{"sf1_id":857502,"sf2_id":null,"title":"Naantam, Naantam","author":"Aux Chiens","words":5428,"posted_at":"2015-05-06T08:20:00.000Z","tags":["Attempted Rape","Colonial","Cum","Curse","Horror","Hybrid","Jamestown","Knot","Lycanthropy","Powhatan","Revenge","Sheath","Transformation","Werewolf","indian","native","scary","semen","spooky","virginia","weird","witch"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/857502-naantam-naantam","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/857502","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=857502\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"","content":"They have supposed that there is something in the soil, climate\nand other circumstances of America, which occasions animal nature to degenerate,\nnot excepting the man, native or adoptive, physical or moral._________ \nThomas\nJefferson, Notes On the State of\nVirginia\n            In the meridian years of the Seventeenth Century, before\nCromwell rose in wrath against his sovereign Charles the First, in the wild New\nLands across the Atlantic, there lived in what Raleigh had called Virginia in honor of his Queen whose\nsuccessor would murder him, a vast race of Indians who were doomed to suffer at\nthe hands of white-skinned folk from faraway England. To them the English\nlanguage owes the words that mean the creatures of the wood and the wood itself:\nskunk and possum and raccoon and hickory and others; the strangers from\nEurope called them Powhatan, after\ntheir great chief whose daughter, Pocahontas, has since passed into legend.\n            Amongst the people of what the English then called the\nShire of Warrosquyoake there was reputed to have lived a most beautiful witch,\nas fearful with power as she was sublime with beauty. She had dealt with the\nsettlers behind the scenes, so much as historians can tell, for Opechancanough\n- Spelman tells the story at least partially in his Relation - during the uneasy years when that great king of his\npeople was warring with whom he saw as stranger invaders in tall wooden ships.\n            She was prim, tall for a woman, with long black glistening\nhair that fell to her waist, the color of jet, it truly shimmered in the\nlooming Tidewater sun. She had almond-shaped eyes set in a comely, symmetrical\nface, and a small, witty mouth that gave away nothing when she spoke. Her\nvoice was cool and commanding but in private it was soothing and reassuring,\nbut never did she lose her nerve; she knew her station as a woman was different\namongst her people than it was to the English, still, she never, to either,\nwavered, nor showed weakness.\n            She impressed all who knew her, white and native, with her\nknowledge of the world and its workings: it was her to whom the court of Opechancanough\nconsulted for help with herbs and plants, and the movement of the stars and\nwhat they meant, and she was wise in this, much wiser than her fellows who were\nwise already, much wiser than the English. She knew the language of birds and\ncould speak to them and ask where they found fish and where the berries were\nripest; she knew which mushrooms could be eaten for taste and which could cause\nvisions and which were dangerous to eat too.\n            But apart from her naturalism, which was respected, she was\nfeared also, for all the strange and hidden things were her domain as well,\ngifted in their knowledge since she was a girl, in the unremembered days before\nthe English came.\n            She knew the ghosts that lived amongst the cypress and\nwould call on them when there was a problem even she could not solve; she was\nwell-versed in the esoteric lore of her region, like the mysterious people,\nthere before her own were, into the mountains far to the west, that worshipped\nthe dog descended from the wolf, and knew of their strange and alien ways, and\nthose too of they who were antlered like a deer, in the south and to the west,\nwho burned hazelnuts in their Autumn fires for queer and inscrutable rituals.\n            There were skunks that sprayed their noxious musk about her\nwell-appointed wigwam to ward off trespassers that she commanded, or so the\ntale was spun, and too, a brigand of raccoons that would offer her nuts and\nfruit. Sometimes there were long, lonesome howls of a wolf - again, so the\nstory went - far away from their homes in the more distant forests and hills, and\nmore than once a reliable witness had seen a great grey wolf offer her a kill\nfor cooking. \n            About these, all of these, were persistent whispers amongst\nthe Powhatan who never fully trusted or accepted her - repeated back as hearsay\nto the English who had, on a vast new continent, rather good reason to be\ngullible - that none of these furry creatures had been born that way, no, that\nonce they were men and women who had crossed her, or done her a wrong.