1609, Winter of the Dead: A Novel of the Founding of Jamestown (12 page)

Robert Fenton crossed his arms, leaned against the fortress wall, and spoke in a lowered voice. “John Smith left to explore the Chickahominy River earlier this month, and while he has been gone, Wingfield and his friends have blatantly taken advantage of the rest of us.”

Thomas Sands scratched himself beneath the collar of his cloak and then pulled at the curls of his mustache. “Even though he sees the state we are in, even though he sees the very starvation of those he is supposed to govern, he does not expect gentlemen to work. But I work, and you do, as well. We both know now that for even the daintiest man to do nothing is a doom-say for us all. I would rather be a living man than a dead gentleman.”

The bushy-haired man agreed. “Wingfield is a fool.”

Nat placed the buckets back on the ground and then pretended to reweave a loose branch in the pen fence.

“We should send out a party to find Smith and bring him back,” said Sands. “Smith has a clear head when it comes to the needs of our fort. He knows all should work. He knows gentlemen must dirty their hands if they are to live.”

Fenton frowned, listening.

Sands continued. “We should bring Smith home to James Towne and settle this once and for all. Let us, as a whole body of Englishmen, gentleman, soldier, surgeon, laborer, all, decide who should govern James Towne. If each man gets a say, I can tell you for certain Wingfield would lose and Smith would be given the presidency of the council.”

“Your ideas are radical,” said Fenton. “And I understand your anxiousness. But it would be best to wait until Smith returns on his own. This will give us time to talk privately to others and gain their support, so when Smith does indeed show up, we are ready to make our stand. You have heard there is safety in numbers, sir.”

“No,” said Sands. “If we wait, it will give Wingfield the time to let us all die slow deaths from starvation.”

Robert Fenton picked up a stick lying at his feet and hurled it angrily through the air. “Do you hear us, sir? We can't even agree on a simple plan, and yet we are on the same side. How hard will it be to get more than two men to agree to any plan regarding the disposal of Wingfield?”

Suddenly there was a loud squeal, and Nat felt a sharp set of teeth cut through his trousers and into the flesh of his buttocks. “God save me!” he shouted. He jumped out of the fenced enclosure, holding his bleeding wound. One of the pigs eyed him, the animal's lips seeming to be set in a grin.

Thomas Sands rushed at Nat. Nat stumbled back, ready to explain what had happened so the man wouldn't strike him. But Sands only turned Nat around and stared at the ripped breeches and the blood.

“See there,” said Sands. “Even our bloody pigs are making a bloody nuisance of themselves, starved as they are in this dreadful land, biting bloody boys in the arse and making bloody messes!”

Robert Fenton looked at the wound, Thomas Sands looked at the wound, and Nat, from over his shoulder, tried to look at the wound. Then all three of them burst out laughing.

“You have adopted the language of the commoner,” chuckled Fenton.

“I have indeed!”

“A bloody mess it all is!” said the bushy-haired gentleman. “Bloody fort, bloody savages, bloody diseases!”

“Bloody cold, bloody bad water, bloody Virginia!” said Sands.

“Bloody, damnable Wingfield!” said Nat.

The two men stopped laughing. Thomas Sands spun Nat back around to face him. “Why did you mention our president to us?” he demanded.

“Oh,” said Nat, his mind scrambling for an act. “Oh, sir, I beg pardon. Please don't beat me. I meant no disrespect to our good president. I know you men admire him, and I do, too. I'm only speaking because one of these pigs belongs to President Wingfield and I believe the man has taught the pig to bite.”

The two men stared at Nat a moment longer, then the soldier let go of Nat's collar. “Well, then, should we just say ‘Wingfield's damnable pig'?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Fine. Fine.” But the men continued to stare at Nat.

Then Fenton said, “You are the boy who playacts.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who would you entertain us with?”

Nat paused. He wasn't sure who best to act as for these men. If he acted as Smith, like most gentlemen wanted, then they might be offended because they truly liked Smith. But if he acted as someone the commoners hated, such as Wingfield or Archer, then they would know he'd overheard their discussion. “Sir,” he said. “My buttocks hurt. Could I do it another time?”

Fenton nodded. “Of course. Go and clean yourself up.”

