Poison in the Colony, page 19
She nods.
I look at her quizzically. If all is well, then why does she seem so distraught? I decide to be brazen about using the knowing. I reach out and lay my hand on her arm. What I feel shocks me: terror.
“Mum, why are you so afraid?” I ask, still in a whisper.
She startles, as though she had forgotten that the knowing lives in me strongly now and guides me. There is no use trying to hide her feelings. “I am afraid of what will happen in the next few days,” she says. “If the mother becomes ill, or the infant dies . . .” Her voice trails off. I decide, rather than force her to talk about it, I will find out for myself why this scares her so.
I grasp her hand and immediately I see a scene: a kitchen with stone walls; a woman a little older than my mother. The woman has Mum’s same black curls, the same round, dark eyes, but it is not Mum. There is a baby playing on the floor, and a little girl stands at the fire.
The scene unfolds in my mind’s eye: There is loud pounding, then suddenly two men burst open the door and stomp into the room. All is confusion. There is shouting, the baby screaming, the girl grasping onto the woman as she is dragged off by the two men. I let go of Mum’s hand, not wanting to see any more of this horrific memory.
“Your mum,” I whisper.
“She delivered babies for the common folk,” Mum says. “No one expected all babies to live, or even all mothers to live through childbirth. She did the best she could and she was very good.
“One day, Mum delivered a child for the wife of a merchant, of the yeoman class. He had all the money in the world, and when the child died at three days old, he had all the money he needed to charge my mother with witchcraft and see it through the courts to the end.”
I stand up behind her and wrap my arms around her to comfort her. “You would never have left that girl to deliver without help,” I say. “Now all you can do is trust God with their lives.” I hesitate. For a moment I feel how strange it is to be talking to my mother this way, offering her counsel as if I am the mother and she the daughter. I continue. “And you must trust God with your own life.”
She turns to look at me and touches my cheek. “When did you become so wise?” she asks.
Our conversation has begun to wake the sleepers. Katherine yawns loudly and says, “My hungry,” at which point everyone else in the bed begins to stir and yawn and sit up. I go to the fire to stoke it and get the porridge heating.
* * *
. . .
With Choupouke’s help, the men make quick progress. Soon the frame of Samuel’s house is up. By early March, Samuel is again longing to see Angela.
“Go on, then,” Da says. “You’ll just be in the way here, moping around with that long face.”
So, we send Samuel off again with messages for friends and orders to collect all the most interesting gossip from James Town. I give Samuel a flat stone I found, an absolutely perfect skipping rock, to give to Bermuda if he hasn’t already left for Martin’s Hundred to help his parents.
After Samuel leaves, the feeling begins. I should be calm, assured by Captain Newce that we are safe here even without palisades. I should feel comforted to have Da with us, with his musket always ready with powder and shot, and his sword hanging on the wall above the hearth. I should feel relieved to know that the danger of Chief Opechancanough’s plan to poison us is past, that he has vowed to keep the peace between our people. I should feel happy and safe with plenty of food still in our storage and spring coming soon. And yet I do not feel calm. I feel a rhythm of warning, like the drums of the natives, or the steps of the African dancers. It says, “Keep watch, keep watch, keep watch.”
* * *
. . .
When Samuel returns, he brings us greetings from our friends, all except Bermuda, who has already left for Martin’s Hundred. He also brings very sad news. Nemattanew is dead. It happened just a few days before Samuel got there.
Nemattanew had gone on another trading mission with Mr. Morgan, and came back several days later wearing Mr. Morgan’s cap. There was no one in James Town to translate. All Nemattanew could do was make it understood that Mr. Morgan was dead. With no explanation, it was assumed that Nemattanew had killed him.
“But they were friends,” I object. “And Nemattanew is a warrior. He kills in battle. He had no reason to murder a friend.”
“Exactly,” Samuel says. He clenches his fists. “I wish I had been there to translate for him.”
“Or me,” Choupouke says. His face is dark with sadness. Nemattanew was a great warrior, a respected hero. It is a huge loss for him.
Samuel continues his story, telling us how a group of men in James Town were convinced that Nemattanew was a murderer and they shot him.
Choupouke shakes his head. “He always tells us the white man’s bullets cannot hurt him.”
“Yes,” Samuel says. “As he was dying, he kept slapping the ground where he lay, saying, ‘Bury here, bury here.’ I think he was begging to be buried in James Town so that his people wouldn’t know that the white man’s bullets killed him.”
Choupouke gets up and walks outside into the cold. Through the window I see him go toward the forest, toward the path to his home. Samuel starts to go after him, but Mum stops him.
“Let him go,” she says. “It is a shock. He will need time alone and time with his people.”
Katherine and Alice have been playing quietly with their dolls, but now they feel the tension in the room. Alice climbs up on Mum’s lap, and Katherine climbs up on Da’s.
“What of the peace?” Da asks. “Has Chief Opechancanough spoken about this?”
“Messengers were sent to the chief with the news of Nemattanew’s death,” Samuel says. “Governor Wyatt sent apologies, said it was an accident. Chief Opechancanough sent back the message that this one death, even though it was of a great warrior, will not be the cause of war. He said the sky should sooner fall than that he would break the peace between our people.”
