48

CHAPTER 6

Two separate groups of Powhatan warriors who left the village in the morning to return to their summer homes further down the river came back within two hours to report strange and disturbing sights. The chief might have doubted their story if they had stopped in the middle of the village to tell the news to the women at work and the men who were still yawning and stretching around the embers, but when the leader of the first group left his followers in a silent huddle and asked to speak to Powhatan alone inside the longhouse, it gave him pause. The arrival of the second group clinched the matter. Powhatan called an assembly of all the men. While they were gathering, three or four others who had gone fishing came in with the same story.

The women had dispersed silently to their houses or garden plots. The few children left playing outside did so in subdued voices. The longhouse was buzzing. Powhatan called for silence and then summoned one after another of the witnesses to tell what they had seen. When they had finished, he allowed the villagers to question them. When everyone had chewed over the information and digested it to the best of their ability, the speakers' staff began to move around more slowly: it was time to decide what to do.

'It is for them to declare themselves,' said one man. 'They are the guests. We should wait. It would demean us to approach them first.'

'But how long can we wait?' demanded another. 'They have done nothing the proper way; they know nothing of proper customs. Are we to let them do as they like?'

'They are enemies, not guests,' shouted a third without waiting for the staff to reach him.

Powhatan frowned at the man and motioned to another, older warrior to speak.

'If they have been foolish enough to settle on the field of the old village for their landing,' this man said, 'we can be sure that they will not stay long. The spirits will drive them out. If they mean us harm, their own folly will defeat them.'

'But how do we know that the spirits have any power over them?' objected another. 'If they had, would they not have risen and driven them out at once? These men are strange. How do we know that they are not ghosts themselves? You say their skins are pale ...'

'I think they are not ghosts. They are men ...' put in one of the warriors who had seen the landing, but he could say no more. As the talk went on, he sat silently trying to put words to the feeling he had had as he lay in the forest and watched the busy, remorseless work of the pale-faced men: how they made themselves at home and never glanced at the houses of the dead under their feet; with what unbelievable speed their bright axes had brought the first great trees crashing down and had sliced them into timber. He had felt, not that they, but that he, the living man in his own land, was a ghost; that his presence was wraith-like and his footsteps hardly bent the grass, compared to the crushing tread of these men and the horrible excess of life in them.

Now a man who had been on an embassy to Powhatan's most distant allies was speaking. 'Chief, when I went northward in the spring I heard a rumour that pale-faced men have been seen in other places on the coast, far away where the whales go. I paid it no attention at the time, for it had come through many peoples and no one knew anything for certain. But they said that these men have weapons which kill at a distance with a noise of thunder, and that they are greatly feared.'

There was a murmur of unease. Then Powhatan said, 'If this is true, then it explains their insolence. We have all seen men who think their strength entitles them to trample on the law. I fear I must ask you to prepare for battle again. But we must know more about these strangers first. If they will not tell us their business, we must rely on our own wisdom to seek it out. Kekata, do you see anything?'

The shaman had sat silent until that moment. Looking at him, it became clear to Powhatan that his foreboding was so great that he was unwilling to speak for fear of disheartening the men. But they had to have his knowledge.

'I see nothing clearly,' he replied with an effort. 'I was sent no warning of this. Our gods seem to know no more of these pale men than the pale men know of them.'

A few voices protested.

'Can you not see in the smoke?' Powhatan asked.

'Chief,' said Kekata, with an undertone of desperation, 'you know that I should fast for two days and that it should be evening when I see in the smoke. How am I to do it now, of a sudden, especially when the matter is such a heavy one? If I see the signs wrongly now I may not be able to see them better at a later time.'

'All the same, Kekata,' said Powhatan, 'do it now, as a kindness to us. Our need will have to do instead of fasting. Who knows what may have happened two days from now?'

Kekata said no more, but went and sat cross-legged in the clear space in the middle of the longhouse, bowed his head and closed his eyes. At a sign from Powhatan, two men laid and lit a fire in the hearth in front of him. The smoke curled up into the rafters, making the dim light of the overcast day that filtered through the cracks in the roof and walls even fainter; the men were sitting in a brooding twilight. Everyone grew quiet. Even whispers died down. Someone had gone outside and hushed the calling of the children. Kekata sat with his elbows in his hands, swaying a little. His face grew more and more still and those who dared glance that way saw the look of the other world begin to come over it. They all sat there silent for about the half of an hour, which was long enough for time to seem to stand still, for everyone's thoughts to run in circles, become slow and then trickle down through the sand of their minds and be lost. When Kekata stood up and reached into the pouch at his waist for the leaves to throw on the fire, it seemed almost like the first happening in a new age of the world. The general shifting and murmur that ran along the rows of seated men was like the reawakening of shrouded figures sitting in the halls of the dead.

