A Roll of the Bones

  Whenever they put ashore, Governor Guy sent parties of men into the woods to search for signs of native camps. Finally, more than a fortnight after they had first set sail from Cupids Cove, two men returned from the woods in high excitement. “There’s a camp in there all right—further up the stream, three or four of their tilts!” Frank Tipton announced.

  “Did any of them see you?”

  “We didn’t even see them, sir. The tilts looked all abandoned, like. But they were never built by no Englishmen—all like tents made of skins, they were. Come in and see them!”

  Four men were left at the shore to stand guard while the rest, Ned included, traipsed into the woods to the clearing where the shelters stood by the shore of a lake. As Tipton had said, they looked like tents: cone-shaped structures of wooden poles covered with animal hides.

  “’Tis not long ago they were here,” Nicholas Guy said, prodding at the remains of a fire pit with a stick he carried. “No more than a fortnight, I’d say.”

  “And we are not the first Christians they have met up with,” John Guy said. He gestured to one of the tents that stood a little apart from the rest, and lifted the material that covered the poles. It was not animal hide like the rest, but sail canvas. “They got this in trade from some fisherman, or took it off a wrecked vessel.”

  “They’ve traded in the past. Not many Englishmen have seen them, but the Basque whalers spoke of trading with the natives.” Henry Crout put his head inside one of the tents and drew out a battered copper kettle, holding it up for the men to see. “They’ve surely had contact with civilized men, for they have neither the art nor the materials to fashion such things themselves.”

  “But where are they? If this is their dwelling—”

  “Has it not the look of a hunting camp?” Ned suggested. “And this would be the season, for them as well as for us, to hunt the bigger animals before winter comes.”

  The men wandered through the camp over the next hour or so, noting everything they saw. Henry Crout was especially keen; he was keeping a journal of their observations, and would write this all down when he returned to the Indeavour. Ned wondered what any of them would do if a group of natives, armed with hunting spears or bows and arrows, quietly emerged from the woods. Four members of the party were armed with muskets. They could likely shoot the natives before a spear could be thrown or an arrow fitted—but what hope, then, of ever starting trade, much less making Christians of them?

  No wild men appeared from the forest. Ned felt all his senses heightened as they headed back to the beach. Though they had always known there were men somewhere in these woods, the fact that till now they had seen no trace of them meant he had been moving about the woods as if they were uninhabited. Seeing the camp made it real: these woods, these shores, were home to another race of men, as real as themselves.

  A few days later in another cove, the barque and the shallop lay at anchor in the evening. Ned and two other men followed a small stream from the beach to the shores of a larger inland pond, where they dipped their buckets to take up fresh water.

  “If this was summer I’d strip down to bathe in that,” Whittington said as they stood near the calm pond.

  “You’d be froze to death in a matter of minutes. ’Tis damn cold, this!”

  “Hush. Look.” Ned followed Tipton’s pointing finger. On the opposite shore, a small boat cut through the water—not towards them, but running parallel to them so they had a good look at it. It was smaller than a ship’s boat, with only two men in it, paddling with oars, one on each side. The prow and stern of the small boat were curved up to a point, a good shape for moving swiftly through these calm waters.

  Ned raised his arm and shouted “Hail!” One of the men in the boat turned towards them and spoke to the other, a clear note of warning in his voice. The second man turned and looked straight at Ned, Frank, and George. He was too far away for them to make out his features in any detail, but his eyes held their gaze a moment before turning away. Both men were strong and powerfully built, and as they bent to their paddles, the little boat picked up speed. Soon it disappeared around a bend in the shore.

  “Those were natives,” Tipton said.

  “Had to be.”

  “They saw us.”

  “What did you think they were going to do? Come over here and bid us good-day?” Whittington scoffed. “Englishmen have been fishing here for a hundred years, and ‘tis rare to hear of friendly meetings with the natives. ’Twill not be easy to get close.”

  Back on the shore, they told the other men what they’d seen. “You should have taken off your shirt, waved it on a stick like a white flag,” suggested Henry Crout.

  “Would they even know what that meant? Have they seen a white flag before?”

  “Surely any man would recognize it as a sign of peace,” Crout said.

  “But are they even men as we are?” Nicholas Guy asked. “They are not civilized; why would we expect them to know the things all Christian men know? It would be like expecting the bear or the deer to know what your white flag meant.”

  They talked long into the night around the fire about the natives—how they might respond when they finally made contact, if they had souls like Christian men did, if they could be taken and used for slaves as had been done with the natives in the southern islands of the New World. “Imagine how much more we could do with this land if we had the labour!” Crout said, shaking his head at the thought.

  “I have not heard that anyone’s had much fortune getting the natives in this part of the world to work for them,” John Guy said. “In Virginia the English have traded with them. They are the ones who know this land, after all, and Englishmen might not long survive here if we do not make friends with them.”

  “They know the land, yes, but they do not use it!” Crout shot back. “Look at this great island, all its resources—the seas teeming with fish, enough timber in the forests to build an armada of ships, iron and copper and likely even silver and gold beneath the earth. A few thousand savages camp out on it in tents of skins, hunting wild beasts and gathering berries. They build no cities, they have no metal goods except what they get from fishermen. Half the world is going to waste under their rule. When God gave man dominion over the earth, He meant for us to use it, not waste it!”