Samuel’s words should be comforting, but they are followed by heavy silence. I look at Alice and see her scowling. I wonder if the knowing is prodding her.
“I don’t like that chief,” Alice says.
He wants us gone. I don’t dare say it. Chief Opechancanough believes that the only way to protect his people, to keep them safe and keep his kingdom intact, is to get rid of us. And now, by killing Nemattanew, our men have committed an act of war.
As my heart pounds in my ears, it sets up the now-familiar rhythm. “Danger, keep watch, danger, keep watch, danger, keep watch.”
Forty-Four
CHOUPOUKE IS GONE for a few days, and when he returns, he seems different, much more serious and moody. I hear him and Samuel talk together in Algonquian and I hope that Samuel is helping him to sort out his sad feelings.
When Choupouke is with Alice and Katherine, playing their games or teaching them Algonquian words, the heaviness seems to lift. Like when Alice shows him how to play handy-dandy.
“Watch,” Alice says. She holds out her fists in front of Katherine.
“Handy dandy, prickly pandy, which hand will you have?”
Katherine chooses the left hand and finds a pretty red berry inside it. She giggles and tries to take the berry.
“Let’s play again,” Alice says, snatching her hands away and hiding them behind her back. “Handy dandy, prickly pandy, which hand will you have?”
Katherine chooses left again and gets an empty hand. Predictably, she pouts and fusses. Alice wags her finger at her, and I hear my words from years ago. “Katherine, it’s a game. Sometimes you get the prize, sometimes you get the empty hand, but it’s supposed to be fun every time.”
Katherine tries hard to put on a happy face. “Fun,” she says.
Then both girls play the game with Choupouke, and he is kept busy choosing hands. But when the game is over, his serious mood comes back. My hope is that little by little, Choupouke’s sadness over Nemattanew’s death will lift and he will be his happy self again.
* * *
. . .
March is time to plant peas, onions, and radishes, and this year we are planting on our own land. Our barn is ready for a cow, a mule, and chickens. Fields are cleared and ready to plant tobacco. My parents think it is too early to announce it, but I know that I will soon have another baby sister.
The trees are still bare but there is warmth in the air. Birds begin to return from their flight south to sing for us, and the first green shoots push up from the ground. I feel the hope of this new year.
On a beautiful Friday morning, I awake before dawn. I tiptoe past my sleeping family and walk outside. There is a light breeze and the air echoes with the chirping of spring peepers. I decide to start my chores early.
I lift the yoke and buckets to my shoulders and head toward the river. The sky has a glow in the east, but it is more the waning quarter moon that lights my path.
I am humming as I approach the barn where Chou-pouke sleeps. As I get closer, I stop my humming so I won’t wake him. But I hear a strange noise. It is Choupouke’s voice, making a tight, strangled sound. I run to the barn door and push it open. Choupouke is on his knees, his head hanging into his hands. He is swaying and groaning as if he is in great pain. I run to him.
“Choupouke, what is it? What has happened?” I cry.
He looks up. His cheeks are streaked with tears. He blinks at me as if he is not sure of what he is seeing in the dim light of the barn.
“Are you hurt?” I ask. I see no blood, no cuts or wounds.
There is torment in Choupouke’s eyes. He reaches out to touch my face, but I instinctively push his hand away. The moment my hand touches his, I see it.
They come to help us work in the fields, with shovels and hoes, to help build houses, with hammers and saws, or to help fell trees with axes and wedges. They come to eat breakfast, and I see the colony’s women slicing bread with kitchen knives. They come to each of the plantations and towns and farms, spreading out among the colonists like a spider’s web being woven. It is like any other day; the natives coming to work and eat and live among us. But suddenly it all changes. Each of the natives grasps something nearby: a shovel, an ax, a kitchen knife, a hoe, a hammer. The next instant there is blood everywhere, as the hammers and shovels and axes come down on whoever is closest, women, children of all ages, men. No one has a chance to fight back. There is no warning.
I gasp. Choupouke is shaking. He is looking at me with such anguish that I know this vision must be true.
“When?” I demand.
He hangs his head back into his hands and starts up his moaning again. Of course, he won’t answer me—how could he know that I know?
I pounce on him, shove him onto his back, and sit down hard on his chest. Before he can even react, I press my thumbs into his throat and shake him.
“When?” I screech. “When is the attack planned to happen?”
He looks shocked. “Today,” he croaks out, his throat squeezed under my thumbs. “Morning.”
I jump up and run. I am crying, tripping over roots. I fall down hard, gash my hand open on a sharp rock, but I am up again, running despite the pain.
I burst into our house. Mum is stoking the fire and the others are still sleeping. I am breathing too hard to speak. Mum sees my terror, the blood dripping from my hand.
“Virginia—” she whispers.
“Warning,” I say between gasps for air. “Warning. Everyone. Muskets. Swords. Cannons. Stop them.” I want to say, Kill them, but I remember what I felt from Chou-pouke when I had my thumbs against his throat: relief. They don’t want to do this. They have been ordered to do it, and anyone who refuses will die the slow, tortured death of a traitor.
