As the meaning of Pocahontas' words hit John's ears, the only sound in their camp shelter for a few moments was the crackling of the fire, because he was rendered speechless.
"I was pushed over the riverbank," she repeated, her voice soft and hoarse; she suddenly felt exhaustion hit her afresh.
John Smith seemed to look everywhere but at her for a moment, and then appeared distracted and disbelieving, shaking his head in disbelief, and reaching for one of the blankets, wrapping it securely around her.
"You just keep this on," he said gently, smoothing some of her hair out of her face absently again. "I think you're in shock. You're not thinking straight. You just sit here-" he nestled her back among the pillows, propping them up and fluffing them, making sure she was tucked into the camp bed. "-and let me tend to you, alright?"
Now she was cold, so Pocahontas couldn't object too strongly to being tucked into a warm bed. She no longer shivered and her teeth no longer chattered, but gooseflesh prickled her skin and her damp hair chilled her. But now in addition to the cold, anger and frustration rose within her.
"Hold still," John Smith murmured as he pressed the handkerchief to the cut on the side of her forehead. She didn't stay still of course, jerking back and crying out, the loudest sound in their cozy shelter as the snow outside blanketed everything, muffling the sounds of the natural world. "Ow!" she cried indignantly, pulling away from him only to hit the softness of the pillows propped behind her back; he had done an ingenious job of trapping her in a warm, comfortable little prison while he tortured her with loving care.
"Easy, love. It's just alcohol and lavender oil. You'll be fine. It will clean the cut of any impurities so it can heal. This is not a deep cut. It's more superficial, so I'd say it will be healed in a few days."
She groaned in discomfort as he kept it up, hated every second of the burning mixture as he pressed the damp handkerchief pretty firmly into the cut; the astringent smell was overpowering.
I hate having people tend to me, she thought indignantly. I would rather take care of it myself. I hate when people make a fuss.
John Smith seemed to read her thoughts. "I know you hate it when people fuss over you," he said gently, in a teasing tone.
She sighed and squirmed away as he finally lifted the offending handkerchief from the cut. The skin on her temple around the cut felt tight and tingly from the alcohol, while the cut itself throbbed and smarted from the pressure of his hands.
John seemed satisfied. "There. All better. Now..." he took a clean pocket knife and cut a few thin strips of clean gauze, and reached for her hands. "Let's take a look at your hands."
The older man sighed impatiently as the woman he loved shook her head, clutching her hands under the blanket in a game of keep-away.
"Pocahontas," he said in a warning tone, "You're nineteen years old. Some of the women your age in your people's villages have children of their own. Stop acting like a child."
"I am not acting like a child."
John Smith huffed a sigh, looked at the ceiling of the snug camp shelter, which had been built by settlers a few years ago and improved upon/tinkered with by subsequent waves of settlers and Natives as they shared the hunting ground. It was really quite nice in here, John Smith thought-sturdy walls, good insulation from the cold, good space.
After counting to ten, he looked at her. "Pocahontas, when I was your age-"
"I know, I know. When you were my age you'd been shot at, lost at sea,nearly sold into servitude and seduced by some old lady. ... So I should stop whining. But I'm not going to stop whining because you are not listening to me!" Her last words rose on a put-out shout, high with anger.
"You think I'm overreacting and that I'm out of my mind, that I'm in shock. But I won't stop whining, because HE TRIED TO KILL ME! He said horrible things, and he hit me, and he slammed the butt of his pistol in to my head, and then pushed me. I wasn't alone out there! I'm not going crazy!
You are not listening!
You refuse to hear it because you think that no one else can have crazy things happen to them, because when you were my age you were all adventurous and brave and conquering the world and of course only wild adventures would happen to you, but they can't happen for anyone else because everyone else is so tame compared to you!
That's what you think of me... that I'm some docile daughter safe in her village ... well, I'm not. You and I are both in danger and you are not listening!" she shrieked.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, tears pricking her eyes. The exertion was making her head hurt again, and a wave of dizziness washed over her again. She swallowed hard, reached for her cup of still-scalding tea.
