Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring)

Jamestown

Keepers of the Ring, Book 2

Angela Hunt

Copyright
© 1996, 2013 by Angela Hunt

Published by Hunt Haven Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any other means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without prior permission from the publisher.

Cover photo credits: Indian girl © Dmitriy Kapitonenko, Masted ship © Kovalenko Inna

ISBN:
061589335X

ISBN-13:
978-0615893358

For Buddy, LaDonna, Michael, and Jared Ritter

One

T
he river carried them away.

The little girl woke with a sharp tingling in her arm and shifted uncomfortably between the side of the canoe and the soft, plump body of her playmate. Noshi still snored gently beside her, but Fallon lay awake, his blue eyes wide and alert under the thin grass mat that covered them in the canoe.

“I’m hungry,” Gilda announced, looking to Fallon. At thirteen, he had often been entrusted with the care of the two younger children, and Gilda was accustomed to his careful authority. “Are we done with the hiding game?”

Fallon did not answer, but lay his finger across his lips and carefully stretched his long legs out towa
rd the bow of the canoe. A shaft of bright morning sunlight fell upon his freckled face as he gingerly lifted a corner of the woven grass mat, and Gilda saw him squint as he sniffed the air outside.

“Nothing,” he whispered, a satisfied smile flitting across his face. “Mayhap we can land the canoe here.”

With the inbred caution of one who had lived a lifetime in the wilderness, Fallon turned onto his stomach and slowly rose upon his knees. The canoe rocked gently in the water and the motion woke Noshi, who opened his eyes and thrust his thumb into his mouth. “Where’s Mama?” he mumbled around the thumb, his green eyes still heavy with sleep.

“You two stay under the mat,” Fallon whispered, dragging his hand in the water to turn the drifting canoe toward the shore. “Don’t move or say aught until I tell you there is no
danger.”

For the first time since waking, Gilda felt a tremor of fear. Last night her mama and papa had smiled as they kissed her and sent her to the river to play the hiding game, but their eyes had been dark and moist with tears. Fallon and Noshi’s parents had been serious, too, as they hugged the boys and told them to be careful. Gilda closed her eyes and remembered her mother’s fervent embrace. ‘Twas unusual for her mother and father to hug her so fiercely. And she had never been allowed to play a hiding game at night.

Gilda’s chubby hand reached for the strip of leather tied ‘round her neck. Her mother’s last gift to her, a gold ring, dangled from the supple leather. “Always remember the ring,” her mother had whispered after slipping the necklace around Gilda’s neck. “Know that I love you. And God will go with you always.”

God will go with me where?
Gilda tilted her head back to watch Fallon guide the boat. Why had the grownups sent the children away? And when would they be allowed to return?

She resisted the temptation to worry. Fallon was nearly a man, and old enough to take care of both her and Noshi. He would not let anything happen to them.

Fallon Bailie, son of the late Englishman Roger Bailie and proud stepson of Rowtag, a chief of the Mangoak tribe, quietly guided the canoe with his hands until the current pushed the boat onto a sandy beach. The air was clear here; he could smell nothing but the crisp scent of pine and the earthy perfume of spring. No aromas of Indian cook fires spiced the morning air, nor could he detect the bitter tang of destruction. The battle that surely raged at Ocanahonan lay far upstream, north of them.

The three refugees had drifted downstream all night, and as Fallon stepped out of the canoe into the shallow water he was momentarily tempted to surrender to the overwhelming sense of loss and grief that threatened to engulf him. His mother, Audrey Bailie, was either fighting for her life or she lay dead beneath the enemy’s war axe. Mayhap she needed him even now, or called his name. Tall and strong, and already much a man, he could have defended her, but Rowtag had insisted that he take the two little ones to safety.

They peered even now over the nose of the canoe like frightened cubs afraid to come out of their den. Noshi was his half brother, the son of Rowtag and Audrey, and though he had been granted the handsome copper skin and dark hair of his father, his eyes were his mother’s and as green, she declared, as the emerald hills of Ireland. Gilda Colman possessed the same unusual blend of Indian and English features: golden skin, dark hair, and startlingly blue eyes. The little girl, who had yet to see her fourth birthday, had been like a younger sister to Fallon ever since Jocelyn Colman had asked Fallon’s mother to be Gilda’s wet nurse.