  Other voices joined in the argument, but Ned let his mind drift away from the debate. This was an argument for men like Guy and Crout, masters and governors. Thank God I’ll never have to make such decisions, Ned thought. Perhaps those two men they had seen in the boat had souls that could be saved and minds that could be reasoned with, as Christian men did, but it was hardly for Ned to judge such things. If I see a native coming at me with a weapon, and I have a musket handy, I’ll shoot to save my life. Other than that, ’tis not likely I’ll have much to do with them.

  So instead of thinking about savages and slaves and how the New Found Land could be tamed with a handful of Englishmen, he thought about Cupids Cove, and about Nancy. He pictured her firm, straight back and her clear-eyed gaze, imagined her milking a goat or pulling weeds from the garden. How quickly, how readily she had learned all these new things, even as that sharp tongue of hers reminded everyone she was trained as a housemaid, not as a goatherd or a farmer.

  When he saw her in Cupids Cove beside her mistress, it seemed strange that he had spent his youth fancying Kathryn. Yes, Kathryn Guy was still a beauty, but putting Nancy in Cupids Cove had been like polishing a jewel and putting it in a new setting. She shone brighter, somehow, in this hard place—not only the beauty of her face and figure, but her spirit as well.

  With Nancy by his side, he could imagine having his own little plot of land, a few chickens with some pigs and goats, children growing up around them. A hard life, in some ways, but they would share it, and make each other laugh through the lean times. Strange to think that was his dream now, when he’d once thought he’d live out his life in Bristol laying stone for rich men’s houses and great churches. He wo
uld never have a hand, now, in building a great manor house, but if Nancy would marry him, he’d be content to stay here. Let the masters decide about treating with the natives and taming the land—he would tame his own little piece of this new world, and be well content with that.

  On the third of November, they left the bottom of Trinity Bay and sailed northwest into a long arm of the sea. Governor Guy was anxious to find whether there was a passage that would lead them to Placentia, the great bay on the other side of the island. Such a passage might prove a shorter and safer way to get to Renews where, despite the skirmishes with pirates, he had not given up hopes of founding his second colony.

  “A passage to Placentia’s all very well, but we want to get safe back to Cupids Cove before the ice comes,” grumbled George Whittington as he and Ned swabbed the Indeavour’s deck. “I doubt we’ll ever find those natives if they don’t want to be found.”

  “I’d be glad to be back in the cove before the first snowfall,” Ned agreed. “Has anyone spoke to the governor, asked him when we can return?”

  George snorted. “Talk to that one? Governor Guy wants to be the first man to find a sea passage to Placentia Bay, the first man to explore the interior of these woods, the first man to make contact with the savages. ’Tis all first, first, first with him, and the one thing he’s willing to put last is the good of his men.”

  Ned, like the rest, remembered how quickly ice had filled the harbour last November. Their first New Found Land winter had been mild, but this year reminded him of last, with the sharp cold coming on quickly. If ice blocked their way out of the Trinity Bay, the governor would want them to trek overland to Cupids Cove, a hard walk even in the mildest of weather.

  They went to Nicholas Guy, who was leading the men in the small shallop, and told him of their fears. “I’ll speak to the governor,” he said, “though I know he mislikes the thought of turning back before he’s sighted the natives.”

  On the fifth of November John Guy told the men they would spend two more days exploring that part of the shore, sending parties inland to search for signs of the natives and making notes on the lay of the land and any possible passage to Placentia Bay. On the dawn of the third day, they would begin the return journey.

  Ned, George, and Frank Tipton joined a party led by Governor Guy to climb a hill the governor called the Powder Horn, to see what they could see of the countryside. Whittington, still unhappy they were not already headed back to Cupids Cove, grumbled all the way up the wooded slope, though not loudly enough that the governor could hear him. “What will we see up there? What do you think? I’ll guess—trees, trees, and more trees. A bog, perhaps. What the devil else would you see in this country?”

  At the crest of the hill they could see the forest spread out below, and it was so exactly like what Whittington had predicted that Ned almost laughed aloud. Trees in every direction; the leaf-bearing trees were bare-branched now, but the evergreens were still thick and dark. Two ponds dotted the landscape silver, and there was a low, brushy area of the type that the settlers had once thought might make good pastureland or farmland but which they now knew to be a wet, marshy fen incapable of producing anything but mud and some bright, tart berries that flourished in late autumn.

  Off in the distance to the west, though, they saw a broad expanse of silver. Another lake? If so, it was a large one. “By our Lady—’tis not the sea, is it?” Ned asked.

  “It is—those are the shores of Placentia Bay,” Governor Guy told the men. “Could we but find a waterway that connects that bay to this, ’twould be far easier to travel through this land. At least we know now the land is narrow between the two bays, and the trail that Master Crout found, that the natives cut through here, might be widened to a great road. What a saving in sailing time, if goods and men could be brought across this little stretch of land from Placentia Bay to Trinity Bay.”

