Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) (13 page)

The brave was young, probably not more than twenty-and-one, and mayhap he looked upon this as a chance to procure Opechancanough’s favor. Surely he did not expect trouble from a pale English boy, particularly one who walked with heavy steps while tears glistened upon his cheeks.

In the flutter of a moment, Fallon made his decision and broke into a run. It took a long second for the warrior to realize that the quarry had fled, and in that instant Fallon veered toward a stand of trees, for ‘twas a simple matter for a warrior to spear a target in front of him.

As he had hoped, the spear flew through the air and landed firmly in the ground ahead of him, and Fallon dashed behind the safety of a tree. While the warrior reached forward for the spear, taking his eyes from Fallon, Fallon dashed for another tree, and began to play the “hiding game” he had so often enjoyed with the children. “If a foolish plan works,” he muttered to himself as he heard his enemy curse in frustration, “it isn’t foolish.”

The trick, Fallon knew, was to exchange places. The prey had to become the hunter.

The warrior advanced expectantly toward the trees, his eyes searching the shadows, his spear upthrust behind him in one hand, his battle-axe in the other. Fallon held his breath, mentally urging the warrior closer. One moment too soon and he would feel the bite of the spear through his ribs, one moment too late and the battle-axe would crush his skull.

Closer. Fallon could hear the soft crunch of last winter’s dead leaves beneath the warrior’s feet.

Closer. He could see the delicate tattoo markings on the warrior’s forearms.

Now. The warrior passed the spot where Fallon hid behind the tree, and his eyes widened in surprise at the sight of his prey. The spear was useless at such a short distance, and before he could swing the club, Fallon kicked the warrior’s kneecap and brought his executioner down.

Fallon fell on him and they scuffled silently in the dirt while Fallon cursed the bindings that held his hands tightly behind his back. But a swift knee kick to the groin left the warrior writhing in pain upon the ground, and Fallon took that opportunity to stand and place his moccasined foot firmly upon the warrior’s neck.

The man froze, afraid to move. His eyes rolled back, staring at Fallon above him, and an eerie, whining song began to rise from the warrior’s mouth.

“Stop the death song,” Fallon commanded in the Algonquin tongue, applying gentle pressure to the man’s neck. “I will not kill you unless you think it more important to retain honor than your life.”

The man fell silent and regarded Fallon soberly. “You can go back to the village and tell them I am dead,” Fallon said, twisting his foot on the man’s neck to reinforce his intention. “No one will doubt you, for your spear is already stained with my blood. Or, you can pursue me further, but next time I will not have mercy.”

The warrior’s eyes narrowed in speculation, but Fallon forced a smile. “Do not doubt that we will meet again, for I am the son of Rowtag, chief of the Mangoaks at Ocanahonan. I am also an Englishman, and I know things you have not dreamed of.”

The threat was enough. The man’s hands relaxed around his sword and spear, and he stared at Fallon in resignation. “Good,” Fallon said, easing the pressure slightly from the man’s neck. “You will lie here silently until I am safely away. If you stir or move again, I will return.”

The warrior’s face appeared to be set in stone, and he did not move when Fallon lifted his foot and moved away. For a moment Fallon considered asking the warrior to cut the tongs of leather that bound him, but knew he’d be pressing the warrior too far. ‘Twas one thing to defeat an enemy, ‘twas another to humiliate him.

And so, running as if the hounds of hell were giving chase, Fallon ran eastward through the woods. In that direction lay
the ocean, the source of his help, if help was to be found at all.

Gilda understood very little of what had happened to her. Fallon, whom she loved and trusted, had taken her from her home to a place where Indians danced and children ran naked and she and Noshi played hide and seek in the forest. Then other Indians came and tied their hands and marched them far away to another village. Noshi and Fallon were with her for a moment, then they disappeared.

She mourned for days with tears and temper tantrums that the other women could not staunch, then a young girl of about Fallon’s age came into the hut. She did not try to soothe or scold, but merely sat on a grass mat and watched as Gilda cried and beat her fists upon the ground. When Gilda finally lay exhausted, the older girl smiled. “I am Matoaka,” she said, her eyes shining in friendliness. “But my father calls me Pocahontas because I like to play.”

Gilda lifted her head. “I want Noshi and Fallon,” she cried stubbornly, her fists still clenched. “I want to go home.”

“Your home is with me now,” Pocahontas said, standing. From a basket at her side she held up a rabbit skin, beautifully embroidered on one side, thick with fur on the other. “And I have made this skirt for you. I shall call you Numees, because from this day you will be my sister.”

“My name is Gilda,” she protested, her temper rising again. But a colorful design of houses, corn, and rain danced across the beautiful skin in Pocahontas’ arms . . .

“Let me wrap this around you,” Pocahontas said, moving closer. In a moment she had lifted the dirty linen dress from Gilda’s shoulders, then she carefully wrapped the embroidered fur around Gilda’s waist and fastened it with a pin made from the antlers of a deer.

Gilda stopped crying long enough to take a few practice steps in the lush garment.

seven

F
or eight days Fallon wandered through the woods, avoiding trails, drinking water from the roots of plants, and eating eggs he stole from nests hidden in trees and tall grasses. He had managed to find a sharp rock to cut the bonds from his hands, but the cuts on his back had become infected, and fever had begun to ravage his body.

The fever consumed him, sapped his strength, and drove away his appetite. The hours of the day blurred into a constant forward motion, and the nights were interminable as sleep did not come. He tried to remember what his mother had taught him about medicine, but though he knew the inner bark of a young hemlock tree could be pulverized and applied to oozing sores, he could neither reach nor apply such a salve to his own back.

