She glanced at him. He was clumsy with tiredness, his leg muscles singing with pain, and unbalanced by his burden of seedlings. Again he saw that small smile and then she turned and walked before him with a loping pace which was only a little slower. She paused for a moment in the clearing where he had thrown off his jacket and picked it up, dusted off the leaves and handed it to him. Then she led the way back to the hollow tree at the edge of the forest. She hid her bow and arrow in the trunk and drew out her servants shift.
J, after a long day of jogging behind her dappled flanks, was now accustomed to her nakedness. He found that he liked the gleam of her skin better than the crumpled mess of the shift. He thought she was diminished by the gown, she looked less modest than in her proud tattoos and buckskin. He made a little shrug to show his sense that she was returning to some sort of unnatural constraint and she nodded at his sympathy, her face grave.
You will stay at my inn tonight, J said, pointing down to Jamestown where there were already lights showing and chimneys smoking.
She neither nodded nor shook her head, she was frozen still, her eyes never leaving his face.
And tomorrow we shall go out into the forest again. Mr. Joseph said you should come out with me every day for a month, until your mother is freed.
She nodded her consent to that. Then she stepped forward and pointed at the little plants in his pocket and gestured toward the river. She mimed the strong paddling of a canoe, out toward the sea. Her hand gestured to the right, they should go south, she waved, a long way, waved again, a very long way; then she stepped back from him and with her arms spread and her shoulders rounded she mimed for him a tree: a tree with branches that bowed down, bowed down low over still water, spread her fingers: with branches that trailed into the water.
J was entranced. But can we get a canoe?
The girl nodded. She pointed to herself and held out her hand, pointing to her palm, the universal mime for money. J proffered a silver coin, she shook her head. He drew out his tobacco pouch. She nodded and took a fat handful. Then she pointed his face toward Jamestown, looked into his eyes again as if she were reluctant to trust so stupid a man to find his own way home, and then she nodded at him and turned toward a shrubby bush.
J was entranced. But can we get a canoe?
The girl nodded. She pointed to herself and held out her hand, pointing to her palm, the universal mime for money. J proffered a silver coin, she shook her head. He drew out his tobacco pouch. She nodded and took a fat handful. Then she pointed his face toward Jamestown, looked into his eyes again as if she were reluctant to trust so stupid a man to find his own way home, and then she nodded at him and turned toward a shrubby bush.
In a second she had disappeared. Disappeared without trace. J saw the little branches of the bush quiver and then she was gone, not even a glimmer of the servants smock showing in the darkness. For a moment he waited, straining his eyes against the failing light to see if he could spot her, but she had disappeared as surely as a roe deer will vanish by merely standing still.
J, realizing that he would never find her against her will, knowing that he had to trust her, turned his face toward Jamestown as she had bid him and trudged home.
When the lodging-house woman knew that J had spent all day with the Indian girl in the woods, and would spend nights away with her, she was scathing.
Id have thought a man fresh out of England could have done without, she said. She dumped in front of him a wooden bowl filled to the brim with a pale porridge.
Suppawn, his fellow lodger said out of the side of his mouth. Indian cornmeal and milk.
More corn? J asked.
The man nodded grimly and spooned his portion in silence.
Id have thought you could have brought a woman from England, if your needs are that urgent, the woman said. God knows, the town needs more women. You cant make a plantation with nothing but soldiers and fools.
J bent his head and slurped porridge from his spoon.
Dont you have a wife you could have brought? the woman demanded.
Grief stabbed J like a knife in the belly. He looked up at her and something in his face silenced her nagging.
No, he said abruptly.
There was a short embarrassed silence.
Im sorry, she said, if I spoke wrong
J pushed away the bowl, the familiar feeling of grief choking him from his belly to his throat.
Here, the man offered. He produced a leather bottle from the folds of his breeches and poured a slug over Js unwanted porridge. Have a drop of Barbados rum, thats the thing to give it flavor. He poured a measure for himself and stirred it in. He waved to J with his spoon. Eat up, he said with rough kindliness. This is not a land where a man can go hungry and eat later. Eat up and drink up too. You never know where your next meal is coming from here.