\n            She had a name that was older than Powhatan himself, before\nthat great monarch passed into a demonym for his people, but that had been lost\nto time. So the people called her Ohawas, which in the breathless, hypnotic\nlanguage of the Powhatan meant crow,\nfor like the crow she was intelligent, like the crow she was spiteful. \n            And like the crow she was always beautiful, like the crow\nshe never seemed to age. \n            For how long she lived and for how long she had dwelt there\nin that part of Virginia, history will never know, but certainly she had been\nthere for longer than most could remember and far antedating the colonists.\n            She lived peaceably enough, isolated, along the body of\nwater that her people called Warraskoyak, which\nbristled at the time with fat, handsome pecan trees - undisturbed by the feuds\nof the Powhatan with the subjects of Charles Stuart, King of France, England,\nScotland and Ireland, meditating and exploring the unseen realms amongst the\nblack clouds of aromatic tobacco.\n            One\ndusk in the equinoctial days of Springtime, when the dogwoods were blooming and\nthe pecans too though it was harder to tell, with sounds of bees buzzing about\nonce again, a young huntsman came across her wigwam. He had gotten hopelessly\nturned around looking for the settlement which, a century hence, would be\ncalled Smithfield.\n            His\nname was Edward Tucker, and his lot was a mercenary, now a gatherer of game,\nwho came to this continent seeking that ineffable life's meaning that would not\nbe found on the one he came from. He would not be here, either in this\ndarkening forest or in Virginia Colony either one, were it not for his brother\nNicholas, smarter than he no doubt, better sense of direction most certainly. It\nwas by his encouragement that he came from Chichester; they lived together, with\ntheir small little hound, Boy, in their mud-and-stud house they had built\ntogether, but he was nothing without him, as tonight surely proved. His brother\nwas not an honest man, and in fact could be said to be a very bad man, whose\ndealings with the natives had been dishonest and sometimes violent, but at his\nheart he was still his brother, at his heart he was still family, and he was,\nin any case, a better man, a more skilled one, a smarter one.\n            Now,\na slain turkey over his shoulder, slim pickings, hanging, he was alone - he was\nlost, and though he did not know where he was, he was certain where he had\nended up.\n            He\napproached the dwelling, lonesome amidst the thick pecan trees and the dogwoods\nthat slumbered aneath them, the rank smell of skunk lingering - he approached\nit warily, for even he had heard the rumors of the powerful witch-woman, and\nbelieved him, he of near-pure stock from the race of Alfred the Great, who had\nlived near his whole life in a country which still had as point-of-fact a\nmonarchy of fairies, dangerous sorcerers amidst the nobility, black dogs that\nforetold death.\n            His, and his countrymen's, whole world was haunted - but he\nwas about to enter her world, for\nhunger, worry, and the approaching night got the better of his superstition.\n            He\napproached the door, covered by a hung buckskin, and asked in a loud, clear\nvoice if he could enter, he had lost his way and needed shelter for the night.\n            He\nwas answered, to his surprise, in his native tongue - to be bade enter.\n            He\nknelt to enter, pushing aside the buckskin, at once coughing and waving his\nhand before his face at the voluptuous miasma of tobacco smoke - he heard a\nvoice, again in the language that he himself spoke, accented, apologizing,\nsuggesting they exit for the moment so that they could speak while her wigwam\nwould air out.\n            Into\nthe dusk they both stepped - and he was stunned by what he saw.\n            Still coughing, squinting, still, by the light of the setting Sun that plunged out into the\nwest he beheld her, her beauty he thought was exaggerated was in fact woefully\nunderstated - by the light of the setting Sun she was the most beautiful\ncreature he had ever laid eyes on. What little breath he could draw, by and by,\nhad been taken away.