New Frontier of Love (American Wilderness Series Romance Book 2)
Read New Frontier of Love (American Wilderness Series Romance Book 2) Online
Authors: Dorothy Wiley
NEW FRONTIER
OF LOVE
BOOK TWO
AMERICAN WILDERNESS SERIES ROMANCE
D
OROTHY
W
ILEY
NEW FRONTIER OF LOVE
Dorothy Wiley
Copyright © 2014 Dorothy Wiley
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author.
First Edition: 2014
ISBN: 1497438640
ISBN-13: 978-1497438644
Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill
Author website
www.dorothywiley.com
New Frontier of Love
is a fictional novel inspired by history, rather than a precise account of history. Except for historically prominent personages, the characters are fictional and names, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Each book in the series can be read independently.
For the sake of understanding, the author used language for her characters for the modern reader rather than strictly reflecting the far more formal speech and writing patterns of the 18
th
century.
Dedication
To my son Robert, whose courageous ancestors inspired this novel.
Thanks for being the wonderful son and person you are.
CHAPTER 1
Kentucky, Summer 1797
C
aptain Sam Wyllie looked ahead, anxious to catch his first glimpse of the remote Fort. His back and his legs ached from months on the trail. Ignoring his fatigue, he kept a keen eye on the surrounding rugged forest and made himself sit up straighter in the saddle. As if complaining, the saddle leather creaked beneath his weight even more than normal. Even the saddle had had enough. It wouldn’t be long now. They were nearly there.
Maybe here, at the edge of a vast wilderness, he could forget. He wanted a new life in a new place, away from the pain of his violent past. Surely, he could find it here—a thousand miles from his New Hampshire home. A place on the edge of the future—Kentucky.
A new world for the brave.
Their small group had been fortunate, at least for the last few days. Boone’s Trace, a branch of the Wilderness Road, leading to the Kentucky River, brought them, at long last, close to Fort Boonesborough. As they passed lush blue-green meadows, rising and falling hills, and ancient verdant forests, they saw no signs of
native Indians on the last leg of their long journey. And lately, the weather chose to be mercifully mild. Perhaps God knew they had all endured enough. He and his brothers William, John, and adopted brother Bear, accompanied his youngest brother Stephen and his wife Jane, and their daughters, on the trip here. Along the way, misfortune brought first the widow Catherine and later the young woman Kelly into their group as well.
Sometimes tragedy gives birth to new beginnings.
He pressed his legs against Alex’s flanks, urging the big horse forward. The gelding picked up his trot and Sam led them all to the edge of the settlement.
About a hundred yards from the Fort, he spotted a sizable tent set up under an old oak very close to the road. Six horses stood tied nearby. Parked in the tall weeds was a good-sized wagon holding numerous skins. Probably buffalo hides Sam thought. As they drew closer, he could see that they were indeed fresh buffalo skins. An enormous swarm of flies hovered over the reeking pile. Empty whiskey casks lay strewn about in the mud along with corn cobs, discarded rags, and other trash. He’d seen pig sties that looked neater and smelled less foul.
“Whoever they are, they’re messy fellows,” Sam told Stephen.
“If cleanliness is next to Godliness, then I’d say these fellows are closer to the devil,” Stephen agreed.
A man, untying his leather breeches, emerged from the tent. The man looked up and saw Sam and his brothers. Then the hunter shifted bloodshot eyes to Catherine and Jane, each driving one of their two wagon teams. Shockingly, he left his filthy pants untied.
“Ah, what do we have here? Lovely womenfolk arriving in
Boonesborough,” he said in a lecherous tone. He gave Catherine, whose wagon was closer to the man, a greasy smile.
The obnoxious man’s grating voice had an edge to it that put Sam’s warrior instinct instantly on alert. He sensed dirt on this man’s soul. And plenty on his body too.
Sam stopped his horse and gave the lewd man a censuring stare through squinted eyes. “Did you wake up ill-mannered this morning or were you born insolent?”
The bulky boorish man, with a very large rounded nose, dark eyes set deep in a puffy face, and tangled black hair, ignored him and the other men. But he continued to eye the women, a mix of lust and envy exposed on his face.
“Keep your ugly eyes off my wife,” Stephen yelled, positioning his horse next to Jane’s wagon.
“You’re the one parading them right in front of my grand home,” the man called back. “And they are a sight to awaken a man’s cock for damn sure.”
Stephen reached for his whip and Bear pulled out his hatchet.