Kekata, passing his hands above the embers, spoke the slow ritual words and then scattered the leaves. At once a plume of pale smoke shot up to the roof, bent down and twisted, wraith-like, among the watchers.

Kekata stared into it with fixed eyes and spoke slowly, as if he were chanting.

'These are not men like us ... they come from the limitless sea ... they come swiftly and nothing can stay them.

'Their bodies shine like rotten wood ... in one hand they bring gifts that will break our roof-trees ... in the other, weapons that spout fire.'

A branch shifted in the fire and cracked, sending up a shower of sparks. Some men clenched their hands, some groaned in dismay.

Kekata's voice grew fainter. 'They prowl the earth like ravenous wolves, consuming all in their path ... when they have eaten the world, their hunger will only be greater.'

Kekata had finished. He sank down on the ground and closed his eyes again. The men hardly dared look at one another in their horror. One man was on his feet: it was Kocoum. As he held out his hand to Powhatan, one of the smoke-wraiths snaked around his back, cutting him off from his companions. Many remembered the evil omen later.

'Great Powhatan,' cried Kocoum, 'let me lead our warriors to the river-shore and we will destroy this enemy as we destroyed the Massowomecks!'

Powhatan spoke with authority, but there was an edge to even his voice. 'Kocoum, in that battle we knew how to fight our enemy, but these pale men are strange to us. If we must fight them it will need all our cunning. Take some men to the river-bank to observe them. Anything you see may serve us.'

To the assembly, he said, 'The spirits have shown us how wary we must be, of these men's weapons and of their gifts. But keep up your courage, my brothers. They may not be like us, but they are men. They came and they may leave again.'

At that moment, Governor Ratcliffe was hammering a stake into the ground where a flag would fly at the centre of the new town, which he had named Jamestown. The settlers, breaking their first bread in the New World, applauded as he declared that the land and all its riches were under the dominion of King James of England.

*****

John Smith, going uphill through the forest north-westwards, had reached a rocky outcrop where he could climb above the level of the trees and scan the river-valley for signs of settlement. He saw none at first, but did see that he had reached the top of a ridge or long hill which ran almost straight north and south, parallel to the estuary. There were few trees on the top; it was narrow and rocky in places but the going looked easy, certainly better than among the dense trees on the slope. Southward the ridge went on getting higher; northward it ran on almost level for at least a mile or two, with a few undulations which promised good vantage points. To the west the ground fell away a little, and then rose again in a higher, more broken ridge: the beginnings of a range of hills further inland.

There seemed to be a trail along the top of the low ridge, so there were clearly people about somewhere. John Smith tried to stay off the trail itself, moving from tree to tree just below the ridge. The ground was covered with drifts of dead leaves and dry twigs, with little undergrowth. It was difficult to move quietly, but at least one could see a fair way. He heard nothing but bird-calls and the rustle of small animals. He was surprised at how quiet and uninhabited the forest seemed, and wondered if he would have done better to stay at the water's edge. But this trail must lead somewhere. He followed it for half an hour, until it came out of the trees into a wide upland meadow, full of rocks, low bushes and tall dry tussocks of grass. Directly in front of him a gully almost split the ridge, beginning shallowly on its western edge and getting deeper on the east until its sides were proper cliffs. Beyond the gully the ground rose higher: a big hill with a bare top, forested sides, and a cliff on the east side falling, it seemed, all the way down to the level of the estuary, between two and three hundred feet. But on its west side the hill sloped away steeply but manageably, and behind its shoulder rose what he had been looking for: a thread of smoke.

He made his way cautiously round the end of the gully, surprising some deer feeding under its bank, and went on down through the trees round the side of the hill until he could see the rooftops: of grey weathered wood, some flat, some domed like beehives. There was a river down there, a fair-sized one. It must flow into the larger river on which the English were camped, somewhere just beyond this hill. And all round the village, on the flats beside the river and on terraces up the slope, were green rows of crops. These people farmed, then; they did not just hunt and gather. But there were no animals to be seen. It was a big place. If there had been any other villages as big along the bank between here and the camp, he would certainly have seen them from the ridge, so, even if this were not the nearest dwelling-place to where the English had landed, it was the nearest important one. But where were all the people? He could see only one or two, bending over with tools, close to the houses, and could hear no sound. He had an inkling that the strange silence and apparent desertion of the land had to do with the arrival of the settlers, and it made him uneasy.