\n            She,\nfor her part, was of the same mind - this man was rugged, fit, handsome, hardened\nSussex iron, a full blondish beard with premature wisps of grey, and his\ndemeanour was rather quite unlike the other English that she had met, he\ncarried with him an endearing fear, a wariness, a sense that he did not belong\nhere, so unlike the arrogance and the imperiousness of his brethren...at least\nnot what she could see.\n            When\nshe inquired what brought him out here, he hesitated, he even stuttered - how embarrassing\nthat so like a foreigner, stranger in a strange land so went the saying, that\nhe did not know, simply, he did not know how\nhe got out here and how he had gotten lost. \n            She\nwaved her hand and asked him to be silent - it was not uncommon for travelers out\nfrom the path back to the settlement to lose their way, would he not stay the\nnight? The forest could be - unsafe.\n            Surely\nI must not impose, inferred he.\n            And\nshe rejoined that, nay, for while my abode is humble, yet - I see, there, a\nturkey you've caught already, how fortunate, come behind my dwelling, we will eat\nwell this night.\n            Edward\ncould scarcely believe his luck - that such a beautiful woman would be so\ngenerous. As they moved to where she cooked her food, a great open-air hearth\nwith a fire beneath it, he took the turkey off his shoulder and dressed and cleaned with\nsome tools she provided, with some berries, she insisted, knowing that no scout\nwent ahead without them, for taste and texture.\n            It\ntook an hour, perhaps two, for the meat to become done. He watched her all the\nwhile, they spoke of generalities but as the dusk grew dark and the faint trill\nof the first crickets of the year began singing their own names they turned to\npersonal things.\n            Family?\nNo family had she - long dead, but, she said with a smile that foretold\nsomething, something he dismissed internally as heathen spirit nonsense no\nmatter how pretty and no matter how good a hostess she was, they were still\nhere, and she spoke to them when she could.\n            Feeble-minded\nheresy of the unbaptized - yet still her words charmed him, for they came from\na comely face.\n            Was there not a wolf that lived round these\nparts?\n            She\nsmiled again, that smile that hid some basic broader truth to her answer: Aye, a strong one, but he is gone now.\n            And\nso it was! How unfounded the rumors were! No cruel witch, no foul sorceress,\nbut a charming, misunderstood young woman - perhaps some personal conflict had\narisen in her village and she was driven out here, or perhaps some misfortune\nhad befallen a relative who had lived there previously.\n            They\nsupped together on the turkey, roast on her hearth.\n            She\nwas so charmed by this man, this bearded man with the kind green eyes, that her\nnatural defenses had been, as the hours wore on, lessened and lightened - not all\nof the whiteskins were bad, some of them, she told him, quite lovely, the\nmothers doting on their children and the husbands grieving those they lost,\nwhich was often, but such is the lot of man, isn't it so, to lose as well as\ngain? \n            He\nagreed - there was much to gain here, much to gain indeed, if one knew were to\nlook, and where to look hard enough.\n            There\nwas an incredulity to his words that she did not detect, that she would have\nknown had she not, for the first night in too many nights to count, actually\ntrusted a stranger. \n            Edward\ncould have been said to have been the most thoughtful man, unlike his brother\nwho carefully calculated all he did, and rarely did anything without planning -\nit had gotten Edward into trouble before, after all, part of the reason he had\nto depart Chichester was a nasty business involving wanting a certain baker\nwanting to duel him because he had, so as was accused, partook of carnal\nknowledge with his daughter in a forceful way.\n            But\nhere in the New Lands such a thing would be much harder to prove - and indeed,\nwith this woman, who would think to wonder at all? She lived alone, this squaw,\nso isolated from either her own people or his - and it had been so long, too\nlong, since had such a rare and gorgeous prize.