John was stunned into silence, once again, a more profound silence than before, and briefly, he let his thoughts slide again to the fact that Pocahontas might be out of her mind. But her eyes were huge with fear, her breath was rapid, her whole demeanor rigid and fearful, scrunched small under the blanket as if to hide from something... or...someone?
For the first time, he let himself consider that her argument was perfectly sane, her mind perfectly rational. And the hair on his neck prickled.
He let her drink her tea for a few minutes; noticed how her hands trembled. When she put the empty cup down, all he said quietly was "I'm sorry."
She looked fragile and young, exhausted, knees drawn up under the covers, head resting on her arms.
"Pocahontas," John said, settling himself beside her and putting an arm around her. "You can tell me anything, you know." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm sorry," he said, whispering now. "Please, tell me. You seem quite frightened. If you say you weren't alone I... I believe you."
She sighed, leaned all her weight against him, let him put his arms around her. He settled himself under the blankets with her, taking her hands to his lips and kissing them softly. She seemed a little more relaxed, and he hoped the lavender oil was having a calming effect. "You can tend to my hands if you like," she murmured, "while I tell you."
"Yes, dear," he whispered, kissing the top of her head again, noticing that the river had washed nearly all trace of scent out of her hair. She now had a heavy overlay of Eau du Dark Water atop her normal scent of soap, chamomile and wild mint.
John waited patiently for her to speak as he led her over to the washbasin, as she washed her hands, and as he dried them and gently wiped the handkerchief soaked in medicinals over the scrapes on her palm. She was quiet as he wrapped them in light layers of gauze, and even as he gently prodded and poked at her swollen wrist, asked her to move her fingers on that hand; she tickled them across his arm. The grim set of his mouth relaxed a bit. "Sprained," he confirmed,"Just as I thought. It doesn't look dislocated, as you have most of your range of motion."
He busied himself with wrapping it in lavender oil-soaked gauze and then told her to stay there; he would be right back.
She stood there, leaning against the small piece of furniture that held the washbasin, trying to gather her thoughts but feeling slightly numbed.
Presently, the door opened and John reappeared, with a whirl of snow sweeping in.
He soaked some cleaned rawhide from one of their fresh kills in water, then beckoned her over. Pocahontas watched in intent fascination as he wrapped the wet strips around the gauze, up to the middle of her hand, tucking in the edges at the space between her palm and thumb. She was still gathering the courage to tell him, struggling to find the words in English.
So she was grateful when he next spoke, his voice deep, gravelly with anger and a man's protectiveness.
"So, someone hurt you?" He tipped her face up to look at him, she was looking at the ground. Shame and fear were in her eyes. "Yes. He was too fast. Too strong."
He merely nodded, accepting the inevitable that she could not have hurt her wrist like this in a simple fall or in the strenuous motion of pulling up one of the traps; nor could she have caused the ghoulish bruises, finger-shaped, that marred said wrist and her face.
"Come back to bed," he said tiredly, holding out his hand. With her good hand, she took it, and got gratefully into the camp bed. John picked up her empty cup, walked to the other side of the shelter, came back with two cups of fresh, cool water.
"Tell me," was all he said as they sipped at the water, watched the fire crackle and dance, and listened to the howling storm outside.
Pocahontas could not miss the fact that he'd also come to bed with his pistol, placed it on the floor next to his side of the bed.
His side of the bed ... unbidden, thoughts entered her mind and she hoped he would just account the sudden heat in her cheeks to the warmth of the fire.
