Tidewater: A Novel of Pocahontas and the Jamestown Colony

by Libbie Hawker

  “But the tassantassas aimed their muskets down from the top of their ship, and fired.”

  Wowinchopunck’s hands lifted to cover his twisted face. He wept in near silence, with only his breath hissing between his fingers, a faint sound beneath the crackle of the heart fire.

  No need to ask whether the boys had survived the horrifying ordeal. Opechancanough shared another long look with Powhatan. To his surprise, tears shone in the mamanatowick’s eyes. The old man blinked them away and leaned back into shadow, gazing over Opechancanough’s head into the long dark hall of the great house.

  “And then, while my wife screamed piteously for her sons, some of the white men tore off her apron and passed her about, using her before my eyes, and the eyes of the entire tribe. After a while they stood her up, and called down to me, to my men circling the ship and shouting for vengeance, for white blood. She was bloody and bruised, and her face was terrible, blank, like a dead thing.

  “I thought they might let her go, after all they had done to her. But Lord-del-a-wair shouted once more about horses and coach. Then he drew his sword and . . .” Wowinchopunck made a stabbing motion toward his own middle. He seemed to crumple around the self-inflicted blow, drooping beside the fire like a stem wilting in summer heat. He stayed on the ground, his body shaken by silent sobs.

  Opechancanough tucked the corners of the robe around his friend’s face, covering his shame from sight.

  Powhatan’s hands worked at his own hair, tearing the silver strands with jagged, fierce, helpless talons. He rocked in grief, and a hoarse cry reverberated through the longhouse. Opechancanough did not know whether it came from the mamanatowick, from Wowinchopunck, or from his own burning throat.

  Silence settled again.

  Wowinchopunck stirred and straightened beneath the wolfskin. He rose on shaking legs to stand before Powhatan. When he spoke, his words were strong and calm: not the voice of a grieving father and husband, but the voice of a werowance who faces his enemies with club and bow in hand. “The time has long since come to destroy these tassantassas. If you do not agree to it, Powhatan, then I say, there sits the true mamanatowick of Tsenacomoco.” He pointed at Opechancanough.

  Opechancanough held himself as still as a rabbit when the hawk’s shadow speeds across the grass. He did not dare glance toward Powhatan, for fear that he would see defeat in the eyes of the brother he loved so dearly. For fear that he, Opechancanough, would be the cause of grief in the old man’s heart.

  But Powhatan grunted in assent. Opechancanough’s eyes flew to the mamanatowick’s face. The old man nodded, face stark and haggard in the firelight. “We can no longer run, no longer hide. Now we return the tassantassas’ violence, blow for blow. And then a blow more.”

  POCAHONTAS

  Season of Cattapeuk

  Three years later

  Kocoum took the bag of venison and berries from Pocahontas’s hands. It was her best bag, woven tightly with the softest strands of grass, and dyed with bloodroot and ochre and bright-white clay. Two fine, even red lines crossed over one another, woven along the flat loop of the carrying strap. Each tiny knot of dyed silk grass lay flat and precise in its field of white. It had taken her days to make it, and her fingers had been cramped and stiff for many more days afterward. But whatever she did for Kocoum, she did with her whole heart.

  He laid the bag carefully in the belly of his canoe. When he stopped for the midday meal, he would find the sweet dumplings she had hidden inside, wrapped in mulberry leaves. They would bring a smile to his face, even on a day like this, when he went to make war with the tassantassas.

  It seemed Kocoum was always off making war. For three years Powhatan and Opechancanough had sent their men against the tassantassas, to harry the white men fiercely like a pack of wolves at the heels of a herd of sickly deer. And each time the mamanatowick called, Kocoum answered. He was as loyal to the Chief of Chiefs as he had sworn to be, those years ago when he had told Pocahontas he wanted her for his wife. She could not fault his honesty, nor his bravery.

  But her seventeenth winter had just passed, and still she had no child. They tried, when Kocoum was not off making war—the spirits knew how they tried! But as aggressions against the white men increased, she saw her husband less and less, and each month the moon’s cycle mocked her fragile hopes.