J pulled his bowl toward him, stirred in the rum and tasted the porridge. It was much improved.
The girl is guiding me to plants and trees, he said to them both. As I told you, I am a collector. Neither the governor nor Mr. Joseph could think of anyone else who could assist me. But she is a good little girl. She is not much older than my own daughter. I should think she is little more than thirteen. She leads me to the forest and then waits quietly and leads me home.
Her mother is a whore, the lodging-house woman remarked spitefully.
Well, she is but a little maid yet, J said firmly. And I would not be the man to abuse her.
The woman shook her head. Theyre not like us. Shes no more a maid than my young mastiff bitch is a maid. When shes ready shell couple like an animal. Theyre not like us, theyre half beasts.
You speak badly of them because of your losses, Js fellow lodger said fairly. He nodded to J. Mistress Whitely here lost her man and her child in the Indian rising of twenty-two. She doesnt forget. No one who was here at the time can ever forget.
What happened? J asked.
The woman lowered herself to the bench opposite him and leaned her chin on her hand. They were in and out of Jamestown every night and day, she said. The children stayed in our houses, our men went out hunting with them. Again and again we would have starved if they had not traded with us food, fish, game. They taught us how to plant: corn and the rest. They taught us how to harvest it and cook it. We would have died over and over again if they had not sold us food. The vicar was going to have an Indian school. We were going to teach them our ways, Christian ways. They were to be subjects of the king. There was not the slightest warning, not the hint of a warning. The chief had been their leader for years and he came and went through Jamestown as free as a white man. We had his own son as a hostage, we feared nothing. Nothing.
Why did you have hostages then? J asked.
Not hostages, she corrected herself swiftly. Adopted children. Godchildren. Children in our care. We were educating them in our ways. Turning them from savagery.
And what happened? J asked.
They waited and planned. Her voice was lowered, the two men leaned forward to hear her, there was something fearful in the way the three white faces went closer together, and her voice dropped to a haunting whisper. They waited and planned and at eight oclock one morning Good Friday morning they chose in their blasphemy all over the country they came out of the bushes, to each little farm, to each little family, to each lone man, they came out and struck us dead. They planned to kill every single one of us without a word of warning reaching the others. And theyd have done it too; but for one little turncoat Indian boy who told his master that he had been ordered to kill him, and the man ran to Jamestown and raised the alarm.
What happened?
They opened the arsenal at Jamestown and called the settlers in. Everyone who was near enough came in and the town was saved, but up and down the river, in every isolated farmhouse, there was a white man and woman with their skull staved in by a stone axe.
She turned her bleak face to J. My husbands head was cleaved in two, with an axe of stone, she said. My little boy was stabbed through the heart with an arrowhead of shell. They came against us without proper weapons, they came against us with reeds and shells and stones. It was like the land itself rose up and struck at us.
There was a long silence.
She rose from the table and stacked the bowls, callous again. Thats why I have no time for even the smallest girl of theirs, she said. They are like stones and reeds and trees to me. I hate every stone and reed and tree in this land, and I hate every one of them. I hate them to their death and destruction. This land will never be home for me until every one of them is gone.
How many of us died? J asked. He said us without thinking. This was a war of the dark forests against the white men; of course he counted himself among the planters.
Not quite four hundred, she said bitterly. Four hundred men and women who wanted nothing more than to live in peace in a little part of a great great land. And then the hunger came.
Hunger?
We had to leave the crops in the field, we were too afraid to bring them in, she explained. We all crowded into Jamestown and manned the guns over the wooden walls. It was a bitter winter, and there wasnt enough to eat. And we couldnt trade with them as we usually did. We had always traded with them for their winter stores, they always had plenty and they always sold to us. But now we were at war with the very people who had fed us.
J waited for more.
We dont talk about that time, she said shortly. About that winter. We ate what we could, and no blame to those who found what they could.
J waited for more.
We dont talk about that time, she said shortly. About that winter. We ate what we could, and no blame to those who found what they could.
J turned to his fellow lodger for an explanation.
The graveyard, the man said in an undertone. They dug up their dead and ate them.