Seventeen

The country is excellent and very rich in gold and copper. Of the gold we have brought a say [an ore sample, which proved worthless] and hope to be with Your Lordship shortly to show it His Majesty and the rest of the lords.

—Captain Christopher Newport, from a letter to the Lord of Salisbury

CAPTAIN NEWPORT BRINGS so many changes it nearly makes our heads spin. Captain Smith is freed and Master Archer is taken off the council. Our cabins are suddenly crowded with sixty new colonists, and the fort becomes noisy with several new dogs, a dozen hogs, and enough chickens to coat the ground of the whole fort with their droppings. He also brings a new boy, Thomas Savage. The men tease him because of his name. “He is a savage,” they say. “Send him to live with the savages.”

Our storehouse is filled to overflowing with the good things the ship has brought: wheat, pork, ale, wine, butter, and beef. We eat very well, and since this puts everyone in a good mood, there is no more talk about stealing away to England. There is a fragile peace between the gentlemen who were willing to kill us by starvation, and us commoners who were ready to murder them in their beds. It is a good thing we have the sixty new men and boys to help buffer our smoldering anger toward one another.

A few days after Captain Newport arrives we hear shouts of “Wingapo!” and look to see Indians paddling to shore in three canoes. “Wingapo, Captain Smith!” they call. When the canoes land and the Indian men begin to pull them up onshore, Richard and I go closer. The canoes are filled with bread, fish, and meat: turkey, squirrel, deer, and raccoon.

“We don’t even need to trade for food,” I say to Richard. “We’ve got so much in the storehouse now that the ship is here.”

But Richard’s eyes are wide, fixed on something. I follow his gaze. In one of the canoes sits a little girl. She has straight black hair, cut very short on the front and sides, and fastened in a long braid down her back. She wears several necklaces of pearls and copper, and a mantle of deerskin over one shoulder. As we watch, she jumps out of the canoe and trots up to Captain Smith. She is fairly skipping with excitement at seeing him. I hear some of what she says as she speaks to him in Algonquian, “I bring gifts from my father . . . now that you are my countryman. . . .”

The food is not for trade? It is being delivered as a gift?

It suddenly occurs to me who this must be. I grab Richard’s arm. “It’s her!” I whisper.

“I know,” Richard whispers back.

We watch her as she talks to Captain Smith. She is only a child—Captain Smith says she is about ten years old —but in my mind she has become like a goddess. She is Chief Powhatan’s daughter, the girl who saved Captain Smith’s life, the Indian princess who has more courage than a hundred soldiers.

Suddenly, to my surprise, I hear Captain Smith say in his clumsy Algonquian, “Come meet boys. They show you my home.”

My stomach does a little flip as Captain Smith leads her over to Richard and me. He tells her our names. I watch her happy, dark eyes, and keep telling myself she is only a child, no one to be so awestruck about.

“And this is Amonute,” Captain Smith says to me and Richard. “But she is called ‘playful one’—Pocahontas.” Pocahontas grins. “Come and show me Captain Smith’s home,” she says.

I translate for Richard and he nods enthusiastically. I point to our palisades. “Home—there,” I say in Algonquian. It is my first time trying out my newly learned words on a native speaker, and when she understands, it feels like magic.

Pocahontas runs up the hill, nimble as a deer on her bare feet. Richard and I follow. I always thought that princesses were supposed to be quiet and proper and sit around looking royal. Not this princess.

Pocahontas peeks inside the fort gates. The men on guard look at her and raise their eyebrows. “She’s the daughter of Chief Powhatan,” I tell them.

Pocahontas whips her head around when she hears her father’s name. Then she runs to one of our cabins to look in the door. “This is Captain Smith’s house?” she asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “Peyaquaugh,” I say, and motion for her to follow me. I lead her to the cabin Captain Smith shares with Reverend Hunt, the carpenter John Laydon, and several other men.

She is fascinated with the cabin and with Captain Smith’s belongings. Like a typical child, she wants to touch everything, and because she is a princess, Richard and I don’t dare stop her. She sits on one of the beds and jostles it, listening to the straw crackle. She grins at herself in the shaving mirror. She looks at the muskets leaning against the wall and gives them a wide berth. I realize Captain Smith must have demonstrated his firepower to her tribe. When she sees Reverend Hunt’s Bible, she opens it and gently touches the pages. I wonder if it is the first book she has ever seen. When she goes to pick up a straight razor, Richard gasps. I reach to pull it away. “Sharp,” I say loudly in Algonquian. “Bad.”