Only a few months apart, Gilda and Noshi had grown up together, and Fallon had been their constant, if sometimes reluctant, protector. Of late he had thought himself too much a man to be serving as a nursemaid for the little ones, but Rowtag had honored him last night when he placed his broad hands on Fallon’s shoulders and charged him to protect Gilda’s and Noshi’s lives together with his own. The responsibility he had always endured now became a challenge.

After bringing his finger again to his lips to silence the children, he pulled the canoe from the water, firmly beaching it upon the sand. Crouching behind a screen of greening shrubs, he looked down the beach, then studied the sky.

Through the sun-shot leaves of the towering trees, the sky was crisp and blue with not a single cloud to mar the horizon. They were far, then, from the war party that had surrounded Ocanahonan at dusk. For the moment, they were safe, but worry tormented his mind. Had the enemy seen their canoe slip away? Would the bloodlust of battle drive them downstream in pursuit?

Noshi’s familiar whine interrupted his thoughts. “I’m hungry, Fallon,” Noshi whimpered, his thumb still in his mouth. “Where’s Mama?”

Fallon felt his resolve slip. If he thought about his mother and Rowtag, if he considered even for a moment that their entire world was under attack, he would not be able to do his duty. Better to pretend that they were hunting.

“We want Mama and Papa to be proud of us, don’t we?” Fallon asked, turning to the young ones. “They asked us to hide in the boat, and now they want us to gather our own food. Rowtag would not want us to complain, but to do our work well.”

“I can make a fish hook,” Noshi said, thrusting his chubby leg over the side of the boat. “Watch me.”

“I can help,” Gilda answered, splashing into the water behind Noshi.

“Good,” Fallon said, forcing a smile. He knelt to look into the children’s eyes. “Do not wander from the boat. If you see or hear anyone approaching, run and play the hiding game in the woods. Do not come out for anyone but me, do you hear?”

“Yea,” Noshi answered, plopping himself into the mud at the water’s edge. “I will make a hook and we will catch a fish for breakfast, Fallon.”

“Do that, then,” Fallon said. He turned toward the woods, then paused and looked back at the children. Gilda sat in the sand next to Noshi, scouring the mud for a sharp stick. Both were occupied, and if all went well, they would not stir.

Fallon paused to whisper a prayer for success, then darted into the woods.

Though European blood ran undiluted in his veins, Fallon had been reared as the son of an Indian, and he had learned his lessons well. By the river’s edge he found a nest with five eggs and he took three, knowing the mother bird would not desert the nest as long as an egg remained. Under a rotting log he found a generous collection of grubs and termites, which he scraped into the leather bag that hung at his waist. The grubs and eggs would do for breakfast, and as long as they traveled near the water he knew they would find food. Further downstream he would lay snares and trap animals as they came to drink at the water.

He smiled in pleased surprise when he returned and found that Noshi had actually managed to make an excellent fish hook of splintered wood. Gilda had pulled long fibers from reeds growing at the water’s edge for a fishing line. “Here,” Fallon said, slipping one of the juicy grubs into the pointed barb of the hook. “Y’are ready to fish. But first, you need to eat something.”

Gilda crinkled her nose at the sight of the grubs. “Ugh,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t eat those.”

“You’ve had them before in stew, you’ve just never had them raw,” Fallon said, pushing a handful of the insects toward her. “You need to eat, Gilda, if y’are going to be strong.”

“I’m strong already,” she said, her lower lip edging forward in a pout. “And I won’t eat bugs.”

“Then eat this egg.” He handed her an egg, which she accepted with a dubious expression. Fallon showed her how to chip away the top of the shell and swallow the egg in one gulp. Noshi took an egg and imitated his older brother exactly, and, not wanting to be bested, Gilda followed their example, albeit reluctantly.

“Rowtag said we must be strong if we are to survive,” Fallon said, fastening the two children with a stern glance. “You must obey me and not argue. If I say eat, you will eat. If not, you will die.”