He did not want to go any closer to the village: when he went there he wanted to be part of a deputation, not a spy. They would go the next day, by the route he had just followed: it was good enough. Then after that they could see whether it was possible to get there by boat, or straight along the river shore. Now what?

It was not yet noon. He could have gone straight back to camp, but was unwilling to do so. He argued to himself that it was worth exploring what lay further up this tributary river, and getting up into the hills to the west from which he would be able to see the whole plan of the estuary and any other large settlements along it. But really, it was the end of duty and the beginning of pleasure. An uneasiness about whether or not he should go further, perhaps, prompted him to feel that he was being watched. He looked round quickly; there was no one in sight. It was not safe so close to the village, that was clear. He forced himself to behave as if at ease for a few minutes while he took compass bearings and made a note and a rough sketch of the position of the village on his tablets. Arousing curiosity in anyone who might be watching him would be his best safeguard. Then he set off at a swinging pace through the woods directly westwards, to skirt the village and come towards the river well beyond it. He risked making some noise; when he reached a stretch of dead ground on his way downhill he stopped, crouched down out of sight of the trail, listened and watched; but he heard and saw nothing. Reassured, he went quietly on.

Not far beyond the village the land began rising in earnest. The valley down which the river flowed was narrow and rocky; several waterfalls cascaded down its sides. The sun came out for the first time in the day, gleaming on the white water. He was struck again by the blend of the strange and the familiar in the land. Heather blossomed, a large hawk circled lazily on the wind, yet hummingbirds darted among strange brilliant flowers at the water's edge, and once he came on a fat black bear eating berries. The bear waddled away into the bushes seeming more startled than John Smith. The unease John had felt while searching for the village melted away; his spirits rose steadily. This land, he felt, was made for him. If God had let him stand at His elbow at the creation and choose exactly what he wanted for a part of the world to be his own, this would have been it. The cleanness, the wildness – even the penumbra of danger, keeping his eyes and ears constantly sharpened – were all he could desire. I might have asked to have it a tiny bit cooler, he thought. The noonday was sultry; as he walked briskly in the sunshine he was sweating into a shirt already so stiff with salt and sweat that it could have stood up by itself. He was at the head of the valley: it ended in a cliff fifty feet high over which the river fell into a large, dark pool with afternoon shadows beginning to creep over it. He looked at the pool. Why carry a shipboard stink with one into the New World? Pity those poor fellows slaving away under Ratcliffe's orders back at camp; it wasn't likely any of them would get the chance of a swim; but was that any reason why he shouldn't? He leaned his musket and satchel carefully against a rock and took off his helmet, leather jerkin, boots and stockings, but kept the rest of his clothes on; he might have to run for it and he drew the line at doing so naked.

He plunged in, gasping at the cold, and swam fast across the pool as close to the boiling water under the falls as he could before being pushed back. He wallowed, let himself go under, came up spurting water, and then floated on his back feeling the spray drenching his face and hair. Then, swimming back to the shallows, he reached down for handfuls of sand and scrubbed himself. Another idea. He went back to his bag for a biscuit, crumbled it and rubbed the meal thoroughly over his skin and into his hair before rinsing it out. There was enough oil in it to be of some use in getting rid of the dirt.

He would have liked to stay in the water longer but was too conspicuous there, so, climbing out and going behind a rock, he took off his clothes, wrung them out and put them on again, and then settled down to dry a little in the warm sun, luxuriating in being cleaner than he had been for weeks, while he munched his noon biscuit.

