1609, Winter of the Dead: A Novel of the Founding of Jamestown (18 page)

My job is the dead, not the near dead,
Nat thought.
I have other things to do, damn it all.

In a woven basket in the corner of the cottage were several dead, furry animals. Not groundhogs or squirrels, but rats, their tiny eyes glazed over, their skulls crushed. These people were already catching rats for food. Nat realized that it might not be long before rats would be considered good fare to all of the James Towne citizens.

Nat took a deep breath of the thick, putrid air. Then he went to Sally, slid his arms beneath her, and lifted her from the bed. She weighed nearly nothing. Her nightdress was wet with urine.

Audrey and Nat went outside, walking through wrinkle-nosed settlers and frightened children. They went to the riverside, Audrey holding Sally's bony hand. Nat stood on his favorite rock and turned Sally so the sunlight reflected from the river onto her face. The woman shivered, muttered something unintelligible, and sighed. Then, with a violent spasm, she died.

Audrey put her free hand to her face, burying her eyes for a moment. “Jesus had pity on her soul,” she said. “Sally was a fine woman.”

Audrey helped Nat dig Sally's grave near the graves of the many who had died since August. Audrey said a brief prayer, and thanked Nat for his assistance.

“Let me know if there is any other way I can help,” Nat heard himself say. “I share a cottage with Samuel Collier and William Love, inside the fort by the pigpen. You can find me if you need me.”

Giving a gracious but tired curtsy, Audrey walked back up to the cluster of cottages.

It wasn't long before Audrey sought Nat's help again. The day after Sally died, Audrey found Nat and asked if he would show Peter Scott how to best dress a rat. Nat was patient with the fumbling young Peter, and the two of them had a laugh at the earnest attempt which left the rat in three pieces. In appreciation for Nat's time, Martha mended Nat's torn stockings. Then Nat helped Peter patch the roof on the cottage. In thanks, Audrey gave Nat her dead husband's shoes. She had saved them from the ship. Nat put them on and they fit well. He put his old, holey shoes in the corner of his cottage in case he might need them at another time.

In the midst of the confusion, frustration, and anguish of the colony, Nat had found a place of peace—in the home of the Scotts and Audrey Ford. The exchange of help was easy and Nat looked forward to each new request.

“You are a smart man,” Audrey said one evening as they sat side by side on the stone by the river. She wore a yellow gown and her face, thin and drawn and pale, had been scrubbed clean. Her dark brown eyes stared off at the other side of the water. “You know how to build a home, to raise crops, to hunt and to fish. If we survive here in James Towne, you could easily become a councilor with your knowledge.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” said Nat. “I am not rich. I once thought I'd find gold and become a gentleman, but I don't know if that will ever happen. And only rich men are considered worthy of leadership.”

“That is a silly idea,” said Audrey. “My husband was not rich, but he was one of the wisest men I ever knew.” She hesitated. “And so are you.” Then Audrey reached into the deep pocket of her gown and brought out a small leather-bound book. “I want to give you this. It is a book of poems. Do you read?”

“Yes,” said Nat. He took the book and before he realized what he was doing, he gave Audrey a hug. He thought she might slap him, but she only smiled more. “I write, too,” said Nat. “I've got pages in my cottage. I've written my thoughts whenever I've had the chance to do so.”

“May I read them someday?”

Nat nodded.

The next morning, Nat gave Audrey the loose pages to read. And the following evening, she gave them back. They had been sewn together into a true journal, with blank pages at the back. “Peter Scott gave me paper to give you more room to write,” she said. “Keep on writing. Your words are precious. They are the words of a gentleman, Nat.”

Nat blushed and stammered a thank-you. He slept with the journal under his arm that night. His dreams were pleasant.

On the morning of November 17, the shallop returned from the west. Nat, Peter Scott, and William Love, along with several other men, hurried down to the pier to unload the baskets of food that John Ratcliffe had promised to bring to the fort.

