from the loamy soil and returned to her work, recalling Matachanna in the temple, her clay-white face full of love and relief when she had seen Pocahontas stumble through the dense smoke and flames. She scored the bark, pried and pulled, scored again. Now and then she paused to wipe tears from her cheeks. The taste of salt mingled with the sweetness of birch sap on her lips.

  She returned to Orapax at sunset. She approached the longhouse from the rear, hesitant as a tree vole in the evening hours, when the forest filled with the white ghosts of owls on the wing. Koleopatchika was busy with the walls, deftly weaving the new bark strips over-under through the sapling framework. Pocahontas dropped her bag of coiled bark at Koleopatchika’s feet. Her aunt looked up with a smile of tender sympathy. Then her sparkling black eyes slid to the house’s half-formed yard; a sly, encouraging spark flickered in her gaze.

  Pocahontas looked up. Kocoum sat upon a large stone, patiently wrapping an arrowhead to the shaft of a new arrow.

  She approached him and stood in shy, tentative silence several paces away. She had not seen Kocoum since Werowocomoco. His duties to the mamanatowick had carried him on lengthy missions through the latter part of winter, patrolling the borders of Orapax for white men and Massawomecks. Kocoum had been her protector and shadow while she had worked with the tassantassas, and yet, through the long and distressing weeks of settling into this new life at Orapax, she had nearly forgotten what he looked like. Pocahontas watched in quiet contentment as he worked, reacquainting herself with his features and his habits. His fingers moved in a careful, precise rhythm, twining the si
new neatly, folding and securing it, testing the knot. One leg was crossed upon the other, his tattooed ankle resting on his knee. Even with his face turned down, she could see that his mouth was serious with concentration, as it so often was. It was good to see once more the arch of his bold nose and the straight line running down his scalp from forehead to nape where his unshaven hair was pulled neatly to the side, caught up in a heavy loop of braid. Red-painted turkey feathers dangled from his hair, moving gently in a rising evening breeze that smelled of river fish, of fertile earth and growing things.

  He looked up and slid his arrow into the quiver propped against his knee. “Pocahontas.”

  “Wingapoh. Why are you here?”

  He stood and stretched the cramp of long, patient work from his back and shoulders. “Walk with me.”

  They strolled to the river in companionable silence, each content with the sound of the other’s footsteps. They halted on a shelf of stone high above the bank. The river was far narrower here than at Werowocomoco. It moved rapidly, a strong, compelling rush so unlike the smooth, contented flow, the lazy tidal rise and fall, of the river she had known for most of her life. Purple twilight gathered at the edges of the forest. Early stars shone in the dusky sky like the pale eyes of spirits. From the riverbank a canoe pushed out onto the water. The men aboard paddled smoothly for the river’s deep, blue-dark center. At the bow, one man held a pine torch close to the water’s surface; just behind him, another waited with a knotted silk-grass net on a long pole, ready to scoop up curious fish that came to bathe in the flickering star of torchlight. The torch was reflected in the current, the mirrored golden light breaking and rippling downstream as the bow gently parted the river.

  Kocoum spoke. “I am old enough now to have my own longhouse. To set up a household.”

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. The dusk cast a shade upon his skin, painting his body the color of tobacco flowers. “You will need a wife for that, won’t you?”

  “Yes. I have one in mind.”

  She laughed. “Kocoum, I’m not a woman yet.”

  He glanced down at her chest, which ripened month by month like fruit on a vine. “You will be soon. Your aunt Koleopatchika is right. Something has changed in you since we left Werowocomoco.”

  Since the burning of Uttamussak. She turned her face downward and tracked the night fishers with brimming eyes. “You have been discussing me with my aunt?”

  He shrugged. “You are a daughter of the mamanatowick. I cannot find your mother to discuss the matter with her.”

  “Why me?”

  He brushed her shoulder with his fingers. His touch was gentle and warm. “Because I like Mischief.” Before she could swat his hand away, he tugged on her braid. “Think about what I’ve said tonight, Amonute. I know I am young, but I have much to offer a wife. I’m a good hunter—one of the best, in truth, though you’ll never hear me speak of it in the boasting contests. I don’t need to boast. Boasting doesn’t kill game.”

  She smiled. “Certainly you are not boasting now.”

  “It’s only the truth. I am a good warrior, too. I’m brave, reliable, and loyal to your father.”

  “What of my uncle?” she asked suddenly.

  “Opechancanough?” Kocoum’s brow furrowed, but he seemed to grasp her meaning and continued. “Opechancanough is a good man, strong, an excellent werowance. I know some men mock him for being captured by Chawnzmit, but I respect his bravery. I would never hesitate to fight at his side. If the time comes when the men of Tsenacomoco must swear loyalty to Opechancanough, I will do it without reservation.”

  She turned back to the torch on the water. The canoe rocked, and the men below shouted as they hauled the net aboard. It was full of movement and sound, the muscular twist of long silver bodies, the copper-bell splash of water.

  “I would make you happy, Amonute.”

  “I believe you would.”

  “Then if you like, I will go to your father and ask him to pledge you to my hearth when your time comes to enter the sweat lodge.”

