1609, Winter of the Dead: A Novel of the Founding of Jamestown by Elizabeth Massie Page A

“What have you eaten that has you so crazed?”
    Jehu paused for a moment, then pulled several leaves from his pocket. They were ordinary-looking, with thorny stems. “These taste peculiar,” Jehu said. His eyes went shut, and then opened again, filmy and senseless. He dropped the leaves.
    â€œPut down the sword,” Nat said. “Please.”
    â€œBut the worms…!”
    â€œThere are no worms, man, listen to me!”
    There was whooping and shouting now at the fort. Nat looked up and saw three soldiers rushing down to the wheat garden, muskets at the ready.
    â€œDrop your weapon, Jehu!” said Nat.
    Jehu spun around on his toe and saw the soldiers racing at him. He shivered violently and raised the sword. “Devils!” he screamed. “You’ve devils in your midst!”
    â€œJehu,” said Nat. “There are no devils. Lower the sword.”
    â€œDon’t you see them?” shrieked Jehu. “God help me, they are sharp-toothed devils, come to slay me!”
    â€œNo!” said Nat.
    Jehu charged forward, out of the garden and up the ridge toward the men, brandishing his sword. There was a moment of silence as the men paused to aim the muskets and then there was an explosion as three muskets fired. One musket ball struck Jehu in his right shoulder, shattering it instantly and making him drop the sword. The other hit his right knee, and he collapsed with a wail on to the ground. The third lodged in the man’s gut, and his shirt flowered with a bright red blossom of blood.
    The men with the muskets came over cautiously and poked at Jehu with their shoes.
    â€œHe’s dead,” said one.
    â€œBrain fever of some sort,” said a third man. “He’s best off dead than a danger to himself and the rest of us.”
    But he might have recovered, Nat thought. If they had only disarmed him and put him in a cottage, he might have come through this in just a little while!
    â€œYou, boy,” said one man to Nat. “Help take this man into the fort. We’ll give him a proper burial.”
    Nat wanted to cry out at these men, to scold them for their haste, for now dead was a man who had no other thought over the past months than how he could help the settlement survive. But Nat could not cry out. He would not bring their wrath down on himself.
    Nat took Jehu’s arms and a soldier took his legs. They proceeded into the fortress, where he was laid in the chapel and Reverend Hunt bid all to attend a funeral service. The men gathered solemnly, helmets in hands, listening as the minister spoke of Jehu’s generosity and wisdom.
    Nat stood near the back beside the open doorway, between Nicholas Skot and Samuel Collier. Nicholas was clearly upset, and wiped his eyes with his hands as the reverend spoke. Samuel, for all his ingrained haughtiness, seemed distracted and dazed, staring down at his shoe tips and rolling his lips in and out between his teeth. It was hard to breathe inside the church, even though the building was not as crowded as it had been months ago with so many men dead. Nat’s chest ached in what was more than just heat exhaustion. Something harsh and stinging pressed behind his eyes. He thought not only of Jehu, but of Richard—poor Richard, vanished among the Powhatans and never heard from again—and of his dead mother and of the dead boy James Brumfield, killed on the shore of Cape Henry, and of the dead boys he had once thieved with back in England.
    If you cry, they will never again see you the way you want them to. You dare not cry, not now, not ever!
    Nat clenched one fist in the other, and bit the inside of his cheek until it bled. But the tears did not come.
    Jehu was buried within the fort. Then everyone went back to their normal routines, the gentlemen preparing for the next gold search, the councilors making sure laborers wasted no time on the construction of more cottages within the fortress, the