As he spoke, a small group of men filled jugs from one of the barrels. They added a precise amount of water to a series of plants arranged in a row. When they were satisfied, they emptied the leftover water back into the barrel. Nothing was wasted.
“So your diet is mostly vegetables?” asked Ananias.
“No. We fish too: flounder . . . red drum, if we’re lucky. We mostly stick to the harbor, so there’s less risk of attracting sharks.” He pointed to the south. “There’s also a piece of land outside the fort walls—the peninsula, we call it. We keep chickens, and there’s an enclosure with goats. We have eggs and milk. We make cheese. This isn’t paradise, but I’d be amazed if there’s another colony that runs halfway as well as ours.”
He was right about that. It wasn’t just their ingenuity but also the way the colonists worked together. Kyte had kept strict control of everything on Hatteras, but that wasn’t the same. Where we’d been at odds for at least a year, these people acknowledged each other with respectful gestures.
While I admired their togetherness, Dennis continued to take stock of the fort itself. “What was this place?” he asked.
Chief gave a tight-lipped smile. “A long time ago, a civil war began right here in Fort Sumter. Such a large country ours, and so many people, all forced to choose a side: north or south. By the end, six hundred and twenty thousand people had died; two out of every hundred people.” He paused to let the words sink in. “And it all started here.”
We were silent then. It wasn’t hard to imagine the ghosts of men who had stood on this exact spot, wondering if things would ever be normal again. Or to imagine that someone might be standing here in another hundred years, wondering the very same thing.
“Our rules are simple,” Chief continued. “Everything is shared; everyone is equal. We bore witness to the end of the world, but those words have kept us alive. We welcome those who wish to count themselves survivors too. But we cannot make room for any who put themselves above the whole.”
A snapping sound to my right made me jerk around. Kell stood there, a wooden crossbow raised in line with his eyes. But there was no arrow. As he lowered the weapon, I followed his line of sight to a gull bleeding onto the ground about twenty yards away. The timing of his shot didn’t feel coincidental, either. It was as if he was warning us what might happen if we couldn’t follow the colony’s simple rules.
“You’ll clean that, Miriam,” commanded Chief, finger pointed at a young woman walking nearby. “Our guests will be hungry.”
Miriam hesitated. “But Chief, we shouldn’t—”
He raised a hand, silencing her. “They are malnourished and weak. We won’t prolong their suffering when we have the means to fix it.”
Miriam bowed deeply and walked briskly to the gull. By the time she reached it, Ananias was already there. He grabbed the bird by the neck and pulled out the arrow in a sharp movement. When he handed the bird to the woman, she wrapped it in a fold of her apron.
Ananias admired the arrow. He ran a finger across the tip and cleaned blood off the shaft with his tunic, leaving an angry red streak across his chest. “You waste nothing, right?” He held out the arrow, forcing Kell to come to him.
Like an animal sizing up its prey, Kell approached slowly, eyes fixed on Ananias. “I think we’ve just found us a hunter, Chief,” he said as he claimed the arrow. He nodded to himself, over and over. “Oh, yeah. Him and me are going to have some fun.”
CHAPTER 12
We ate dinner together in a giant circle. Chief made sure that the Sumter colonists left gaps for us new arrivals. He wanted to integrate us, starting now.
“Over here, Thomas.” Chief patted the ground beside him. “Sit down. We’ve got so much to talk about.”
Dinner was a stew of fish and shrimp and seaweed, cooked in several pots arranged over an open fire. The food was prepared and eaten outside so there would be less cleaning up to do.
The children who served the food stared at us, wide-eyed.
I sat cross-legged and accepted a bowl gratefully. My mouth watered at the smell of the fish. In that moment, everything seemed perfect: food, warmth, safety, and a spectacular orange-purple sunset over the fort’s main gate.
Beside me, Chief picked at the fish in his metal bowl. “You should slow down,” he whispered.
My hand hung in midair. I’d been gobbling steaming hot mouthfuls without even realizing it. “Sorry.”
“No apology necessary. It’s just important to eat slowly when you’ve gone without food for so long.”
I looked at the stew. I hadn’t eaten so well in days. “How did you know?”
He gave me a sad smile. “I know you’ve been through hell, Thomas. But you’ve landed now, and things will turn around.” He swept his hand through the air, indicating the circle of people eating peacefully in the twilight. “Ananias and Kell seem to have a lot to talk about. Your younger brother’s made a friend too, by the looks of it.”
I did a double take. Sitting directly across from me, partially obscured by the smoke from the fire, Griffin was signing to the dark-skinned girl who’d watched us from the battlements.
“Her name’s Nyla,” said Chief. “When you asked earlier if anyone was deaf, I couldn’t help thinking of her. When she first arrived at the colony four years ago, I wondered if she heard a word we said. Everyone needs time to adjust, but some need longer than others, I suppose.”
Having finished his food, Griffin was turned toward Nyla. She mimicked him as he produced one sign after another. On Hatteras, everyone but my family had been reluctant to learn his language, but Nyla seemed fascinated by him. When she repeated his signs, she was so clear that I understood her.
“The wheels are always turning with that girl. So much going on inside her head.” Chief rubbed his gray beard; it was cropped unevenly, the look of a man who didn’t feel the need to impress anyone. “Tell her something once, she’s got it. Same with her brother, Jerren.”
It didn’t take me long to spot Jerren. He and Nyla looked so different from everyone else. He rested his hands on his knees, staring at someone across the circle: Alice, it looked like. His expression was serious, as if he was trying to crack a particularly challenging problem.
Alice had noticed him too, that much was clear. From time to time she’d glance up, but she wouldn’t hold his gaze. He smiled every time.
The woman called Miriam handed Chief a small pot.
“Ah, the bird,” said Chief. “Have you eaten gull before, Thomas?”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Hmm. Well, you haven’t missed much. Such fat birds, and yet so little meat. Not the most pleasant thing, but you’re starving.”
“Me?”
“All of you. Tomorrow, we’ll fish. But for today, this’ll have to do.” He passed the pot to me and tapped the metal rim. “I’d appreciate it if you could distribute this among your clanfolk. But only them—everyone else here has less need of this than you.”
I felt all eyes on me as I stood. The Sumter colonists would have known what was in that pot, and they were probably hungry too. But there wasn’t much meat, and I wasn’t willing to disobey Chief’s instructions after such a generous offer.