\n            Moment\nby moment his temptation grew. He was said to be the most well-endowed man in\nthe settlement by the bawdy gossips - he would not deny it, nor would he deny\nthe violent splashing passion that now submerged him.\n            Tonight,\nin fact, he should prove it, and claim this woman as he and his brother claimed\nalready much of the Virgin Land.\n            Is\nit minded if he removed his clothes? All day he has been travelling and hunting,\nand now I will spend the night as you wished me to.\n            She\nmade no objection, and to the contrary, the river was not far, there they could\nbe washed come daybreak.\n            The\ntrap was set.\n            Would you partake of this pipe with me, traveler?\nIt is not much but the most I can offer afore we go to bed.\n            And\nhe readily agreed.\n            He\nwould have her. What of it? A mere squaw - no great witch she, a mere squaw.\nThis would be easy.\n            And\nso as she knelt, back turned, sitting upon the ground to light the pipe, the\ncrickets chirping and the stars bright and oceanic above them - as she knelt, he\ngrabbed her, roughly, hands on her shoulders, gripping them to pull her up, turn\nher around.\n            She\ncried out in her own tongue in shock and surprise - he smiled at her, a finger\nto his lips.\n            Shhh.\n            She\nglanced down, his virile member at the ready - large, very large, rather larger\nthan any she had seen amongst those she lain with, peeking out of the foreskin,\nplump and insistent. It had risen, hard, a sword to pierce and wound her -\nperhaps, to slay her.\n            But\nnever - she was nobody's prey, she was nobody's meat, she was not a turkey-bird\nthat could be shot and consumed, to be forgotten.\n            Her\neyes narrowed, and shoved him back, with a preternatural strength that belied\nher waifish form, that stunned him as he fell backward on his rear.\n            All you whiteskins are the same, I was wrong,\nso very wrong, for since you have come here you have taken what is not yours, you\nhunger and ravish - as a wolf!            While\nhe was on the ground he struggled to stand up - furious that a puny squaw would\ndeny him.\n            She spat on the ground. That would you be\nthis monstrous in the face of my hospitality! But no monster yet - monster soon\nenough!\n            A\nsmall  puff on her long clay pipe still\nin her hand - and a spew of smoke into his face.\n            Your amercement would be great, your penalty\nshall be forever.\n            For\nthe second time that night he wheezed with the acrid cloud of the tobacco-weed,\nbut this was harsher, this struck and burnt his lungs in his ribcage, he found\nhimself out of breath and out of vision, blurred immediately, so that the only\nsense he could trust was his hearing.\n            And\nso heard he: Begone from my house!\n            Off\nhe ran, he tore from that accursed wigwam where dwelt that awful temptress,\nsubmerged at once in the fetid wind of the skunk, the quavering trill of the crickets,\nthe crawling shadows that swam in the forest of the pecan trees, losing his\nfooting, half-naked, sliding into the grass.\n            The\nblood that pulsed in his temples pounded, pounded like a cannonade that was\nshot off every second, and in the space between he heard that woman's voice,\nsoft but assured, gentle but malicious: for\nyou hunger and ravish - as a wolf.\n            At\nonce he felt it - his whole body was a consumed ember, so hot and so ablaze\nwith fever he felt as though his insides were cooking, roasting, like a turkey\non a hearth. He cried out to God Almighty, but the heat would not abate, no, in\nfact it grew worse, and worser still, until he could not bear it any longer and\nhe put his whole arm in his mouth to try and tear the skin off, for with the heat\nhad come a madness that shouted in his head and screamed in his mind.\n            He\nlost his balance in this awkward position and toppled over, his back into the\ngrass that was bathed in the inkiness of the night that his now febrile consciousness\nwas certain was going to devour him whole.\n            His\neyes swam in his skull - down he looked, all the way to the riverbank that\nchoked by those infernal pecan trees and the flowering dogwoods that phosphoresced\nhideously in the moon, down, to his own flesh...\n            ...flesh\nthat was not his own flesh.