His side of the bed ... Just as the unfamiliar tingle raced through her stomach, twisting pleasantly and bathing her in heat, she thought of something else, something that killed the heat with instant, frigid cold. She saw in her mind instead Ratcliffe's predation, remembered feeling the heat of his breath on her face as he panted out his confession. She closed her eyes, shook her head to clear it, and put down her empty cup. She rubbed John's arm for comfort, taking solace in him. Solace in the little things: the soft curly hair on his arms, the freckles that were patchworked all over his arms. She leaned her head down, inhaling his familiar scent-sandalwood, soap, gunpowder, salt-and brushed her lips over his shoulder for just a second. She met his eyes slowly as he looked at her in surprise, then simply just pulled her closer; she nuzzled her face against his chest, feeling the beat of his heart against hers.
"John," she said, measuring a beat or two before she continued, "Ratcliffe is alive, he is here ... he attacked me. He has spies ... he followed us out here ... he plans to ... to kill my father ... to kill everyone ..."
John Smith could not believe what he was hearing, but to be fair, he could not quite believe the events of the past few hours, either, had actually transpired. It all felt so surreal: This was to have been an uneventful hunting trip with the remote possibility of having to stay for one night. Instead, now, the woman he loved had been injured and very nearly drowned in a freezing, violently churning river... and now she was claiming that the person who had injured her and pushed her into said water was their old shared enemy.
He gently eased her off of him, pulled back a little, hitting the wall softly as he pressed his back against the pillows.
"WHAT?" he exclaimed in utter shock. "JOHN RATCLIFFE DID THIS TO YOU?"
The naked earnestness in her eyes, enormous with shocked truth, convinced him alone, bolstered by the injuries he could see on her body. The man had always had a violent streak ...
"Yes. He is here. He is alive."
"Jesus Christ!" John swore, with several more expletives following the name of his Lord.
Slowly, she relayed the whole story.
John listened without interruption, without exclamation, his face fallen in shock and sadness, his mouth set in a grim line.
"So, he thinks that you are dead," John said after a long silence fell after she finished talking, "and he seeks to kill me this night."
"Yes," Pocahontas said, the tremble in her voice replaced by anger and a hardness crystallized out of the fear for those that she loved.
"Jesus," John whispered, and slowly, he got up, taking the pistol with him. Pocahontas watched him stride to the door, tall and lean and well-muscled, aching for a sense of safety as he departed from her side and something-a sob, a scream, a prayer-lodged in her throat; she let out a shaky breath as John opened the door to the camp shelter, walked out. The shadows had shifted as the afternoon had passed and it was now dark, night had fallen early as it does in winter. More time had passed than they had comprehended from the time he rescued her til now.
It was several long, horrible minutes before he returned. In that time, Pocahontas roused herself out of bed, put on her stockings, which were now dry, and pulled out a glass jar from their food storage shelf. Glass jars were a genius invention from the English. This one held ingredients for a meal ready to be cooked with hot water. She next reached into a wooden crate and pulled out a paper-wrapped chunk of meat, something the English called salt pork.
More time passed and in it she had gotten some dinner warming in a pot by the fire in the hearth. She had to do something to distract herself from the danger they both knew they were in; she focused on the sounds of cooking and stirring, the sound of the fire, to push out of her mind imaginary gunshots and cries of alarm.
She added water to the thick stew, savoring the smell of the warming dish-a stew made of corn and mild green peppers, a type of white bean that was bland on its own; the salt pork. She stirred the stew as it warmed, calm and quiet, humming her nephew's favorite lullaby to herself.
More time passed. By the time the door opened, dinner was ready.
John came in, a gust of snow with him. He stamped it off of his spare pair of boots and shook it out of his spare coat, hanging it on the peg by the door. Without a word, he hung his rifle over the door, but kept his pistol at his side.
"Smells good," was all John said as he washed up at the basin.
He came to sit by her, only to find that she was glaring at the door as if it had offended her.
"A flimsy lock will not keep him out."
"Who says it's flimsy? You know Carter-he's the best locksmith the colony could ask for," John said, trying to lighten the mood. He leaned down, kissed Pocahontas' bare shoulder, closing his eyes and in those seconds savoring the softness of her skin, the softness of the wool overshift she wore, lean muscles of her arm under his fingertips, and the delicious smell of their evening meal wafting around them.