After that he decided to see what was at the top of the cliff. It looked possible to climb at the far side of the waterfall. There might be a way round but it would take too long to find it. He crossed the river, wading, and climbed straight up the rock face with a few slips but no serious trouble. Coming over the edge of the cliff, he found himself in a whole new, wild country. The ground still rose gently but it was a new level that he had reached, a plateau, rather than the top of a range of hills. The forest again closed in on both sides of the river, but the river flowed in a depression, almost a gorge, filled with stepped and tumbled rocks, small patches of grass and solitary twisted trees. The going was difficult and the view was restricted. After walking in the gorge for a mile or so he reached another waterfall, lower and wider than the first. He climbed up onto a high pile of rocks on the edge of the gorge and, lying flat, looked back the way he had come. A good view was opening out. He could see the estuary; at this distance the wooded wildness of the shores seemed unbroken, except by the tiny, exotic shape of the Susan Constant riding at anchor, just far enough out in the stream to be seen. Well – everyone in the neighbourhood must have seen her by now. But this upland country seemed deserted. Just as he thought this, he again had the uncomfortable intuition of being watched. This time he took more notice of it. He had learned to trust such feelings. It came crawling over his skin, all the more noticeable compared with the ease and freedom of moments before. This was a bad place in which to be followed; there was excellent cover and the noise of the waterfall drowned any sound the pursuer might make. He reminded himself that although he might be uncertain, the answer was certain: either there was someone after him or there was not, and one way or another he would find out soon. In any case, it was time he got away from the river and headed home.

He climbed carefully down to the water's edge, just below the waterfall, where a row of smooth rocks offered a way back across. Although he was still damp from swimming, climbing had made him hot again. He crouched on the wet stones, scooped his hands full of cold water and drank, then dashed a handful into his face and down his neck. Cupping and lifting his hands again, he waited for the water in them to settle and looked at it.

There. He was not mistaken. He saw in the water in his hands, dim and blurred, the reflection of the high rock down which he had just climbed, and on its shoulder, the merest shadow, a human figure.

He must not look too long. He drank the water, waited a moment, then took a backward glance. There was no one to be seen. But he was sure.

*****

Pocahontas had followed the stranger with all her skill for something like eight miles, yet even after that she could not have explained to herself what she was doing.

On one level, she knew, she was playing a silly, childish game. It was born of the defiant mood, the desire to prove herself, with which she had set out from the village at dawn. They thought she was just a girl, yet she had been the one who had had warning of the foreigners' arrival; she, not any of the warriors, had seen the man with yellow hair set out from the camp; it was up to her to find out what he aimed to do. She had begun the task and no one else would finish it. But she was not sure that she ever really intended to come back triumphantly to the village with intelligence that would give her people a weapon against the invaders. When the yellow-haired man was in the woods just above the village, it would have been a simple matter to slip past, run down to the longhouse and send the men after him; he would have been caught in no time. Would that not have been a brilliant stroke for Pocahontas, daughter of Suleawa? Yet she never gave it serious thought. That being so, what she was doing was surely just childish: an imaginary game with herself, of no consequence to anyone else. Nevertheless she knew very well that it was not as if she were a little girl slipping off after her brother when he went hunting, with only laughter or at worst a box on the ear to fear if he caught her. She was risking her life. So what was she doing?

She had formed no intention, but something deep inside her drove her to follow the man, to know more about him: something that hid as if with an intention of its own from conscious thought. It was as if, ever since Grandmother Willow had told her to listen and she had heard the strange voice of the wind, the river of her mind had plunged underground and was running in a cavernous course where she could see nothing, but every twist and turn happened of itself, swiftly and decisively. How did the arrival of the pale men concern her? What was the part she had to play between them and her people? What was the link between them and the spinning arrow, the promise held out to her for so long? She had no idea, but never mind. All her waking mind had to do was wait, and meanwhile put all its cunning into staying hidden and following.

This stranger who gazed over the land – she had not seen his face clearly since that first moment, but she desired to know what lay behind its alien beauty. At the same time, it had frightened her in a way she had never known before, and she was drawn to experience the fear again in order to understand it.

As she followed him, her fear was ever-present, and yet she felt a kinship with him. Almost from the beginning, as soon as she began to trust herself, she could read the rhythm of his movements. She knew when he was about to stop and look round, and when he would move on; when she heard him step on dry branches on the way down the hillside, she knew that he would be lying in wait later, and she outwaited him. Did this mean that she was too clever for him? She had the strangest feeling that, really, it was he who was playing a game with her; that he knew she was there and was leading her on, like an indulgent brother with his small sister, or even like an expert tracker training a young warrior. Fantastic though this idea was, there was a playful air about his movements that gave it some foundation. And was it not extraordinary? – that a stranger in the land, surrounded by unfriendly spirits as well as enemy warriors, should look as if he were playing? When he made ready to swim in the pool below the waterfall, she was aghast at the disrespect, as well as deeply embarrassed to be seeing a man reveal himself. She ducked behind a rock and would not look after the first glance. But when he started to climb the rock-face she was truly incredulous. Had he no fear at all? She climbed round by an easy way hidden by rocks and deep grass, and spied on him at intervals. When his foothold crumbled and he slid down fast for twice his own height, she thought that he was punished at last. But he came up hard against a projecting tree-root that stopped his fall, and she could swear that she heard him laugh gleefully as he hauled himself up again. Never had she seen anything like this man. He is like the puma, the mountain lion, she thought. But his hair is more golden than the lion's... And the daring grace with which he moved, not as if he belonged to the land, as her own menfolk did, nor as if it were a baffling menace, as he should have done, but as if its powers were a challenge that his fragile human spirit could meet: this was something she had never seen before. She wanted to condemn it, but could not help admiring it.