But there were no baskets of food. There were only sixteen men in the boat, and John Ratcliffe was not among them. Those in the boat nearly fell out, scrambling with their fingers and babbling madly.

“What happened?” asked William. “Where is the wheat and corn and venison? Where are Ratcliffe and the others?”

One soldier dropped facedown onto the grass and began to sob. “Dead,” he said. “All dead. The Powhatans pretended to be civil, then when we disembarked, they captured up and took us to their village. And Ratcliffe, God pity him! Never have I seen such a terrible fate imposed on a man!”

Nat could taste bile in his mouth. “What?” he managed. “What did they do to him?”

None of the soldiers spoke for a long time. Then one said, “He was stripped naked and tied to a tree. The savages laughed and howled at him, and I knew it was going to be heinous. The women of the village came out then, and armed with sharpened mussel shells, scraped his flesh from his body and threw it into the fire for him to witness! They flayed his legs, then his stomach, stripping the meat away as if he were a deer tied to a stake. And Ratcliffe lived through this, screaming as if his soul were burning in the very pits of hell. When he died at last, he was nothing but bloody bones and twitching nerves.”

“Christ have mercy!” cried Peter Scott.

“Christ did not have mercy on Ratcliffe,” said one soldier.

“But we ran off,” said another soldier. “And even through the rain of arrows, we few escaped. But we bring nothing back except our own miserable selves.”

“God help us now,” said William. “Smith is gone, the Powhatans are again seeking to destroy us, our leaders do not know how to lead, and we have little food as the last of it was consumed weeks ago. Our storehouses are bare, our cottages crumbling, and many of us sick. God help us.”

“God help us,” said the soldiers.

God please help us!
thought Nat.

31

December 25, 1609

Christmas day. In London, Richard and I would celebrate by stealing a pig and cooking it on a fire by the Thames River. I dreamed of better days. I thought they would be here.

I don't even know how to dream of better days now.

There is madness in James Towne. Madness born of illness and death and starvation and dread. The only thing that keeps me from losing my mind are my three friends. Peter and Martha. And Audrey. She is kind, wise, and pretty. I suppose now I can't let her read my journal or she will see these thoughts and think me forward.

Audrey says I am a gentleman. What a strange thought. I am ragged and poor and dirty. Yet she sees a gentleman. I don't even know what it is to be a gentleman, or a man at that. Laughing Man stood up for me when he was in danger. He did what he believed right.

Perhaps that is what changes a boy into a man. Not years, not airs, not wealth. But bravery to say or do what is right.

What is right?

I wish I knew.

For I have witnessed a horror, one too difficult to imagine, but it was not my imagination, for my own two eyes told me it was real.

Many of the settlers stay inside their cottages now; few are able-bodied enough to go out in the biting cold to retrieve water for their household or cook the gruel we make from roots and bark and grubs. The soldiers who are well enough to keep watch at the bulwark do so, though their numbers have dwindled. About thirty men and women are strong enough to hunt for food, picking through the forest and dragging the rivers, but they come up with little. Several men have run off to live with the Powhatans in hopes they would survive better with the natives. Sometimes those of us at James Towne eat once a day. Sometimes we do not eat on a given day.

But I did not want to believe what I saw three nights ago.

Marcus Daniels, boy of fourteen, died just before sunset, and his parents helped Samuel and me remove the body to the burial site. The ground is dreadfully hard this time of year, but the four of us were able to make a grave not quite two feet deep. It was the best we could do, given the cold and given our strength. I went into the woods then, looking for an injured bird, an opossum, something slow-moving to kill to eat. There were a few shriveled berries on a crabapple tree, and their bitter taste was fine to my tongue. There were sluggish grubs, sleeping beneath the bark in a tree, and I tugged them free, crushed them with my teeth, and swallowed them down. But my hunger still clawed at my gut, insistent, determined.

It was on my return that I was aware of commotion in the burial ground. I paused at the edge of the woods, staring in the moonlight, and saw someone huddled over the fresh grave of young Marcus Daniels. His father, I suspected, or his mother, come to grieve in private while the rest of the settlement lay still in the cold embrace of a winter's night.