  A strange, dense cloud engulfed her spirit, thick and white as a wolf’s fur. She would never be a werowansqua—but quite apart from being an impossibility, it was no longer her dream. Thank the Okeus that she was no high-blood girl. She could marry whom she pleased. Kocoum was all the things he said he was—a good provider, a sturdy and respectable man. And like Pocahontas, he was lowborn. At his hearth, she could retreat into a life of quiet obscurity, finding contentment in a woman’s work until the day when she, like Kocoum, like Matachanna, was turned back into the soil of life, her name lost to time, her spirit free to start anew.

  She wanted to accept. She wanted to beg him to go to her father that very night. But once Kocoum’s plans were set in motion, and her blood finally arrived, she would be a wife first and the daughter of the mamanatowick second. She needed to speak to Chawnzmit one final time while she was still free to do so. She needed to know that she had done the right thing in saving him from death.

  “Before I can answer you,” she said slowly, “there is something I must do. I do not know when I will do it, nor do I know how—yet. It may be many months before I have the opportunity.”

  “What must you do?”

  She shook her head curtly. “I cannot speak of it to anyone.”

  Kocoum took a wary step back. “Women’s magic?” All men were suspicious by nature of women’s magic, of the blood that gave life and the other mysterious rhythms of female flesh.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. “A man cannot know.”

  “I understand.”

  “I will give you my answer, Kocoum, as soon as I am able. I ask you to be patient until then.”

  “Very well.”

  He lowered himself onto the shelf of stone. His legs hung over the edge, swinging boyishly in the soft night. He leaned back on his hands and watched the pine torch slip downstream like a spirit walking. In the spring night, soft as a rabbit skin, comforting as a well-loved sleeping mat, Kocoum was the very image of contented patience.

  She joined him on the edge of the overhang. The stone was cool and faintly damp with the promise of a heavy morning dew, the kind that set the world shimmering like the inside of an oyster’s shell. She kicked her feet in the crisp air. She was happy at Kocoum’s side. The rent in her heart caused by Matachanna’s hatred did not ache as fiercely as it had. She rested her head on his shoulder.

  “When I’ve done what I must do,” she said quietly, her voice barely carrying above the splashing of the night fishers’ net, “my answer will be yes.”

  Cattapeuk burgeoned, green and soft. Warm days raised moss-scented mists in the forest of Orapax. Shoots rose bright and eager from the loam, unfurling leaves that gathered morning dew in their cups like gourds beside the river. Mulberry trees shook their green tassels of flowers in soft breezes, and the plum trees donned cloaks of sweetly scented, snow-white blossoms. Along the edges of trails, strawberries tumbled like pearls rolled in puccoon, shining in the shade of their dark, glossy leaves. Smoking racks sprouted like mushrooms in the yard of every longhouse. Each afternoon was colored by the smell of smoked fish, a salty-sweet, woodsy tang that settled into clothing and hair and hung about the branches of trees.

  All through the season, Pocahontas waited for her chance to slip away from her father’s new capital. Jamestown lay far downriver from Orapax, a journey of many days. Often she would find herself pausing in her work, setting a half-full gourd of strawberries aside or dropping her bags of smoked fish to wander to the riverbank and stare downstream.

  In truth, nothing prevented her from leaving Orapax. The memory of Chawnzmit, of the kinship of their spirits, pulled at her like a bone fishhook set deep in her heart. She knew before she could accept a new life, a new identity as woman and wife, she must see him one last time and learn for herself whether she had been wise or foolish in spa
ring him from a violent death at his own blade.

  She also knew with a placid certainty that once she saw Chawnzmit again, once she spoke to him, her childhood would be forever behind her. She would drop Amonute the girl as a tree drops its final dry leaf in winter. The last thin shred of her old ambitions would fall, too, never to be retrieved. She would content herself with the life of a Real Woman—that and nothing more.

  Perhaps it was that certainty that held her fast in Orapax as cattapeuk blossomed and flourished. Perhaps there was some secret corner of her spirit that was reluctant to release its hold on its former dream, a territory of her own, the rich prize of immortality, of being ever herself.

  Or perhaps it was Matachanna. Pocahontas had thought no pain could be more severe than Matachanna’s ostentatious scorn, which she heaped upon Pocahontas whenever they were near to one another. Matachanna would fall into icy silence as Pocahontas approached, and then turn deliberately away from her. Soon, though, her rejection became not a show but a simple habit. And that was a torment beyond her calculated disdain. It was at least as compelling as the hook Chawnzmit had set into her spirit. Day by day Pocahontas looked for some sign that she was forgiven—a glance or a softening of her sister’s mouth. But day by day, Matachanna drifted further away, a loosed canoe on a rising tide.

  Too soon, cattapeuk yielded to cohattayough. The spiked and filamented flowers of the passion-fruit vine withered, and in their place the soft-skinned fruits hung, round and full like silk-grass bags on women’s backs. The fish runs slackened. Young turkeys strutted in the dappled light of the forest, picking for acorns and insects beneath patches of last autumn’s leaves.

  Pocahontas gave herself over to the rhythm of work. Her digging stick was a welcome distraction. On days when Matachanna’s scorn or Chawnzmit’s distance were too much to bear, she would jab and lever it into the black earth of her garden, working the soil with a grim focus that brought soreness to her muscles and blisters to her hands, but a semblance of peace to her spirit. She often stayed in the garden until after sunset, plucking caterpillars from the young squash leaves, tearing weeds from the feet of corn plants, even while the rest of the Real People gathered at the communal fire to boast and dance.