  Their small group camped that night on the Powder Horn, as it was too late to make the trek back down before dusk fell. In the morning they rejoined the rest of their party near the shore. As the various groups described what they had seen on their forays, Henry Crout scribbled notes and sketches in his journal. It was as they were finishing the midday meal that Nicholas Guy sighted a fire burning on the beach, a mile or two away.

  “It must be the natives—is it a cooking fire?” Whittington wondered aloud.

  “’Tis no cookfire—see how tall and bright it is, out in the open like that? They know we are here—that is a signal fire,” Master Crout guessed. “They are bidding us to come to them.”

  “To the boats, men,” John Guy said at once, getting to his feet. “Master Crout, you and I and another three or four stout fellows will take the shallop and row down the shore to the spot. The rest of you, follow in the Indeavour.” He scanned the faces of the men around him on the beach. “Crowder, Teague, Nicholas—you join us. A few more—ah, Perry, Tipton, Whittington, come along, too. You young lads can row. Quickly now—and quiet, for we do not want to startle them away.”

  Ned hopped into the shallop along with the governor and the others. He took one oar and George the one beside him; the other men, save for Master Crout and Governor Guy, also bent to the oars. As they rowed a steady, rhythmic pull through the water, the men talked in low, excited tones about the possibility of finally encountering some natives. Would they find a way to communicate? What could they offer in trade?

  “Most of what we brought for truck—the beads and the metal goods—are aboard the barque,” the governor said, looking back at the Indeavour. “What have we here that we can give them, to show our intention to trade?”

  “A knife?” suggested Master Crout, pulling his from its sheath.

  “Do we trust to give them weapons at first meeting?” Nicholas Guy wondered aloud.

  “They go about clad in animal skins and furs, sir,” George Whittington said. “Some fine woven cloth—linen napkins, even one of our shirts or a pair of gloves—would be a wonder to them, would it not?”

  “I’ve a brass button that’s come loose from my doublet,” Tipton said.

  “Among us all, I am sure we can find a few things they will find enticing,” said the governor. “Each man see what he can spare, even if ’tis only a handkerchief.”

  Ned had no handkerchief, no loose buttons, and no way to replace his knife if he gave it away. He kept his mouth shut, hoping he would not be called on to take the shirt off his back and give to one of the natives. Even as they drew near the fire on shore, he still thought they might be mistaken: they would get out of the boat and find a group of English fishermen. But he could see the small boats just off the shore now, and they looked to him nothing like any English vessel he had seen. And as two men got out of the boats and moved along the shore towards the shallop, he could deny the truth to himself no longer. No English fisherman would be clad only in a short robe of animal skin, with long hair braided down his back. Hatless, bare-legged in this cold, the hardy strangers—there were about as many of them as of the Englishmen—moved towards the shallop. Then, as they noticed the Indeavour approaching in the distance, they backed away, towards their own boats drawn up on the beach.

  Master Crout, who had studied accounts of the natives, said the boats were called canoes: they were fashioned in the same manner as the ones Ned and the other men had seen on the lake a few days earlier. As the shallop neared the island, the natives quickly boarded those canoes and pushed them back out into the water. A few moments later, two of them got out onto the shore again. One held a stick above his head with an animal fur hanging from it—it looked like a white wolf skin. Ned remembered the men discussing whether the natives would recognize a white flag of truce. It seemed they did, if the white fur meant to them what it did to the Englishmen.

  “Pull the boat into shore, and one of you men get out with our truce flag.” Governor Guy’s eyes roamed over the younger men in the boat. He clearly did not intend himself or Master Crout, nor his cousin Nicholas, to be the first
man to parlay with the natives. In the moment’s silence Ned hoped the governor would not choose him as the first to approach these men, who seemed to him so strange and wild.

  “I’ll go, sir,” said George Whittington, and the governor nodded approval as George stepped out of the boat, his boots splashing in the shallow water. Master Crout handed him the truce flag. He walked a few steps down the pebbled beach towards the natives, holding the banner aloft. The men in the shallop watched; Ned held his breath.

  Step by step, the men approached each other: Whittington with the white flag and the two natives with the pale wolfskin. When they drew near, both Whittington and the native man lowered their banners and spoke to each other. “Can anyone hear what they are saying?” Henry Crout asked.

  “They’ll not understand each other’s words, whatever those words might be,” said John Guy.

  But they must have understood tone or gesture, for with both banners now lying on the beach, Whittington and the native man gripped each other’s hands, smiled, nodded at each other. Ned was startled to hear a peal of laughter ring out into the still air, then both men turned back to their fellows in the boats and gestured them to come.

  “I’ll go, Sir,” Frank Tipton volunteered, and Ned quickly said, “I will, also.”

  He and Tipton joined Whittington onshore; two more natives had come ashore as well. Like the English, the natives appeared to be all men: it must be a hunting party. Each of them wore a single garment like a tunic that fell from the shoulders to just above the knee; all were bare-armed and bare-legged. Their eyes and hair were dark, their skin a ruddy colour—Ned had heard tell they rubbed earth into their skin to redden it.