But then I heard the soft cough, and recognized it, and did not understand why he would be at the grave.

It was Nicholas Skot.

I walked closer, quietly, because I sensed he thought he was alone and to startle him might cause him to cry out and make the guard suspect we were natives on the attack, and shoot at us. But as I approached, moving along the brush and keeping to the trees, I knew I did not want to see what was before me.

But it was too late.

Nicholas had unearthed the body of Marcus Daniels, and had severed both hands and put them into a bucket. He was at work with his knife, cutting the forearm off at the elbow. He panted with effort. His breath was visible on the frosty air. I knew his intentions, and I gasped.

He heard me, and glanced up, his eyes as wide with fear as the eyes of a deer Laughing Boy and I once chased into the shallows of the river to slay. And then, in a whisper barely heard over the hushed whisper of the December breeze, he said, “It is nearly Christmas, Nat. Don't you understand? Christ was born for us, and He said, ‘This is my body.'”

“Nicholas, you'll die for this,” I said. “If anyone hears of it, they will execute you!”

“You won't tell,” he said. I could hear the giddy insanity lacing his words. “My body, take and eat. I have to eat, Nat. I have to eat!”

With that, he scooped up his bucket and ran off into the darkness through the silent cottages and sheds.

I returned to my cottage, and said nothing.

What is right?

I cannot know.

There have been rumors the past two days that graves are being robbed and the dead eaten by our starving colonists. Our leaders say it is an abomination, but they cannot find out who is supposed to have committed this sin.

I will not say, for I do not know what is right.

I have always been proud that illness and hunger have never seen me worth their while. But I fear that is not the case now. I know now how it feels. If I had the strength, I'd journey deep into the woods and find Laughing Man. I would ask him for help. But I can't. It is all I can do to write this. And I am tired now. I must stop. I am so very, very tired.

32

January 8, 1610

“N
AT, WAKE UP
, please!”

Nat's eyes opened, then closed. He was so tired. He wanted to sleep another hour. Another year.

“Nat, wake up. I am sorry to come into your cottage without permission, but we need you. Martha is in very bad condition.”

Nat opened his eyes again. Audrey stood over his mattress. He could not make out her face in the darkness, but her voice was laced with genuine fear. “Nat, I think Martha is dying. Please come!”

Nat sat up. His head reeled and he had to wait until it subsided. Then he forced his feet into his shoes and stood up. William and Samuel were still sleeping.

“Come,” said Audrey. She threw Nat's cloak around his shoulders, grabbed his hand, and the two of them went outside into the bitter winter night. As they moved toward Audrey's cottage, the young woman said, “Peter has lost his wits with grief. If Martha dies, he will lose not only a wife but a child as well! He is talking out of his mind, Nat. He even tried to strike me away when I went to comfort him. I tried to put a hand on Martha's forehead and he shoved me back. What should we do?”

Nat tried to speak, but it was as if his lips were frozen together.

“At least hold Peter so I can tend Martha,” said Audrey. “If I can nurse her beyond this bout of illness, I will, but I cannot if Peter will not even let me near her. Will you hold Peter?”

Nat managed to nod.

They stopped outside the door to Audrey's cottage. A strong gust of wind lifted her cloak and skirts, revealing white, stick-thin ankles in mud-coated shoes. “Peter, it is Audrey. I have Nathaniel with me. We are coming in to help.”

There was a low growl, but nothing more. Audrey cast a desperate look at Nat, and opened the cottage door. They went inside. It was not much warmer inside than out.

A single lamp, sitting on the top of the Scotts' small trunk, burned with a dim, sputtering light. Nat's eyes had to adjust before he could even find Peter and Martha. And then he was able to make them out. Peter was crouched in the corner on the dirt floor, wearing only his long white linen shirt, holding Martha tightly in his arms.

“Peter, Nat is here. Martha needs our help. Please let me see her. Talk to Nat while I check on Martha to see what I can do for her.”