\n            He\nsaw erupt from it, every pore, fine hairs, a bloom of carpeted fur, down his\nchiseled form, down to his member, which even in the moonlight had become red\nand enflamed as though swollen from some nameless malady.\n            He\nwatched it, his senses returning just briefly enough to let him into the Hell\nthat he was soon descending. He watched it change.\n            What\nhad been his pride, when he could be ribald and vulgar amongst his\nfellow-soldiers in England and the sailors on the way here, so much larger and\neasier to please a woman than anyone he had met, was becoming, as he watched,\nsomething vile, something monstrous.\n            It\nwas stiff and ready as it was before when he had attempted to ravish the woman,\nbut overly so, bloated, obscenely full, uncomfortable to a special pain - the\nhead, familiar rounded shape, began to taper, like the end of a spear, moment\nby moment, until it was sharpened and pointed. His foreskin bloomed in the same\nfur, his testicles, a hot itch that he could not scratch as every muscle in his\nbody convulsively cramped at once.\n            His\nlegs had burst from foot to waist with still more of the fur - blondish-grey,\nas his beard, as his coarse bodyhair already - but it was not uniform, but in\npatches, long stretches of fur with streaks of still-smooth skin. So it was\nwith his hands: his left spasmed and twitched but his right did not, the palm\nof his left darkened and then hardened, leathery, in oblong splotches to make pawpads\nwhilst his right remained as he was born - human,\nyet still.\n            He\nfelt a pressure, ambient, then mild, then unbearable, at his seat - his\ntailbone had descended and ripped out from his skin, a spray of blood that\ncoated the soon-meated bone with more fur, fur that erupted out of his ears\nwhich twisted and point up, up into points, both sides of his head.\n            His\nhands went to his face, where inside his mouth he could feel his teeth grow,\nand grow again, until against his lips were pressed fangs, fangs stretched his face even as he felt the bones in his\nskull pop, and reshape, to give him a nauseating near-muzzle.\n            And\nfinally, in his deepest humiliation - naked, deformed - he felt his member grow\nand swell once more, at the base, a firm new muscle swollen and hot, bulging\nout from the foreskin that had thickened into a fat sheath.\n            His\nbody was revolting against him - he felt his penis engorge and become corpulent\nwith a pleasure he did not wish to have, but it built and built until he was\nhelpless to it, the seed bursting forth, spraying his own body, fur and skin,\nup to his muzzle and into his eyes, a gush, a wave, of sticky fluid that reeked\nof animal, a pack of unwashed dogs diseased with mange...\n            ...not\ndogs, not dogs, no, but wolves, for\nhe had ravished as one, and would live as one - incomplete, not to be given the\nbeautiful grey shape, but only there at the halfway, imperfect and unwanted by\nnature and by man.\n            The\nlast thing he would ever recollect with a conscious human mind was a cackle\ncoming from somewhere near him, and then all around him, an unending cacophony\nin his ears - a laughter, a high mocking laughter, a woman's laughter, yes, that\npassed into the japing, amelodic call of a crow, dozens, scores, great hundreds\nof crows all cawing in awful, awful unison.\n            He\nscreamed for the sound to stop - but all that emerged from that misshapen face\nwas a long, lonesome, baleful howl...\n            ...a\nhowl that a man with a torch searching for him with a little dog by his side\nheard at once.\n            Where\ncould his brother have gone? Was not the path back to the settlement clear\nenough? Ah, his older brother would surely be the death of him - thinking only\nwith his flintlock and his prick, it was a marvel he had survived and prospered\nwith him in this wilderness.\n            Nicholas\nhad known his brother Edward to be clumsy, to be reckless, but never to be\nactually lost, never to be so inept\nas to not find his way home.\n            Where\ncould he be? This was far from the fort, where could he have gone wrong with\nhis sense of direction?\n            Out\nwith Boy by his side, he was determined to find him, even all the way out here,\na sense of unease he could not place rising inside him.\n            He\nheard the howl but it was Boy who caught his attention, running ahead, giving\ntongue to whatever it was that was ahead of him - Nicholas hustled, torch in\nhand, flintlock in the other, to catch up, but he had only a small distance to\ngo before Boy came bounding back...his little canine voice a flurry of panicked\nwhimpers.