Perhaps, of course, he possessed some superior witchcraft that he trusted to keep him safe. He might have been casting a spell when he stood facing towards the village holding an unknown small object in his hands; that sinister weapon which he carried – she knew it must be a weapon of some kind – might have infallible power. But somehow she thought not. His skill at moving through the country was the kind of skill she was used to. Good, if not quite good enough – and she smiled to herself as she stood up on the shoulder of the rock to watch him drinking below the waterfall, then slipped back out of sight just when she knew he was going to finish his drink and glance behind. She felt, obscurely, that his manner conveyed challenge, not arrogance; not a wish to harm, but a wish to know – just as she herself wanted to know ... But where would this end?

*****

John Smith thought fast. He now had the advantage: his pursuer had been seen, but did not know it. He must use that advantage quickly, before he was killed from behind: he must lie in wait and trick his watcher into showing himself. He would have to have a weapon at the ready, to intimidate the man so that he would not immediately attack him, or call others to do so. Then perhaps they could parley. He hoped there would be no killing, but he had to be ready to fight. And even wishing his first encounter with an Indian could have begun otherwise, he could not prevent the effect of the danger on his body, quickening his heartbeat and intensifying all his sensations, so that he bent and drank his last mouthful of water with a sharper enjoyment of its coldness and the life of the foaming waterfall in it. He straightened up, shouldering his musket again, stretching, and flexing his shoulders with a sensual enjoyment that was also a challenge to the watcher he knew was behind him. He told himself that that was no way to treat a man who might be dead in a few minutes, but his body knew only its own danger, and was glad of it.

The river launched its feathery edges of water down the cliff, one by one, broken and drifting, at dizzying speed and endlessly; close by you could hear their separate crashes on the water below. John began to cross, knowing that if his pursuer meant to shoot him he would never get a better chance, hoping he would hesitate. Towards the far side, from a rock very near the fall, he saw what he had not seen before: that the cliff overhung and that there was a sizeable cave hidden behind the waterfall, its floor just above water level. At this edge of the river there was less water coming down. He glanced back: could not see the man who was following: thrust the stock of the musket under his jerkin and jumped through the curtain of water, into the cave.

The water struck on his head and shoulders for a shuddering instant, but left him only damp. The cave was too low for him to stand upright, but large enough to hide three or four men. Its floor was fairly level, covered in green weed like thick hair, dank in the constant spray. It was dark; his eyes took a few moments to adjust. He turned to the entrance, the silver curtain of water falling before his eyes, and crouched there priming his musket. If his follower was now climbing from the top of the rocks down to the river's edge, he would lose sight of the crossing-place for at least two or three minutes while he did so; the more carefully he was moving, the longer. John Smith watched the tiny fuse glow in the shadows and counted, slowly and carefully, the lapse of two minutes. Then he risked peering through the water to look back. For a moment the clouding spray stopped him seeing anything at all, but then it cleared momentarily and revealed a figure – unexpectedly slight – standing on the first stepping-stone; only a shadow, surrounded by white mist that immediately closed over it again.

Now was the moment. He leaped back down through the falling water, landed crouching on the stone where he had been before, pivoted on his heels and instantly raised the gun and took aim.

He saw his pursuer clearly now. Not thirty feet away, she had just jumped from one stone to the next and was bent low, finding her balance. She saw him, slowly straightened until she stood upright, and looked full in his face – with strange eyes hooded and bright like a falcon's – motionless now from head to foot, except for her long, bluish-black hair, which lifted like a spread wing in the wind from the waterfall.

He slowly lowered his gun. In that moment, although he did not know it yet, his whole world was broken in pieces; he would have to build it up again from a new beginning.