This moment: This was the domesticity he wanted, no, craved after spending his twenties as a carefree bachelor. He wanted a wife to delight and protect and cherish, dinner on the table every night, church on Sunday, friends around the table when the mood struck ... a slower life, a calm one.
And now an old enemy threatened that prospect of bliss. It was merely a prospect still, as when he had first met her Pocahontas had been younger. And he had stayed here in Jamestown for two years, helping grow it, becoming successful in his own right and slowly, properly courting her. He had not even asked her father yet for permission to marry her. Their initial relationship had been hasty, in a haze of danger. He wanted to take his time, and now he felt like he was being cheated out of time he had earned, made to rush and race again to save something he loved, thrust into that haze of danger again.
That evil-minded bastard, Ratcliffe.
But Ratcliffe, try as he might, could not steal this moment.
"Shall we have dinner?" John murmured as he kissed behind her ear, threading his fingers through her hair with a feather-light touch, making her shiver. Her answer was a long, slow kiss. Something had stirred within them both, put into motion by the events of the day.
"I was so worried you would not come back," Pocahontas whispered between kisses. His assurance that she need not have worried was a low moan of passion as he kissed her neck. "I will always be here," he whispered as he kissed his way up to her face. They stilled their movements as he gazed in the firelight at the damage done. Anger fueled kisses and touches so possessive that she found herself, after a time, gasping for him to stop.
His anger at his old enemy melted once again into passion for the woman he loved; he relented and his affections became soft, gentle, slow once more. And she responded in kind.
So, they didn't eat dinner until several long, long minutes later, after a proper kissing session. When they finally composed themselves, John's shirt was off. Rather than leave it rumpled on the bed Pocahontas put it on-her woolen overshift had been lovingly unbuttoned and taken off. She had a furious blush in her cheeks that, John noted with satisfaction, didn't fade long after she had washed up for dinner.
So they ate in content silence, with the occasional sly glance at one another, stirring stew with racing pulses and lifting spoons to kiss-swollen lips.
"I gather you did not find him out there," Pocahontas said well into the meal as she served herself more stew, unwilling to say the man's name. She ate her dinner with a single minded eagerness, her hunger fueled by her brush with death. Never had a meal tasted so good: butter, something she had not had before the English introduced her to it, melted into the cornbread and dripped into the stew; the salt pork melted on her tongue in a salty, meaty softness; the stew, a staple of her childhood, tasted new, the flavors of the vegetables vibrant and sunkissed.
"No," John said as he broke off a small piece of warm cornbread and put it in her bowl. "I couldn't really see much of anything on account of the snow. Tomorrow I should have better vantage."
"You know I'm going with you tomorrow," Pocahontas said in a tone that said she was not in the mood to argue, before taking another bite.
"But of course," John said deferentially in a light teasing tone with a grin, causing her to smile for the first time in hours. Smiling made her bruised face hurt.
They savored their meal, refilling cups of water at leisure, secretly licking butter off of fingers when one thought the other party wasn't watching.
After dinner they washed the dishes, then took the metal tub for washing dishes out the door, chucking the dirty water out. Pocahontas then poured fresh water into their washbasin. "The water should warm up by the time we go to bed," she said as she took the broom from the corner and swept the hearth where they had eaten their meal, exclaiming at the cold blast as she swept the dust and dirt out the door.
"It's freezing!" she exclaimed unnecessarily, and as she put the broom back in its corner, rolled her eyes at John, who was laughing.
"Come here," he said through laughter, and embraced her. "You're just the sort of wife I want," he murmured as he kissed the top of her head.
They were distracting themselves, that much was clear. But she wanted the distraction to last as long as it possibly could.
"What sort of wife would that be?" she murmured with a grin, starting to laugh too.