She gives me a mischievous look, takes the blade, and runs it quickly across her arm.

Richard cries, “No!” I yelp and lunge for her. I grab the blade out of her hand. Richard grasps her arm. “Quick, get Doc Wotton!” he yells.

But Pocahontas just giggles. When we inspect her arm, there is no cut at all. She has played a trick on us!

“Can you run fast?” she asks, as if she has not just scared the living daylights out of us.

“Yes,” I say. Running is something I’ve always been good at. “She is asking me how fast I can run,” I tell Richard.

She leads us outside the cabin. She takes me by the shoulders and makes me stand facing down the main lane that goes through the center of our fort. Then she stands Richard beside me facing the same way. “We will race,” she announces. It is a warm winter day, as warm as a spring day in England, and around the fort, men are outside, working on everything from repairing wattle and daub walls to shucking corn. They watch in amusement as we prepare for our race. “To the wall,” she says.

I explain to Richard that we are about to race to the palisade wall. He nods in approval.

Pocahontas readies herself next to Richard. She counts with her fingers. “Necut, ningh, nuss!”

We run full speed down the lane, with dogs chasing and chickens squawking as they fly out of our way. I win by just a bit.

Pocahontas’s face glows with sweat. “You do run fast,” she says. “But I am faster. I tripped on my mantle.” And with that, she pulls off her mantle. She has nothing on underneath, but she seems to not even notice that she is naked. “We will race again,” she says. “I will win this time.”

We line up again. I am not so ready to let a ten-year-old girl beat me. Pocahontas counts, “Necut, ningh, nuss!” I pump my legs as fast as they will go. But this time, freed of her mantle, Pocahontas wins easily.

“You just got beat by a girl,” Richard teases.

I grumble, but Pocahontas is already on to her next idea.

“Can you do this?” she asks, and she wheels herself hand to hand and foot to foot like a cartwheel.

I try to imitate her, but I end up falling on my bum.

Pocahontas laughs, and shows us again. Richard copies her and actually does quite well. When I try again I fall on my hip and elbow, but then I start to get the hang of it. Thomas Savage sees what we are doing and comes to join us. Soon we are all able to do the cartwheels.

The men look up from their work to watch us—three English boys in dirty shirts and worn-out slops and one naked Indian princess, tumbling like cartwheels all over the fort.

CAPTAIN NEWPORT TELLS US that the soil and rocks we sent back to England were just that—dirt and rocks. There was no gold in them at all. But the Virginia Company still wants gold, and Captain Newport is convinced we can find it for them. And so, early on a frosty morning, just a week or so after the ship has arrived, a group of men gathers buckets, picks, and shovels, and sets off in search of gold to send back to England. They leave their cabins with their nighttime fires still burning. Someone from one of the cabins must have left a shirt draped over a chair near the embers, or a Bible on a table too close to the flames. Someone. Somewhere. We never did find out where the fire started.

“Fire!” someone shouts, and I look to see orange flames leap from one thatched roof to another. I snatch up a bucket and race to the river. But by the time I get back, more cabins have caught fire. Flames lick their way down the palisade, spreading like spilled wine. Men stumble through the smoke, trying to find the front gate of the fort. A soldier comes running at me, his clothes aflame. He grabs my bucket and empties the water over his head. His shirt sizzles and he gasps, slapping at the burned fabric.

I return to the river, fill my bucket again. Captain Smith is there, shouting, ordering the men into a line.

“Pass the buckets hand to hand!” he yells. We form a line that stretches from the river to the fort, and we pass the buckets quickly, one to another.

Flames leap, and thick black smoke engulfs the entire fort. One side of the palisade buckles and falls.

“Save the palisade!” someone cries. I see the men at the fort, throwing bucket after bucket onto the burning posts.

The wind blows smoke toward us and it makes me cough. Cinders and bits of ash swirl in the air. I think of nothing except passing the buckets of water, until my fingers are blistered and my arms ache.

So much work. So many weeks we spent cutting trees, splitting clapboard, tying thatch, making wattle and daub. It is all turning to ashes before our eyes.

It is afternoon before we finally quell the flames. We manage to save a good part of the palisade, but the houses are virtually gone, along with everything in them. Even Reverend Hunt’s Bible is lost in the blaze. And, worst of all, the storehouse and all the food in it has been destroyed.