James Nelson - The Blackbirder

Ten minutes and they were ready to go, Powhatan in the lead, the lower sort on foot following him, and then the men on horseback, feeling like the crusaders of old.

A crusade indeed, thought Frederick Dunmore. A God-given mission to rid this New World of a terrible and growing plague. A chance to murder my own demons.

It was amazing. Elizabeth could hardly believe how the people settled into their new life out in the woods, living like Indians, hunting, gathering edible plants, tending fires. Less than a week after fleeing Marlowe House and it seemed as if they had been living in that clearing for a year or more.

She tried to help. She wanted to be a part of it, in a useful way, but the other women seemed to feel it was their job to take care of her, to not let her expend any effort.

And she quickly discovered that there was precious little that she could do in any event that would have been of help.

She was not without skills; she could write a neat, round hand, could organize a formal dinner with the skill of a field officer, could lay out, plant, and tend a gorgeous garden. She kept all the books at Marlowe House with great accuracy. She could satisfy a man in any way he might wish-intellectually, socially, carnally-but none of those skills found a practical application there in the Virginia woods.

It was embarrassing. Even more so when she recalled how she had been certain these people could not get on without her.

All this she considered as she walked back up the now-worn trail from the stream to the camp. In her hands, two buckets, the water sloshing over her skirts and soaking through to her skin. It felt good in the heat of the summer morning. The smell of the pines was pungent. Birds flashed by, here and there, no longer concerned by the presence of these new creatures of the forest.

From the fields, the peal of children laughing, women singing at their work.

“Here, Mrs. Marlowe, let me get that.” It was Plato, stepping up behind her, easing the buckets out of her hands even as he spoke.

“Plato, no, I am perfectly capable.” She held tight to the handles, tried to pull the buckets back. Water spilled over the rims.

Plato pulled against her. “Please, Mrs. Marlowe, it ain’t proper…”

“Plato, damn it…” At that, the young man let go of the buckets, just at the moment that Elizabeth had redoubled her efforts at pulling them from him. She stumbled back, knew she was going down, tried to retain her dignity in that instant when her balance was lost, but it was too late. She landed hard on her posterior, the buckets tumbling over, soaking her completely.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Mrs. Marlowe, Lord help me, I-”

“Never you mind, Plato.” She struggled to her feet, fending off Plato’s help. Her wet, heavy skirts clung to her legs. She kicked one of the buckets out of her way, ignored the pain that shot through her toe.

Plato looked miserable, desperately unhappy about what he had done, quite at odds with the Plato of a few moments before, strutting around the camp on guard duty, one of Thomas’s best fowling pieces over his back, a brace of pistols thrust in his belt.

Awkward as he might be in rendering domestic help, Elizabeth was impressed with the skill he had displayed in the kind of Indian-style warfare that they had been carrying on with Dunmore and the others.

It was a war that she and the other women had only heard about. It took place miles from the camp and involved not fighting so much as leading the searchers and their dogs on wild-goose chases.

“Here, let me fill those for you again,” Plato said, bending over and grabbing the buckets. Elizabeth had been about to do the same, and if she had not anticipated Plato’s move they would have knocked heads. She was grateful that she had seen it coming; slamming their skulls together would have been the end of it for her.

Plato grabbed up the buckets, smiled, and was heading for the stream when they heard a commotion at the far end of the camp, something happening. He dropped the buckets again and he and Elizabeth trotted off, Elizabeth holding her skirts up from her ankles, much encumbered by the heavy, wet cloth wrapping around her legs.

Two of the scouts were back, Wallace and George. Ashanti. Skilled woodsmen. They could move like deer through the thick bracken, disappear into the undergrowth. They had been a big part of keeping the white searchers away.

Now they came trotting into the camp with an urgency that they had not displayed before, waving the others over to them. They were already talking when Elizabeth reached the edge of the crowd.

“They coming again,” George said. “No dogs. Saquam is leading them.”

A murmur ran through the crowd gathered around the scouts.

“Who is Saquam?” Elizabeth asked Plato.

“An Indian. A scout. The white people call him Powhatan.”

“Why is he helping Dunmore?”

“Don’t know. Money, I reckon. Saquam has friends who slaves. He’s helped some escape, but he’ll do pretty much whatever someone will pay him for.”

Caesar spoke up. “Body of me! Saquam will find us, all right. Dun-more and them others couldn’t, with their dogs, but Saquam can.”

“That right,” Wallace said. “We go, try to lead them off, but you get ready to move. Get ready to move fast.”

The scouts turned and headed back for the woods and the group surrounding them broke like a flock of birds taking flight. People ran to their tents and began knocking them down, began gathering up supplies, loading up the few horses they had. Amazing, to see the speed and coordination with which the camp was broken. Elizabeth had never felt so useless.

“Queenie, Queenie.” She stopped the former cook. “Where are we going?”

“No wheres, I hope. Maybe them men can lead that Dunmore away again, and we can set back up. But if we gots to move fast, well, we ready, and we have another place, higher up in the hills, about six miles. We can keep going, right back into Indian country.”

Elizabeth watched the former slave as she lashed her tent into a tight bundle. They were being pushed further and further back. Was this the answer, to keep retreating? Could they just live like this forever? She certainly could not. And if these people went to the woods for good, then for all practical purposes Dunmore would have achieved his goal of eradicating them.

Something had to be done, some new route explored. But what?

And then, a muffled shout, a swirl of activity at the far end of the meadow. George, racing across the tall grass, waving his arms, pointing toward the far woods.

“They coming, a mile away, or less. We ain’t gonna fool them, Saquam know we here, he’s leading them right along! We gots to go, go!”

Then Tom was standing on a pile of tents, calling, “Them with muskets, come here! We set up for them, drop them when they come into the clear, slow them down some!”

“No!” Elizabeth pushed through the people until she was standing next to Tom. “No! No killing! Listen to me, you have done nothing wrong, and when Mr. Marlowe gets back you will be able to go back to your homes. But if you shoot white people, you will never be able to return!”

Murmuring voices, glances exchanged back and forth. Would they think that this was the limit of her dedication, that when it came to killing those of her own race she would no longer side with them?

If some did think that, they were not the majority. Someone yelled, “Let’s go! No ambush!” and heads nodded and the people dispersed.

Tom met her eye, gave her an angry, distrustful look.

“It is better this way, Tom. I gave you the guns to hunt and defend yourselves. An ambush is not a defense.”

He held her eye a moment longer, then turned and walked off.