John's mood was darkening as his anxiety tainted it, but he tried to keep it light. "The kind who wears my shirt and fixes my dinner and insists on coming with me, no arguments," he said, kissing her. "And the kind who is brave and always tells me the truth." He stroked her face lovingly, ran his hands through her hair. "You know that I love you, Pocahontas. I love you. I know I don't say it enough."
She hugged him tightly. "I know you love me," she said fiercely, "Your love is in everything you do."
They stood there, embrace unbroken, while the blizzard howled its way over the land where they now knew their enemy lurked. With a final squeeze, he let her go.
"I suppose we should go to bed in a few hours. No help is coming tonight." She shrugged, knowing he was right. The plan was that if they did not return to the Jamestown after tomorrow night, her father would send a party out to look for them.
"You are right. We are on our own tonight." The couple jumped as a log in the fire snapped and a spark flew; John watched Pocahontas' long dark eyelashes fan across her cheeks as she stared at the flames licking the blackened log with a devouring rapidness.
"Will we be safe?" she whispered. "Ratcliffe thinks I am dead. He plans to come here for you, to convince you to end your life ..."
"Darling." Pocahontas stopped fretting, looked at the man she loved, her hand at her mouth in a nervous gesture as if she was about to gnaw on a fingernail or two. "There's two of us and one of him. The shock of the surprise will surely put him off his game." This seemed to calm her for just a second before she started pacing, hand at her lips again.
"Do you intend to kill him?" she asked
Damn her for asking such intelligent questions all the time.
"Only if he hurts you. I would much prefer to get you home safely. Once you're safe at Reverend Whitaker's, I would rather hunt him down with a band of men and make sure he gets justice back in England. That's a long answer to your question."
"Yes," Pocahontas said, "But we do not know how many men he has with him. He has spies everywhere in Jamestown."
"Darling, please don't get worked up. I want you to rest. You almost died today."
"You're speaking from experience?"
"As one who has had a few brushes with death, some more serious than others, I can safely say that you need to rest, my love. Get ready for bed. I'll be right beside you. I'm not leaving you," he finished softly as tears filled his eyes despite an effort at control. He held out open arms.
She moved into them feeling less like a capable nineteen year old and more like a scared child, and for the first time that day, tears flowed freely, washing the mortal dread out of her mind and soul and body. She had almost died. They were both scared and shocked and reacting to this reality every second without realizing it.
She had nothing left, eventually. Eventually, she was all cried out. She felt so drained, so heavy. She wanted to break into a thousand pieces of glass and blow away in the wind. But she was not made of glass, she knew, as she and John lay snug in their bed.
But glass did not have certain needs. She gently moved out of John's embrace, slid off the bed, got her spare pair of moccasins from her bag. She put on his coat and made to slip out of the door.
Her fingers were on the lock. "Take the pistol," was all he said.
While John waited for her, he surreptitiously wiped away some tears of his own.
Then it was his turn. While he was gone, Pocahontas cleaned up at the washbasin, alert to every creak of the floor, every groan of the branches outside. She glanced at the door constantly, her mouth full of cinnamon paste one moment, her face full of soap suds the next.
Relief flooded over her when she saw him walk in the door, hang up the coat, put the pistol by the bed.
"Told you I would always come back," he said, whistling as he washed his hands and face, cleaned his teeth.
"The comb is on the shelf behind you. Your hair is tangled," was all she said.
Falling asleep later that night, after John read to her from a book he had brought in his bag, was no effort for either of them. As Pocahontas drifted off, her body lurched, feeling as if it was falling into nothing. "Shh," John murmured, putting his arm around her. He knew the lurching feeling very well. It often happened aboard ship and off-ship when one was first back on land. She murmured contentedly and snuggled into his bare chest, the heat from his body warming her through her thin cotton shift.
They both awoke at some point.
"Pocahontas," he whispered after a while, "are you asleep?"
"Was," she murmured, her voice slurry with sleep.
"Marry me," he sighed into her hair as he rolled over and stretched. She did the same, snuggling up to his back, laying her head on his shoulder, a smile on her lips.
"Yes."