  Kocoum lifted her chin with a gentle hand. His kiss was soft and lingering. “I will think of you every day and every night, Pocahontas.”

  She was Matoaka now, of course, but Kocoum had never ceased calling her by her old name. She was glad of it. She never wanted him to stop.

  The canoe rocked and chattered against the gravelly shore as he settled himself inside and took up the carved handle of his paddle. “When I’ve killed a few more tassantassas,” he said, grinning, “we’ll make a son or two!”

  And then he was pushing off, turning the dugout away and gliding out into the fast current as confident as a buck in nepinough. Pocahontas remained on the riverbank, watching his strong arms flash in the sun as he paddled. She sent up a prayer for the spirits to protect him, the manitou to shun him, the Okeus to shield him. It was the same prayer she said every time he went to war. It was a part of the routine of their lives, a thing woven into the fabric of their marriage like one of the neat, red knots on his bag. Long after he’d vanished around the bend, Pocahontas remained, staring after him.

  She longed for Kocoum’s company even more than she longed for a child. Their yehakin was secluded, well hidden on the fringes of Orapax. No one had ever troubled them here, not enemy tribes or white men or even Real Women. Usually Kocoum was her only company, if he was there at all. With gardens and children to tend, fish to smoke, meat and fruits to preserve, the women of Orapax were not at leisure to stroll through the forest to Pocahontas’s heart fire and share their idle gossip.

  Matachanna made the trek a few times a month, and she and Pocahontas would spend blissful hours weaving or stretching and scraping hides in the sun while they talked of old times and new hopes. But Matachanna saw her husband far more often than Pocahontas saw Kocoum, and someday soon Matachanna’s belly would swell, children would gather about her feet, and the visits would come to an end.

  It is no matter, Pocahontas told herself firmly, turning her back on the river. I knew womanhood would mean isolation. She had seen it clearly the night she sweated alone among the bones of Werowocomoco.

  She made her way up the shaded trail toward her small longhouse. The rich mineral scent of spring bloomed all around her, damp and soft and cool. She remembered Werowocomoco in the firelight, the passion-fruit vines hanging from the longhouse frames like the weasel-tail fringe of a priestly headdress. It had been so long since she had seen the place. Was it still abandoned? Had the vines overtaken it completely, choking the gardens and yards, blanketing the dancing grounds like a glossy green snow?

  I would like to see it again. Werowocomoco, and all the southern villages. So many years have passed, and so much has changed in Tsenacomoco.

  Lost in her thoughts, she did not see the man standing patiently beside her longhouse until she had almost reached her door. She stifled a shriek and stood staring at him, tingling.

  “Wingapoh,” he said. “You are Matoaka, daughter of Powhatan?”

  “Yes . . .”

  The man nodded briskly. “Good. Your father has sent me to escort you to Orapax.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand. Escort me?” Did Powhatan wish to keep her close while Kocoum was off at war? Anxiety curled tight and hard beneath her heart. Was this battle expected to be worse than the others? Did her father believe Kocoum would not return?

  “The mamanatowick wishes to speak with you. He has a task for you. That is all I know of it.”

  Pocahontas stiffened. She had hoped her days of aiding her father were at an end. Kocoum had told her—reluctantly, of course—the terrible fate th
at had befallen Wowinchopunck’s family. For three years she could not sleep without dreaming of it, the children thrashing in bloodred water, the woman standing blank-faced at the ship’s rail. And always the English words echoing through her spirit, mocking and sly. A coach and three horses. A coach and three horses.

  She wanted no part of her father’s schemes. Or her uncle’s. She had paid many times over for her arrogant childhood dream of influence and power. Her solitude, the danger Kocoum faced, her empty womb, Uttamussak burned, Wowinchopunck’s family destroyed . . . all of it came from the tassantassa plague, and the tassantassa plague persisted because of her.

  But she thought of Kocoum paddling bravely away, his back strong and beautiful as it bent to the task of rowing, the hint of his black tattoos showing through his ochre paint. Kocoum always answers the call faithfully, and the Okeus has always brought him home. Perhaps the god will be kind to me if I answer the call, too. One final time, to honor the bravery of my husband.

