mother,” Smyth said. “You’ll have a hard time convincing them. Putting him to good use makes sense. I’ll put it before the council.”
Afterwards Smyth told me, “It wasn’t easy. Almost half resent him. The Governor and the others finally agreed that you could take him hunting. You will be solely responsible for him, and under no circumstance is he to be given a firearm.”
One day, while walking towards the settlement carrying two wild turkeys, Moyock put his hand on my arm. “Listen….”
We stopped walking, but I didn’t know what he was hearing. “A bird warns us.” Moving on a few yards he stopped again. He motioned for quiet. The silence was ominous. These thick forest muffle sound like a blanket of gun cotton. “Someone creeps behind us.”
I still couldn’t hear, or see anything unusual. Why was anyone following us? We looked back down the trail. No one in sight. Whomever Moyock heard, didn’t want to be seen. I said, “We better warn the settlement.”
“Is only one person.”
As I turned, I heard a bowstring snap and the whirring of a rushing arrow. Moyock jammed his turkey against me. An arrow pierced his bird where I’d been standing. The archer gave up any pretense of silence and ran back down the trail. We dropped our birds and ran after him. When he left the trail and disappeared, we lost him. Examining his trace, and the place from where he shot, Moyock said, “Look at his foot prints. He was wearing moccasins, but see how he runs. I do not think he was a Natural.”
“Hmmm. That is very strange. I wonder who among us is mad enough to shoot at me…and why…and who in moccasins?”
We picked up our birds and resumed walking to the settlement. We paused every now and then for Moyock to listen. “I think he is gone,” Moyock said. “The killer failed. We have been warned. He won’t be back.”
When I told Captain Smyth what happened, he questioned Moyock. “This looks like a Natural arrow to me. How do you know the archer was not a Natural?”
“No, poorly made, noisy arrow. He run fast on toes, dig in. Naturals run smooth, not leave trail. Arrow common. Could be anyone’s.”
“How do you know he wasn’t shooting at you instead of Allen?”
“Could be, if poor archer.”
“I think you have more white enemies than Allen. What about that, Squire Allen? Do you have any personal enemies here in Jamestown?”
I thought about that before answering Captain Smyth. I didn’t think it prudent to mention my London escapade. “None that I know of by name, Captain. There’s some that resented me from the first, and many more since I’ve befriended Moyock. Don’t know of anything that warrants killing, but these hard times might cause some to be deranged.”
“Aye. Maybe you are a scapegoat for their own problems.”
“There’s another possibility. If he’d succeeded in killing me with an arrow, Moyock might have been blamed for it.”
“Indeed. Now it’s late. Don’t miss chapel.” Even out on the trail Captain Smith paused for a quick prayer.
Considering how rigid compliance with our own religious practices were, I said, “I’m surprised there aren’t missionaries amongst us to convert the heathen Naturals.”
Captain Smith said, “Just as well we don’t have any priests with us. Probably cause no end of trouble with the Powhatan. Hard telling what they worship. Out in the woods I’ve seen some structures that might be Natural temples. I thought it best to leave them alone.”
When I asked Pungo about the Powhatan religion, he mumbled a few words about, maybe a demon, an Okee. His attitude made me mildly curious about this Okee.
With Moyock’s increasingly obvious talents, I began to think he would be a good companion on the trail to the Grail. I’ll have to train him to work with, and ride the horses bareback. I had the only saddle in Jamestown and wasn’t about to part with it. Considering the opposition to him, I