Gilda’s lower lip trembled, and for a moment Fallon feared she would cry. But then she pressed her rosebud lips together in a remarkable show of courage and walked back to the water’s edge where her fishing line lay.

Fallon sighed in relief and tossed the grubs onto the ground, unable to eat the squirming things himself.

They spent the morning fishing on the riverbank, then Fallon selected dark and dry wood for a nearly smokeless fire. While their five fish roasted, Fallon napped while the young ones played quietly among the bushes. As the day began to die, Fallon wrapped the roasted fish in wide green leaves and told the children to climb back into the boat.

“Where are we going, Fallon?” Noshi asked as he lay down next to Gilda inside the canoe. “Can’t we go home?”

Fallon automatically looked northward up the river, but nothing stirred on the blue-brown surface of the water. If their parents had survived the attack on Ocanahonan, surely one of them would have come down the river. But not a living soul had stirred from the north.

“We can’t go home again,” Fallon said, pushing the canoe off the bank. “Mama and Papa are of certain dead, Noshi. Your Mama and Papa are dead, too, Gilda. They wanted us to find a safe place.”

Noshi stared at Fallon in disbelief, but Gilda’s bright blue eyes filled up with tears. Fallon immediately regretted telling her the truth. Suppose she cried and wailed all night? He had planned for them to drift quietly downriver under the cover of darkness, but if he had to deal with a screaming youngster—

But she did not make a sound. A sad little sigh escaped her lips as tears rolled from her eyes, and she pressed her fist into her mouth, a strangely adult gesture for one so young. Noshi began to cry noisily, and Gilda quietly threw her arms around his neck and held him tight. Fallon loaded the fish into the canoe, then pushed it into the current. Climbing into the boat
beside the children, he pulled the grass mat over their heads and dashed bitter tears of reality from his own eyes.

Fallon could sense their questions and fear, but he did not want to talk about the death of their village. After drifting for some time in the darkness as the children squirmed restlessly, he made an effort to lighten his voice. “Can’t you go to sleep?”

“No,” Gilda answered, wriggling against the side of the canoe. “Noshi’s elbow is in my belly.”

“I can’t help it,” Noshi protested, turning from Gilda. He lay his hands on Fallon’s chest. “I’m scared, Fallon. ‘Tis dark and quiet out here.”

“There is naught to fear,” Fallon said with a confidence he did not feel. He ran his hand through Noshi’s thick, dark hair. “I know—let’s practice the catechism that the minister taught us. We’ll say it over and over until we know it by heart.”

“I already know it,” Gilda said proudly. “Start it, Fallon.”

“Let me get more comfortable.” Fallon shifted in the narrow space until he lay flat on his back. Delighted at the change in positions, Noshi rolled over him and lay against the canoe on his left side, and Gilda snuggled under his arm on his right.

Fallon tented his fingers on his chest. “What is your name?”

“That’s easy,” Gilda said, giggling. “Gilda Colman.”

Fallon lifted his head to look at his brother. “And you? Surely you have a name?”

“Noshi,” the boy said, punching Fallon playfully in the ribs. “You know my name.”

“Aye,” Fallon answered, relaxing against the canoe. “And who gave you this name?”

“My mother and father,” the children recited together, sitting up in their eagerness, “who wish to bring me up in the knowledge of Christ.”

“Very good,” Fallon said, grateful that the challenge seemed to have dispelled their fear. “Now rehearse the articles of your belief.”

Gilda took a deep breath and began immediately: “I believe in God the Father, who hath made me and all the world.”

Fallon lay his finger across her mouth and turned to Noshi. “And you, little brother? Who hath stolen your voice?”

Noshi jumped in: “I believe in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind.”

Fallon nodded. “And the third article?”

Gilda giggled in the darkness, unable to remember, but Noshi knew the words: “I believe in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.”

“Who are the e-lect, Fallon?” Gilda asked.

He laced his fingers again and thought a moment. “I guess the elect are the people of Ocanahonan and all other people who follow Jesus Christ, if there be any.”