  The Pattawomeck shoreline came into view, a black shelf of mud sloping into the broad, still eddy of the landing place. Several dugouts rested on the bank, in plain view of the river. The canoes gave Pocahontas pause. All down the great length of the river, as she traveled from Orapax to Pattawomeck territory, the canoes of the Real People had been scarcely visible, hauled far above the waterline, dark masses half-concealed by the new growth of riverside vegetation. No village risked the burning of their dugouts; the tassantassas were too quick to set them alight when they were left unattended. The white men sometimes roamed far upriver, and so all the territories had taken to hiding their canoes.

  Canoes well hidden, in every village but this one. Perhaps my father is right after all.

  Powhatan’s frail appearance had startled her when she’d answered his summons. She had not seen him in three years—not even at the harvest festivals when she made the long walk to the center of Orapax. He had remained in the seclusion of his yehakin, and she had been too ashamed of her role in the tassantassas’ survival to face him. Had Powhatan truly grown so much thinner and weaker in those years, or had he looked this way for many seasons, the silver hair fading to the white of dirty snow, the skin hanging loose from his once strong and blocky jaw? Perhaps it was her memory that was at fault, not the strength of Powhatan.

  The old man’s eyes had been sharp enough, though, shining at her keenly from his wasted face.

  “You must go to Pattawomeck territory,” he had told her in a voice that both whispered and grated. “The werowance of that tribe, Japazaws, has grown too friendly with the tassantassas.”

  Opechancanough had brooded in the corner as Powhatan spoke and Pocahontas listened with bowed head and blinking eyes. His body was tight-strung with watchful tension, his suspicion of Japazaws plain to see on his face.

  Powhatan feared a defection; feared Japazaws would ally his tribe with the white men and spill the secrets of the Real People like blood on snow. He believed Pocahontas could stop Japazaws. Pocahontas was not at all sure she could, but she had answered her father’s call. She had gone to honor Kocoum, who gave so much and never stopped striving for the well-being of the Real People.

  Throughout the long trek from Orapax to the village of Passapatanzy, as the green water of spring slid by and the rowers’ paddles lifted and fell in a quiet, regular rhythm, Pocahontas pondered the task the mamanatowick had set before her. If Japazaws was truly ready to sell his tribe to the tassantassas, then Pocahontas could do nothing to stop it—whatever Powhatan or Opechancanough might think. She was only a lowborn young woman. She was not even a mother—even that shred of status eluded her.

  She had expressed her reservations as forcefully as she dared. But Powhatan had been adamant.

  “You will be useful in this, Matoaka. I know it. You recall a particular young daughter of mine, the girl you once served as handmaid.”

  “Nonoma.” No—what name had she taken when she reached womanhood? Pocahontas struggled to recall it. “Musqua-chehip.”

  “You recall,” Powhatan said, “that I gave her in marriage to Japazaws, thinking to bind him more closely to me, as I suspected his heart might waver toward the white men.”

  “The plan seems to have failed,” Opechancanough interjected smoothly. “Our scouts report that Japazaws trades with the tassantassas ever more frequently, and that he has even made some small noises about an alliance.”

  “Why not simply remove him from power?” Pocahontas asked.

  Powhatan frowned. His eyes were distant with his troubled thoughts. “If it comes to that—if he can’t be brought back under control—I shall. But our power is scattered, our warriors and chiefs blown like leaves in the wind. It will take time to swear in a new chief properly. We must try to salvage Japazaws first, if it can be done.”

  “Why me, Father?”

  “You were friends with Musqua-chehip when you were girls. Is that not so?”

  Pocahontas could not keep an ironic smile from her face. “I don’t think Nonoma—or, Musqua-chehip, I should say—and I could ever have been called friends. Not truly.” True, she had reached a sort of truce with Nonoma, but years later, Pocahontas couldn’t think of the high-born girl without a certain cautious reserve. She glanced uneasily at Opechancanough. “Are you certain this is a wise plan?”

  Powhatan caught the direction of her question and he lurched forward on his bedstead. “I am mamanatowick here, not my brother. A woman like you would do well to remember it.”