My breath slows down and I am able to speak. “Stop the natives. Don’t let them come today. We must turn them around with our muskets and swords. Send them back home. Stop the attack before it starts.”
Da and Samuel are awake and have heard me. Samuel is already on his way out the door. “I will go directly to Captain Newce,” he says. “We will get the word out.”
“How do you know this?” Da demands. “What—”
Mum interrupts him, “There is no time, John. She can tell you later.”
Da is putting on his boots. “I will warn our neighbors,” he says. He takes his sword down off the wall and gives it to Mum. Then he lights the fuse on his musket with a piece of kindling from the fire and carries his musket with him out the door.
“I want to go with Da,” Alice says.
“Me too,” Katherine says.
“You two just sit while I bandage your sister’s hand,” Mum says.
“No, Mum, there’s no time,” I say. “What about James Town?” Then suddenly a thought strikes me and I feel faint. “What about Martin’s Hundred? I have to go! I have to tell them.”
I start toward the door, but Mum grasps my arm. “Virginia, your hand is bleeding,” she says firmly. “You cannot go.”
The dizziness overtakes me and I begin to slump. Mum guides me to a chair. I sink down and rest my head in my good hand. When I close my eyes, I see the scene again, of violence and murder. I see Bermuda, his hands raised above his head the way he used to when Vincenzo beat him. I open my eyes to stop it.
Mum brings a bowl of hot water and begins to bathe my gashed hand. “You will have to trust God with James Town and Martin’s Hundred and all the rest of the colony,” she says gently. “Let Samuel and your father get the word out.”
She presses cobwebs on my wound, and the sticky silk helps to knit the jagged edges of skin together. Then she bandages it with clean rags. Blood quickly soaks through the rags. Mum is right. I would never be able to paddle a canoe against the current. I would pass out from blood loss before I got even close to the other settlements.
I sit at the table as Mum dishes out porridge for the girls. She doesn’t even expect me to eat.
Through our window I see Choupouke trudging up the hill to our house. It is what he does every morning to join us for breakfast before starting work with Da and Samuel. But today it is as if he has leaden weights on his feet. He is still fulfilling his orders, I realize. I pick up Da’s sword and stand in the doorway brandishing it.
“Go,” I shout at Choupouke before he can get close. “Go away from us or I will slit your throat.”
He is unarmed. Just like all the Indians I saw in the vision, he carries no weapon. He will have to use our kitchen knife or Da’s sword to kill me and Mum and my sisters.
Choupouke stops and looks at me. He closes his eyes for a moment as though he is praying. Then he turns and walks off toward the forest.
Mum is right. I will have to trust God with the other towns and plantations. I will stay home to protect my sisters and my mother.
Forty-Five
DA AND SAMUEL return home in the afternoon. They say word got out to all of Elizabeth City. When the Indians began arriving to join the colonists for breakfast and work, or bringing meat and corn to trade, they were met with muskets and swords and axes. They were turned away before they could enter houses or pick up tools. There has been no attack on Elizabeth City today.
Samuel looks around. “Where’s Choupouke?” he asks.
“Virginia says she is going to slit his throat,” Alice says. “So, he left.”
Samuel glances from Alice to me. “You said that?” he asks.
“He’s an Indian, too, you know,” I say. “It’s not as if he had the choice to disobey orders just because he has been your friend forever.”
“Is that who told you about the attack?” Da asks.
I hesitate a moment. Choupouke didn’t become a traitor on purpose. And if I say he did, it could well mean his death at the hands of his own people. But I can’t tell Da about the second sight, and I certainly don’t want to start up witchcraft accusations here in our new home. “Yes, Choupouke told me,” I say. I have spoken the truth. He told me with his touch.
* * *
. . .
The sky has fallen. We don’t dare travel, but messengers come to us. They come to report on the dead, and to count our dead, of which we have none. Three hundred and forty-seven men, women, and children, almost a quarter of the colony’s population, were massacred in one day.
Captain Newce comes to check on us and to thank us for the warning that saved our settlement and the settlements closest to us. He was able to get the warning to Newport News as well.
“What about James Town?” Samuel asks warily. “How many dead there?”
Captain Newce brightens for a moment. “An Indian youth, a boy who lives with Richard Pace at Pace’s Paines, told him about the planned attack. Mr. Pace rowed across the river to warn those at James Town fort and the glass house. In James Town they turned away the attackers at the fort gates. There were no casualties at any of those places.”
“Thanks be to God,” Mum says.
Samuel closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. Angela is safe.
“What about Martin’s Hundred?” I ask.
Captain Newce shakes his head. “Martin’s Hundred was one of the worst hit. Almost everyone is dead.”
* * *
. . .
I sit on a rock near the river, looking out at the water, thinking, remembering. I think of Bermuda, streaks of clay on his face, arms outstretched, doing the celebration dance the day the glass house was almost ready.
I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see Samuel. He folds his lanky legs and sits beside me. We are silent for a while, with only the swish of the river current and birdsongs.