He wanted nothing more than to lie in the cool waters of the river, but the river was a highway of sorts, and he would not remain alone long if he paused there. But finally, as a last resort to combat his illness, he followed an animal trail to the river and shed his shirt, wincing as the fabric ripped scabs from his back. He crawled into the river and sat upon the spongy bottom, easing his weight back upon his hands as the rippling current soothed his fevered and infected skin.

He lay back and floated upon the water easily, succumbing to his exhaustion. When he feared he would lose consciousness and drown, he pulled himself to the opposite bank and let the muddy banks massage his wounded back as he closed his eyes in weariness and slept.

On the twentieth day of June, John Smith left the fractious colony of Jamestown and ventured down to the water’s edge for a time of private soliloquy. He liked the river, in fact, he would have given a week’s rations to be away on an expedition rather than here at Jamestown debating the problem of their salty water supply and a myriad of possible solutions.

Since the official founding of Jamestown Fort, their first forays into the woods had gone smoothly. They’d met savages in a canoe who proved to be friendly, and one had agreed to act as guide and interpreter. The party had visited one tribe where the “queen” was a large, mannish woman who wore only a deerskin and copper jewelry. She had not been at all friendly until Captain Newport offered gifts, then the riches of her village were opened to the English.

But not all the natives were so forthcoming. They had visited one village on the Pamunkey River, whose chief, Opechancanough, was apparently linked to the Powhatan confederacy. The chief was an aged warrior whose sinewy muscles were at odds with the blank, unexpressive look on his face. During Smith’s visit, the chief regarded the English gravely and seemed to take great pains to appear stately before his visitors. The men with Smith laughed privately at the chief’s affectations and pronounced him a simple-minded fool, but Smith was not certain they were right. In an unguarded moment, he had caught a darkly speculative look in the chief’s eye. There was more to the man, Smith was certain, than they had seen on the surface.

Not all the Indians welcomed or even tolerated the English. While Smith and Newport were out exploring, savages attacked the fledgling fort at Jamestown and were repelled only by the use of the ships’ cannon. One boy was killed and Edward Wingfield, the pompous goat who had been elected as president of the colony, barely escaped death when an arrow passed through his beard without even grazing him. As the shallops that carried Smith, Newport, and their men drew up to the Jamestown peninsula, they found the fort alerted, the ship’s guns mounted for immediate action, and the remaining men being drilled in the use of arms.

‘Twas the Indian attack that finally convinced the aristocrats of the governing board to follow the London Company’s nomination and allow John Smith to take his seat on the council. The careful arbitration of Reverend Robert Hunt and the good sense of Captain Newport prevailed over the natural antipathy Wingfield felt toward Smith, and, as a result, John Smith now felt himself practically in control of the colony. Whatever positions Wingfield and Newport held, Smith’s was still the voice to which the majority of men would listen in a crisis.

The responsibility would have exhausted most men, but Smith had always been invigorated by challenge and danger. Even now, as he made his way to the river, he knew he should have taken his musket, or at least a companion. But so what if he was captured by savages? ‘Twould be rollicking fun to outsmart a truly great chief.

The river was quiet as he knelt at the bank and gazed toward the eastern horizon. The
Susan Constant
rocked slowly against her moorings, and in the distance the sea seemed to be an enormous sheet of dull-shining metal shading off into a blurred and fragile horizon. Christopher Newport was set to sail back to England within two days, and in the ship’s hold lay a cargo of a shining rock the men hoped contained gold. Most important, in the captain’s cabin rested a letter to the investors of the London Company, a report upon the good progress of the colony and a request for specific supplies.

A sudden splash alerted Smith and set the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Someone or something stirred below him at the water’s edge, a muddied, dirty creature. For a moment he wondered if the seamen’s reports of mermaids were true, but as he scrambled down the bank for a closer look Smith realized with a gasp that the creature before him was a boy—a red haired, freckled English boy.

Smith knelt down and pressed his hand to the unconscious boy’s forehead. The child burned with fever, but did not appear to be otherwise wounded. His naked chest and arms were marked with tattoos similar to those he had seen on the Indians of the region, but the boy’s hair was cut short, in the style of the English, and he wore breeches, not a breechcloth.

John Smith lifted the boy into his arms and gave a hoarse cry for help.

He took the boy to his own tent, and called for Captain Newport to come quickly. When the captain arrived, Smith sat back and let Newport examine his discovery, then smiled in pleasure when the captain uttered an indrawn gasp of surprise. “A boy! Surely he is not one of us . . .”

“He’s not one of our boys, just look at him, Christopher! He’s tattooed like a savage, but his hair and skin are as fair as any Englishman’s.”

“Where do you suppose he came from?” Newport’s inquisitive raisin-brown eyes widened, then he gasped. “Nay! Surely not from Roanoke—that’s miles south of here . . .”

“Roanoke was abandoned twenty years ago, but I’d wager my life that this boy’s parents came to Virginia with John White. How else could he have come here, Christopher?”

“The Spanish?”

“Does he look Spanish to you?”

“Then what’s he doing washed up here?”

“I know not.” Smith studied his patient carefully. “But his fever’s broken in the last hour, and he’ll come around soon. Have the cook bring me some broth and bread, and let’s get some meat in his belly before we talk to him.”

“Aye.”

Newport was about to leave the tent, but Smith held up a restraining hand. “And Captain—”

“Yea?”

“Say naught of this to anyone, especially Wingfield. Let it be our secret, yours and mine alone.”

Fallon felt the smoothness of fabric under his hands and back. Was this heaven?

He opened his eyes. A man stood before him, a tall man with dark hair and brown eyes that fairly snapped with curiosity. “Ah, so the sleeping youth awakens,” the man said in English, his teeth gleaming in a careful smile through his beard. “We’ll go slowly now, son. We wouldn’t want to overtax you on your first day back in the land of the living.”