  She dropped her eyes meekly. “I only meant . . . I am not certain that Musqua-chehip can be influenced. Or made to influence her husband. As a girl she was always flighty and selfish.”

  Powhatan grunted. “As were you, Pocahontas.”

  This time when he used the pet name of her childhood, there was no affection in it. It was an accusation. She glanced up at his face and met his cold, commanding stare, harsh even in the gauntness of his features. Perhaps it is not only years that have aged him. Perhaps it is the strife we have been through—all the suffering we might have been spared but for my childish ambitions, my disastrous need for influence.

  In the end, it was her guilt—even more than her sense of duty to her father or her desire to make Kocoum proud—that sent her downriver. If only she could influence Musqua-chehip for good, Pocahontas hoped she might turn the current of the war, and undo a small part of the damage she had caused as a child.

  The mamanatowick’s warrior guards landed her craft and helped her step ashore. But standing in the thick, well-trodden mud of Passapatanzy’s shore while her father’s warriors retrieved her two small travel bags, she stared at the ostentatious canoes in dismay. It seemed Japazaws truly had no fear of tassantassa violence. Against such bold confidence, what could one lowborn woman do?

  A high, piping voice called from the trailhead. “Wingapoh! Wingapoh, dear Pocahontas!”

  Even with the chin-length hair of a woman, the thick black fringe falling to her brows, Pocahontas recognized Musqua-chehip at once. As with Matachanna, she could not help but think of her by the childhood name—Nonoma. She would always be the same haughty, puccoon-covered child to Pocahontas. Nonoma danced on her toes among the thick springtime foliage, one hand waving gaily in the air. Several pearl and copper bracelets ringed her wrists, and around her neck strings of beads clattered as she bounced. The beads were not the type usually sported by werowances’ wives—pearl and dark-violet roanoke, or carved shell rubbed with puccoon so the incised patterns shone bright against sun-darkened skin. Nonoma’s necklaces were made of glass trade beads. Pocahontas could tell the difference even from several paces. The beads sparkled in rich, exotic colors: yellow fiery as autumn flowers, orange clear like a butterfly’s wing, and several shades of blue and green that called to mind the river dancing below a summer sky.

  There was a time when Pocahontas would have envied the fine, rare beads. But now, knowing they only could have
come from the tassantassas, the sight of them roiled the midday meal in her gut.

  She slung her bags across her back, secured both straps to her forehead, and gave her thanks to the guards. Then she made herself rush into Nonoma’s embrace, fixing a smile in place and praying that her feet did not drag.

  Nonoma kissed her cheek and squealed. Then she stepped back abruptly, smoothing an apron liberally decorated with more bright glass beads and wide swaths of puccoon. “Oh, spirits save me from myself. I am acting just like a little girl. But it’s so good to see you again!”

  “It’s good to see you, too, Nono . . .” Pocahontas caught herself with a quick shake of the head. Nonoma was ever prickly about receiving proper respect. She would not appreciate being called by her girl’s name. “Musqua-chehip.”

  “And I must call you Matoaka, I suppose.”

  Pocahontas hung her head, hoping her cheeks colored. It would be an appropriate response to a high-blood woman who humors one of low status. “You may go on calling me Pocahontas, if it suits you.”

  “Mischief.” Nonoma gave a sharp laugh. It rang with a note of the girl’s old arrogance. “Well, let me show you around Passapatanzy, and you must tell me all the news from Orapax.”

  Pocahontas did her best to concentrate on Nonoma’s chatter as they wandered the lanes of her village. She answered Nonoma’s queries about Orapax as honestly as she dared, sharing tales from the dancing grounds, telling of new children born and new men returned from the huskanaw—and pleading ignorance when Nonoma pried for details about Orapax’s food stores, number of warriors, and the health of Powhatan. Nonoma led her from one longhouse to the next, introducing Pocahontas to women who wore too many glass beads and used too many steel tools to work their stretched skins or repair their husbands’ fishing nets. Passapatanzy seemed to glitter with copper and steel and the sinister brightness of glass beads. Light reflected from these hard tokens of tassantassa friendship as the sun glints off each scale of a snake’s skin.