\n            Alarmed\nat his dog's own alarm, Nicholas\ntrekked forward still, that same uneasiness, however irrational, however\nunfounded, making him almost want to turn tail himself.\n            There\nin the ghastly admixture of Moon and torchlight, he beheld it - an eldritch\nthing, not quite wolf but not quite man, tortured and twisted and loping about\nas though in an agony that would never abate.\n            Boy\ngrowled, then bayed, but then whined, and then cowered behind him - his fear  palpable to his master, unnerved by this usually\nfoolhardy-brave dog's act of real terror.\n            What\nwas there, writhing in the grass, was an incomplete, deformed mass of fur and\nflesh - it was an asymmetric monstrosity, a wolf denuded, a man made furry -\nthere was a tail, there were paws, but there were hands, there were feet...there\nwas a muzzle, but there were eyes.\n            He\ncould scarcely believe it - was this a new creature, a strange new thing that\ndwelt here in these parts, unrecorded by wiser men? A nocturnal beast that only\ncame out at night?\n            But\nthen the thing crawled nearer, a living cloud of gurgling whines - a strangled,\ndesperate keening - and the torchlight through upon its face an awful truth.\n            Nicholas\ncried out in stark, dread horror. \n            The eyes - those green eyes that he also shared.\n            He\nchoked out the first syllable of his brother's name before it was dead on his\nlips.\n            His\neyes rose slowly - over the unyielding mournful cries of the beast before him,\nand the cowardly yips of his hound aneath him, he could see, into the forest of\npecan trees that danced in the shadows over clusters of leprous dogwoods, he\ncould see it, just barely, a solitary wigwam, the still-stoked fire of a hearth\nbehind it, homey clouds of smoke rising, up, up, into the treetops, the spirits\nof the past communing with the astral fantasies of the future.\n            And\nhe knew what had happened.\n            He\nhad been warned of the woman whose name meant crow, he had been warned not to stray too far near the pecan forest\nwhere lay thick and noxious the smell of the polecats - did not the Powhatan\ncall them skunks? - for there dwelt\nsomeone who was a great sorceress, who communed with birds and who knew the\nsecrets of the land that his countrymen, by hubris and folly, had tried to\nclaim as theirs.\n            Edward\nhad wandered too far - he had gotten lost - and by his own poor judgment and\nmistakes, had been turned into the craven monster before him.\n            He\nwas crushed by grief, immediate, needling, he was swallowed by a sorrow that he\nhad never before felt in his life, not when they had buried their mother far\naway across the ocean, not when they left England together to die, ignobly,\nhere.\n            The\nthing made sounds at him - guttural noises that may have been human speech, may\nhave been trying to tell him something - a furry forearm rose, the hand was\npadded at the bottom like the paw of a great beast, claws shone luridly in the torchlight.\n\n            He\nswallowed - hard - and hesitated, tried to make sense of this, this tragedy\nthat defied words and logic. \n            And\nthen - with a steadiness he did not feel - he raised his gun. \n            The\nthing that had been his brother would not, could not, should not, suffer to\nlive as he was.\n            A\nshot was fired, a bloody mess made of the chest cavity of the creature that had\nbeen his brother, Edward Tucker.\n            It\nwas done.\n            Boy\ncame forward, tentatively, his little black nose twitching in the air at the\nmangled corpse - he growled again, then back to Nicholas' heels.\n            In\nhis infinite despair, awash with a misery he could barely understand, his\nthoughts blank with the blackest sadness, Nicholas did his brother one last\nfavor - he threw his torch down onto his crumpled form, where he caught alight,\nand there in the grass of Virginia would he be cremated and laid rest.\n            He\nbid Boy to come, sobbing into his sleeve as he walked. \n            When\nhe returned to the settlement, the night-watch was there to greet him outside\nthe wooden gate.            