Nat bowed. “Thank you, sir.” He hobbled to the well and drew up a small bucketful of icy water. This he dabbed on his wound with a corner of the wool scarf, then inspected the flesh as best he could. It wasn't deep, but it was painful. There was nothing he could do but to wait until it healed. He wrapped the scarf back around his ears and walked out of the fort and down to the river to try to find some shellfish for Christmas dinner.

He tossed rocks into the water to break up the ice at river's edge, but after an hour of poking in the deep mud with a stick, he had caught nothing, and went to bed hungry.

Two days after Christmas, both gentlemen Robert Fenton and Thomas Sands were put into the James Towne jail for, as Wingfield declared, “no less than thirty days.” Someone had told the council president that the two gentlemen had spoken against him. Although there were no identified eyewitnesses to the traitorous talk, and all that was spoken against Fenton and Sands was hearsay from an unnamed source, Wingfield declared that an example had to be set.

Nat's tent was not far from the jail, and he had to pass it on his way home at night. He didn't look at the jail because he didn't want to see the faces of the men, pressed to the slats of their tiny windows, gaunt, furious. He knew they believed he had told on them. He knew they believed he was responsible for their confinement.

Neither man spoke to Nat as he went by. But on New Year's Eve, as Nat retired for the evening, he thought he heard Thomas Sands say, “What did you tell for, boy? We were on your side.”

And Nat, ever the thespian, acted as if he didn't hear.

And on New Year's Day, John Smith returned to the cheers of many and the silent discontentment of Wingfield and his council.

19

January 4, 1608

At last! I have a cottage! Although I must share it with Samuel Collier, William Love, and John Laydon. It is smaller than the other cottages, and not much warmer than the rotting tent, but it is sturdy and the winds will not blow it down. We caked the walls thick with mud and have woven door and window mats with dried grasses from outside the fort. There is one room, with two cots and two mattresses, a single table, and John Laydon's trunk.

Although I would not have chosen Samuel Collier to share a home with me, it makes writing convenient. He has a supply of pens and ink and paper for the times he takes notes for John Smith. I steal a little every week or so. He is a sluggish, careless boy. I don't think he has noticed.

I kept the skins of the deer I killed; they help keep the excruciating cold off me. William Love cried out so dreadfully with shivers three nights ago I covered him with one of the skins to quiet him. He still has it.

More men of James Towne have died from weakness, foul water, and little food. Burials are quick now and with little dignity, performed at night so the natives, who the soldiers swear are watching us constantly, won't know how few of us there are. Our scarce crops from summer are rationed to each man, even the lazy gentlemen who never lifted a finger to help acquire this food. We each are given a bit of wheat and beans daily. It is not enough. But I have seen some of the councilors, even our president Edward Maria Wingfield, go into the storehouse and steal away much more than what is rightfully theirs. If they knew I knew of their dishonesty, they would probably banish me.

The food I saved in my sack from the many months here in Virginia went more quickly than I'd hoped. Some had spoiled beyond hope, and the rest was gone as of November. If it weren't for Laughing Boy, I might be dead now, starved like the others. I do not see the Powhatan as often as I did in the autumn; with his pantomime and stick sketches I know he must spend these winter months hunting with his village. But regularly I find a bundle of corn, nuts, and dried meat left for me where I buried the beads. I gorge myself before I return to James Towne.

Now that the gardens are dead for the winter, most of us do not go beyond the fortress. The soldiers still take turns watching for attacks, but sometimes their weakness causes them to doze, leaving us in danger. There has been much rain and sleet and some snow. My feet are sometimes so numb I can barely stand, but I know if I don't move around, it will only be worse. Very few men look to me for humor now, for which I am thankful. It is too cold to joke.

Thomas Sands and Robert Fenton have been released from their imprisonment, with less than thirty days served. I avoid them as best as possible. I do not like the looks in their eyes. It is not hatred, but a near-pity. I do not need anyone's pity. I only need to survive.

As I write with these stiff fingers, I hear weak shouts from outside my cottage. I hear,
“Susan Constant.” Susan Constant!
The ship has arrived! There will be supplies, food, clothing, weapons. I stop for now.

