Blue Birds (6 page)

I stay

long enough to study

the patterns on her arms,

close enough

to meet her eyes

with no urge to lower my gaze.

We are not together,

but neither are we apart.

Three times

I have come here.

Three times

we have met.

Something

fascinating, fragile

grows between us.

I pass into the settlement unnoticed.

Where there was activity,

now no one is about.

My insides grow cold and heavy.

I am desperate to find my family.

I stumble over abandoned tools,

skirt a basket of laundry and an overturned bench.

Everyone's assembled in the square.

To one side,

bald Mr. Pratt holds George,

who hangs like a marionette

with severed strings.

I push into the crowd.

Several women step back,

their faces covered.

I shove into the center,

where Father,

Mr. Dare,

Governor White,

Mr. Archard

hold the limbs of a man

whose back

is riddled with arrows,

whose head

is smashed in.

“Away, Alis!” Father says.

Tears etch his weathered cheeks.

I stagger out of the circle

past George

now crumpled on the ground,

and retch,

body heaving,

my hands pressed to my knees.

Above the clamor the Governor speaks.

“We found Mr. Howe near the shore,”

his voice breaks,

“as you see him.”

The bones

the arrows

fifteen missing men—

I retch again—

Dear Uncle Samuel!

What awful things

happened here

before we came?

What

is

this

place?

Not long after I return,

Wanchese and his men come.

They've slain an Englishman

wandering alone,

hunting crabs with a clumsy weapon.

The English have again been shown

the might of the Roanoke,

they have again been reminded

of the wrong in beheading our weroance,

in unleashing disease and crippling our people.

In the season of the highest sun,

after those that survived Wanchese's fire

broke free and fled,

my people celebrated.

Never again would we face

the betrayal of the English.

Yet here they are

with families,

and Manteo,

who never returned to the Croatoan,

but claimed the English as his own.

None is welcome here.

But there is a girl among them

I would have never known

if they had not come again.

One whose curiosity

reminds me of my sister,

one I long to understand.

The next morning I awake.

My head pounds with remembrance:

the crowd gathered in horror

around Mr. Howe.

Just one week here,

and one of us is dead,

attacked,

while I was with the girl.

He at the shoreline,

we in the woods,

was it luck he was the one

discovered?

Did she know

what was planned?

Out there,

was I in as much danger

as a murdered man?

None of us has done wrong,

yet we fear for our lives.

Mother hands me a crust of bread,

though it's not enough to satisfy.

What little food we have must last

as long as we can make it.

I shuffle to Mr. Viccars's house

to collect young Ambrose.

He clings to my sleeve

as I greet Mrs. Archard at her door.

“Remember,

they're not to dump dirt on their heads,” she says,

her sharp eyes narrowed.

“It won't happen again.”

I doubt Mrs. Archard

has ever had a bit of fun.

All the day

I roll a rag ball,

wipe dripping noses,

keep hands from the fire,

fetch back Tommy

when he wanders too close to the water pail,

teach them what Joan and I used to sing:

Summer is a-coming in

Loudly sing cuckoo

Groweth seed and bloweth mead

and springs the wood anew

Sing cuckoo!

It almost helps me to forget

that just this morning

the Governor and several of his men

sailed to the island Croatoan

in search of answers.

Manteo's mother,

leader of the Croatoan,

will help us, the Governor says.

He'll find the missing soldiers,

bring them back to Roanoke.

I roll the rag ball

for the hundredth time.

How can the Governor be sure of anything?

I leave the children with their mothers.

George carries a bucket of water

across the square.

The skin under his eyes is smudged,

as though last night

withheld from him its rest.

We walk together,

silent.

I don't know how

to speak of yesterday,

but I must say something.

“Which is yours?” I ask,

when we reach the cottages

on the other side.

“We lived there.”

George points to a home

three doors down.

“But I'll be in the barracks now.”

His words

hint at the awful way

his life has changed.

I cannot help myself.

“It's not the same

as losing your father,

but my uncle's missing.”

His eyes shine with tears.

Abruptly he turns from me.

Water sloshes from the pail's edge,

drenching my feet.

Like the water,

this truth washes over me:

Mr. Howe is gone forever.

Perhaps my uncle won't be found.

The men arrive back in the village

when the sun burns low.

Manteo's tribe has promised

to tell the Roanoke we mean no harm.

The Croatoan will invite them

to talk peace with our men

ten days from now.

“To restore the friendship we once had,”

the Governor says.

What sort of friend

slays an innocent man,

I wonder,

but I am comforted to know

something has been done.

“Did you hear of the soldiers?” Father asks.

“Were they with the Croatoan?”

I reach for my bird, remember it is gone.

The Governor shakes his head.

At his sides

Father's hands

curl into fists.

“My mother says they traveled north,” Manteo says.

“Toward Chesapeake?”

“Yes.”

His head's still bare,

and now he wears

a chain of shells about his neck—

every day more Indian.

“If we could, we'd go to them at once,”

Governor White says.

“But it would take weeks

to move the cargo to the pinnace,

take it north,

trip by trip.

By then,

summer would be too far gone

to plant and harvest.

There'd be no time to build

before cold weather settles in.”

“But is it safe here?” someone asks.

“A man was murdered yesterday.”

“I understand your worry,” the Governor says.

“But we are trying to set things right.

I believe it's best to stay.

We'll be reunited with the missing men next spring,

once we pass the winter here.”

His words cover all of us

assembled in the twilight.

It is the first mention of leaving

since we arrived a week ago,

and though Uncle's whereabouts are unclear,

I will not lose faith.

“To Virginia!” someone shouts,

“to the City of Ralegh!”

and all around

we join

in jubilee.

“How are you sure they're still alive?”

Father's words cut through the celebration.

“There is no certainty,”

the Governor admits,

“but we hold hope close.

We have no other choice.”

“Ferdinando should take us north.”

someone says.

“Ferdinando should take us home!”

another answers.

The Governor's face grows red.

“Do not speak of that man to me!”

He spits the words.

“Do you know why

he agreed to bring us to Virginia?

So that he might plunder

Spanish ships along the way.

Throughout our voyage

he spoke of nothing else.

It took weeks to persuade him

to wait until he'd brought us here.

Such raiding as he hoped for

risked losing our cargo,

perhaps even our lives.

Once our goods are unloaded,

Ferdinando will be gone.”

“Come.”

Father grabs my hand and Mother's.

His tone holds an edge.

When talk turns to the missing men,

how quickly his emotions

bend and shift like heated iron.