The leader, a handsome fellow with blackish hair\nnamed Maximilian, who would disappear strangely himself in the next decade\nafter joining some privateers and battling the Great Gasparilla off the Spanish\nMain, came out to greet him:\n            Found you your brother, Tucker? Your brother\nwho went out hunting and never returned?\n            He\nshook his head, his voice choked with emotion, but for why, they would never\nknow, nor why also was his torch missing, or why his hound dog shivered, as though\nin fright, for two days after.\n            No, sirrah, I found him not - looked all over I\ndid, looked high and low I did, but my brother has vanished, he is no more, he\nsleeps now in Shepherd Jesus' tender arms.\n            That\nshould have been the final word, but Nicholas Tucker was not an honest man, he\nhad lied before and stolen from the natives and expanded his lands by devious\nmeans so perhaps, went the whispers, he would not even stop at killing his own\nkin.\n            There\nwas no proof, of course, and the controversy grew.\n            News\nof Edward Tucker's disappearance lit Jamestown and Neweportes Newes afire with\nrumor and speculation - weeks passed, and then at last it became apparent that\nsome grave ill had indeed befallen him while he was along the banks of that\nriver, near where the witch-woman was reputed to live.\n            It\ntook not long at all for the people come to a leap of logic: Edward Tucker had\nbeen slain, and slain deliberately, his body never found, not by the oily\nNicholas Tucker of Chichester, but by arcane and occult skill of the native\nsavage.\n            Nicholas\nTucker did his best to dismiss this, to explain that surely he had fallen into\nthe swamp and drowned, gotten lost and eaten by a wild beast...\n            ...all\nthe while remembering his brother's misshapen, warped, half-canid half-human\nface, chest bloodied by musket-shot.\n            Surely\nhis brother should do something to avenge his fallen kin! Done in, treacherous\nmurder, by the evil designs of the heathen magic of the savage witch-woman!\nWould not the man defend his family honor - indeed, the honor of England - by doing\nunto her as she had done to his brother?\n            Yet...Nicholas\ndid nothing. And was hated for it.\n            Some\nsay that his foresight was the better part of a stronger valor, for there would\nhave been, undoubtedly, strong and immediate reprisals by the Powhatan against\nthe English should their beloved woman-magician be killed, even in vengeance,\nby a whiteskin - already there was nervous talk in James Cittie of a coming\nconflict, which a decade hence would prove prophetic.\n            But\nothers say that this was Nicholas at his most self-serving and self-preserving -\nperish the thought of the whole colony under attack from the invaders, it was\nonly he, lowly planter, that he was ever concerned\nwith.\n            Nicholas\nnever - not once - told a soul what he saw that night. He thought the matter\nwould die, unlike his brother, in peace, but two full months passed before folk\nbegan demanding he do something about what had transpired so vociferously he\nwas left with no other choice. \n            He\nwas overcome - he sold his holdings, his slaves, and he fled west, never\nlooking back, perfectly content to be alone and perhaps even die alone, if only\nhe never heard his brother's name again.\n            The\nwitch-woman was left alone, and many years later when Middle Plantation was\ngiven the task of being the heart of the Virginia colony and then the name of\nKing William, she was not recorded as being where her wigwam is supposed to\nhave stood - she, like Edward Tucker, simply vanished, leaving no certainties\nto history.\n            When\nHarvey, the governor against whom the wrath of his countrymen was freshly\nroiling, heard of Nicholas Tucker's cowardice into the west, he sneered that\nthough Tucker had not a heavy heart of iron he had at least had a swift, light\nfoot - and much to his despair this was a moniker Nicholas Tucker could never\nshake off. \n            But\nwhen his son, also named Nicholas, moved with General Wood out past the New\nRiver, into the land of the phantom Azgens and the supposed race of natives who\nhad whites of their eyes that glowed like the full Moon, he would take the affixed\ntitle and reclaim it, to save his new American family face. \n            When\nhe reached the Greenbrier Valley with his freedman, Turner Jack, and there\nsettled, he was not Nicholas Tucker II - but rather Nicholas Lightfoot."}