20

January 7–30, 1608

N
AT DREAMED OF
London, of a stable where he and Richard and another London boy Matthew used to hide when it was cold and rainy. He could smell the scent of clean horses and could feel the warmth of the dusty, brittle straw. Richard and Matthew were nearby, sitting around a small fire, cooking fish scraps and a plump pigeon. Nicholas Skot was there, too, and sitting behind him was Samuel Collier, and one of the new boys, thirteen-year-old Thomas Savage. Boys all waiting for a meal. Nat could feel his mouth water, anticipating the tasty flesh.

But then a spark jumped from the fire and landed in the straw near Nat. “Watch out!” said Richard. Nat tried to get up and away, but his legs were frozen. The straw burst into flames, leaping up and licking the side of Nat's face. Matthew shouted, “Nat, get away now!”

Nat's arms flailed out trying to push the fire back, but still he couldn't stand. The hair on his head began to sizzle. The skin on his face began to melt.

“Get out!”

Get out!

Nat's eyes flew open to the black of night and the shouts of John Laydon in the open doorway. “Nathaniel, Samuel, William, get out! There's fire in the fort!”

In a second he was off his mattress and into his shoes. There was a smell of ash in the cottage, pungent and strong. It stung his eyes. Nat stumbled outside into the frigid night. Samuel and William fell out behind him.

The fort was in an uproar. On the south corner of the fort, Nat could see bright towers of orange-red flames. Cottages were on fire, their reed-covered roofs engulfed, their windows belching smoke. Men raced to the wells, tossing down buckets on ropes and hauling them up again, then running to hurl the water on the structures. There were shouts of panic, there were wails of despair. Many of the voices belonged to the new settlers who had arrived just three days earlier with the supplies and had bedded down in crowded cottages until new homes could be built.

“God help us, why have we come here?”

“We should never have sailed to Virginia!”

“We are doomed!”

“Lord, pity!” said Samuel. “We'll lose everything.”

The winter wind was intense, blowing across the tops of the burning cottages and throwing flame tongues onto the buildings next to them.

John Smith, his face blacked with soot, came over to Nat and Samuel and gave each one a sharp smack to the head. “What are you doing there? Go to the river with anything to carry water. I won't have you standing about like simpletons! Hurry!”

Nat darted back into his cottage and grabbed his sack. It might leak, but perhaps it would hold water long enough to get some back to the fort. Samuel followed him, taking up his own smaller sack. They made their way through the chaos within the fort and down the frozen, slippery bank to the river.

The water's edge was covered with a layer of ice. Nat drove his foot through the ice, lost his balance, and stepped into the shallows.

The cold was like a knife to his legs. But he grabbed a handful of grass and pulled himself out. Then he dragged the sack through the water and lugged it back up the slope. Samuel complained the whole way. “A sack can't carry water, mine is leaking. So is yours. This is absurd!”

“Be quiet, boy,” said Nat.

There was half a sack of water by the time Nat reached the first burning cottage. A tall man grabbed the sack from him and dumped the water through a smoking window. Then Nat went back to the river.

He lost track of the number of times he ran up and down the slope with his sack. His frozen legs tried to lock up under him, but he pushed them onward. He was aware that Samuel was sometimes beside him, sometimes not, but mostly he was aware of the smells of smoke and the smells of fear. Men shouted, their words no longer intelligible but animal shrieks of terror and anguish.

“We're all going to die!”

“God curse you, London Company, for sending us to our deaths here in this terrible place!”

There was a hazy red glow in the east by the time the fires were at last extinguished. The sun was coming up over the river, its light burning the sky like a cold, taunting fire. Now the damage was visible. Many cottages were destroyed, their grass-and-reed roofs and mud-and-stick walls nothing but smoldering ruins.

The men gathered in the remains of the church, those who had come in 1607 and those who had arrived on the
Susan Constant
just days prior, all looking much the same in their angst and worry, dropping down on charred benches and looking at the ground as if the earth had the answers they sought. The roof was half gone, and just three of the four walls still stood. It was as though God and the devil themselves had battled here, each one trying to claim this house of worship. Nat hated to think it, but it looked as though the devil had given the Lord quite a challenge.