He woke in the morning, aching all over and shivering as if he had an ague. His hand was throbbing and the fingers were turning black. The house stank like a kennel and his cloak was stuck to his back by a dried pelt of excrement. He crawled to the door and opened it, kicking the cloak off his back as he went. His skin was raw and sore and his sight kept coming and going, the open door a wavering oblong of gold and green light.
There was a black earthenware pot of clean water on the doorstep, and another pot beside it of warm corn porridge. John heard his sore throat give a little sob of gratitude. He drew the pot of water toward him and sipped it cautiously. His stomach rumbled but the dreadful spasms of pain had passed. He pulled himself round to sit on the doorstep and lifted the pot of porridge to his lips. It was not porridge as he made it, in his dirty scorched cooking pot. It was light, faintly scented with herbs, as yellow as blancmange, flavored with something like saffron. John took a cautious sip and, despite a growl of hunger from his belly, made himself wait, sip water, pause. Then he took another.
Cautiously, eating so slowly that his breakfast took most of the morning, John ate the porridge from the pot and drank most of the water. An hour later, he found he could stand without fainting. Warily, he pulled himself up the doorframe and bundled his stinking cloak out of the house. A row of cleared and dug earth extended along the front of the house, from the point where John had thrown one blow of the pickax to where it ended, neatly squared, before the door. John looked at it and then rubbed his eyes as if it were a dream, a dream from fever and from his sickness.
No. It was real. She had come in the night and cleared a row of earth for him to plant his seeds. She had come and seen his sickness and realized that he had eaten too fast and put himself at the very door of death through his own greed and stupidity, and she had left him, not a little feast, but a thin meal of gruel and water, so that he would get well again. She was keeping him as if he were a child, choosing his food for him, doing his work for him. John felt ready to weep for gratitude that she was prepared to give him food, fetch his water, do his work. But he knew also a sharp, contrasting discomfort that she should see him so unmanned, that she had seen he could do nothing in this new land, not even survive.
Suckahanna? he whispered.
Still there was no reply, just the calling of birds, and the quacking of ducks in the river.
John gathered his foul cloak and hobbled down to the river to soak it in his washing place, and lowered himself into the cold water to try to get clean. Again he labored up the slight slope to his house, lugging the wet cloth, his feet tender on the stones of his field. His hand was sore, his head thudding, his stomach quiveringly tender. I cannot survive here, John said as he reached his door after a long, arduous struggle up the little hill. I must find a way to get downriver to Bertram, I will die here.
He wondered for a moment if he should wait for her, if he were to lie before the fire whether she might come and live with him, as they had planned. But he was warned by the cautious way she had approached him. He could not count on her to rescue him. He must help himself. I shall go downriver to Bertram, he said. If she wants to come to me she will know how to find me there.
His breeches and his shirt at least were clean and dry. It took him a long time to pull them on. His boots went on with a struggle which left him panting for breath, and he bent over to ease the swimming of his head. He did not take his gun for he could not load it nor keep the fuse lit in the canoe. There was nothing else that he could carry. This new country which he had been certain would make him rich had made him poorer than a pauper. All he could carry were the clothes that he stood up in, all he could manage to do was to stagger like a drunkard down the hill to where the canoe was pulled up, out of reach of the tide.
He thought for a little while that he would never get it down the small beach and into the deep water. He pushed for a while and it moved no more than an inch. Then he had to rest, and then he had to push again. It was a process that took most of his strength and courage. When the canoe finally rocked in the water he could hardly find the energy to climb in. He thought that his weight had grounded it, but when he took the paddle in his one good hand he managed to lift the weight a little and the canoe slid into the middle of the river into the deeper water.
The tide was on the ebb and the current of the river was flowing seaward. The canoe picked up speed. John tried to use the paddle to steer it closer to the bank but with one hand he could not control it. He thrust the paddle into the water and the canoe spun around it; in a second he would be swamped and the canoe would sink. He made one desperate shove, pointed it downriver, and then clung to the side as it bucked and weaved in the fast current, shaking as it tumbled in the white water. John looked at the bank which seemed to be tearing past him. Nothing seemed familiar though he and Bertram had watched carefully, pointing out landmarks, so that he would be able to make this journey, so Bertram would know when he was nearing Johns headright. He thought he recognized a tall single pine with its roots extending deep into the water, and he dug the paddle in again, trying to turn the canoe toward the shore. The current snatched the paddle, John lunged to grab it back, and then the paddle was flicked like kindling from his hand and the canoe was turning and turning in the dizzying flood and John could neither steer it nor control it, nor do anything but duck down on the wet floor of the canoe and give himself up for lost.
John opened his eyes. Above him was a high, rounded roof made of lashed branches, and thatched with broad leaves. He was lying on some sort of bedstead made of branches spread with mats. He turned his head, half-expecting to see the familiar face of Bertram Hobert or Sarahs restrained smile. The place was empty.
It was not a house built by a normal Englishman, that at least was clear. It was a domed-ceilinged square hut, roofed and walled with leaves, floored with woven mats and deerskins spread on the earth. In the center of the hut was a small fire with a tiny heart of red which kept the hut warm and filled it with light, acrid smoke. On the walls were hung the skins of animals, and a basket half-woven, and other baskets bulging with goods. The only light filtered in through the hole in the roof above the fire, and flickered at the skins which curtained the door. John swung his feet down to the floor and took two cautious steps to go out.
At once a brown-skinned child popped his head inside the room, took one look at John standing, and, without moving, without taking his eyes from the Englishman, opened his mouth and let out a yell. John froze to the spot, heard running footsteps and then a woman stood behind the child, her hand on his shoulder, and another woman behind her, poised with a bow raised and an arrow on the string.
John dropped to sit on the bed, spread his hands, tried to smile.
Hello, he said. He nodded, trying to look reassuring, peaceable. Hello.
The two women nodded in reply, saying nothing. Remembering the weeks of silence from Suckahanna, John did not make the assumption that they could not understand him, although their eyes remained blank and black.
Thank you for bringing me here. The canoe was too strong for me. I was trying to get to my friends house Bertram Hobert but the current swept me away.
Again they nodded, saying nothing.
John dropped to sit on the bed, spread his hands, tried to smile.
Hello, he said. He nodded, trying to look reassuring, peaceable. Hello.
The two women nodded in reply, saying nothing. Remembering the weeks of silence from Suckahanna, John did not make the assumption that they could not understand him, although their eyes remained blank and black.
Thank you for bringing me here. The canoe was too strong for me. I was trying to get to my friends house Bertram Hobert but the current swept me away.
Again they nodded, saying nothing.
Is Jamestown anywhere near here? John asked. He wondered if he had been swept far below the town, down to the edge of the sea perhaps. Jamestown? Anywhere near? Jamestown?
The woman with the arrow on the string smiled briefly. Nowhere near, she said. She spoke with a strange Welsh lilt to her voice.
You speak English! John exclaimed.
She did not nod or smile, nor did she release the tension on the bowstring.
I am a peaceful man, John said. I was trying to farm outside my house, on my land beside the river. I went hungry, and I burned my hand. I was going to find my friend to get help. I am a peaceful man. I am looking for an Indian girl, an Indian woman. Suckahanna.
Neither of the women responded to the name.
I want to make her my wife, John said, plunging in. If she will have me. I have come back to Virginia- He broke off. It occurred to him that perhaps in their ignorance they did not know the name of their country. I have come back here, from my home, to be with her.
Suckahanna is married to my brother, the woman with the bow on the string said precisely. He went with her when she took her gifts of food to you. We did not realize that you would eat it all at once like a pig with acorns. We did not mean to make you sick.
John felt embarrassment burn under the skin of his face. I was foolish, he said. I was very hungry. The thought of these people discussing his greed, and perhaps watching him void himself and retch, made him want to close his eyes and be anywhere else, even back in his own little house facing death, rather than here with the woman looking at him in mild curiosity.
Why did Suckahanna not show herself? he asked. I would be her friend now she has a husband. He looked at the arrow on the string again. I never wronged her, he said hastily. I wanted to marry her when I thought she was a maid.
The womans face did not soften. John thought in sudden, rapid terror that perhaps they had saved him for some dreadful execution. There were stories in Jamestown of men having their bellies cut open and their guts dragged out before their eyes. I meant her no harm, John said. I meant none of you any harm.
Your house is where we hunt, the other woman observed. You have frightened away the game birds and the deer are making other paths in the woods to get away from your burned field and the smell of you.
I am sorry, John said again. He thought of the governors map and the empty spaces of forest unmarked by any names. I thought the forest was empty.
They looked at him as if his words were simply incomprehensible. Empty?
Empty of people, John corrected himself. I knew there were animals living there. But I did not think it was your land.