“Stephen don’t!” Sam ordered in a voice of authority. “Bear, put it away.”
The man’s head swung lazily back toward the tent. “Men, come out and take a gander at these two beauties.”
Five other rough-looking men emerged from the tent, one after the other.
Stephen’s hand remained on the whip, but he didn’t move his horse toward the man and Bear said, “Are ye sure Captain? It would give me great pleasure to take the man’s head off.”
“I understand, but let’s not begin our time in Kentucky with a
killing,” Sam said. “Unless we have no choice,” he amended, looking directly at the foul-mouthed man.
Sam watched warily as the man’s five cronies, all well-armed, casually took seats on whiskey casks, seeming to wait for the show.
“Aren’t those two sweet looking?” the man asked his men. “I like that black-haired one. She’ll be the best-looking woman in Boonesborough.”
“I’m partial to the red-haired one. Look at those fiery green eyes,” another man said.
Although he couldn’t see Jane from his vantage point, Sam could well imagine the scorching glare she was probably leveling on these men.
“Bloody buggers!” Bear hissed the words out between his teeth. “Let me cut the impudent man’s tongue out of his filthy mouth.”
“And look, there’s a young blonde just now poking her head out of that first wagon. I’d sure like to give her a poke,” the biggest man crowed.
Sam wanted to throttle the man. He saw Kelly pale and start to shake. Terror, stark and vivid, flashed in the young woman’s big eyes. Kelly had been about to climb out the front of Catherine’s wagon to join her on the bench, but now stopped frozen with fear.
William bristled and side-stepped his horse next to Kelly. Every muscle of his face spoke defiance. “Bastard,” William hissed at the man. “One more insult to these women and we’ll find some rope to hang the lot of you.”
The leader didn’t move, but his five men all pulled weapons, brandishing pistols and knives.
Kelly gasped, panting in fear.
“Kelly, get back inside the wagon,” Sam instructed. “Don’t worry, we won’t let them hurt you.”
Catherine put her hand on Kelly’s shoulder, urging her back in the wagon. “Get back inside the wagon now, Kelly.”
After Kelly got under cover again, Sam pulled his horse closer to Catherine’s wagon and looked over at his brothers, all four were lined up next to the wagons and facing the six hunters. “Let this bunch of snakes crawl back into their den,” Sam urged, his voice taut with suppressed anger, all the while eyeing the coarse bunch of men. “The best way to not get snake bit is to move away from the snake.”
Sam’s brother John immediately turned his mount toward Boonesborough, his young son Little John riding beside him. His other brothers remained where they were.
“Ignore them, they’re just ill-bred ruffians,” Catherine told them. Then she fixed her gaze straight ahead and composed her features, although Sam could see the suppressed anger in the firm set of her jaw.
Sam agreed with Catherine. When crossed his temper could be almost uncontrollable. But he had trained himself to carefully control his anger, unleashing it only when it served his purpose, usually at the height of battle.
“I’m sorry you had to hear all that,” Sam told Catherine, loud enough for the brutes to hear.
“I didn’t hear anything. There’s nothing that man could say that I would lower myself to hear,” Catherine said, glaring over her shoulder at the vulgar man.
“She doesn’t sound sweet on you just yet Frank,” one of the hunters taunted.
The raucous sounds of the men’s laughter filled the foul-smelling air between them.
Sam gave each one of the men a withering stare, not taking his eyes off them until their laughter stopped. Then he said, “I am patient with stupidity but not when it is combined with poor manners. That just turns men into jackasses.” He turned back to Catherine. “My apologies.”
“No need to apologize. They deserve worse,” Catherine said.
With murky eyes, submerged in a face heavily lined more by alcohol than age, the menacing hunter, who seemed to be the leader of the disagreeable bunch, curled his lip and gave first Sam and then Catherine a look of utter disdain.
The man took a few steps closer to her.
Sam took a firm grip on his long knife.
“Welcome to Boonesborough.” The hunter threw the words at her like rocks.
Sam longed to unleash his blade, but his well-trained heart throttled his anger. He turned his mount and kept the horse at a steady walk leaving the buffalo hunters behind. But with each step his horse took away from the bullies, his fists clenched tighter. He glanced back. Keeping wary eyes on the hunters, his other brothers followed on their horses, flanking the two wagons carrying the women and girls.
Their first encounter in Boonesborough nearly ended in disaster. But they had traveled far to get here and he wasn’t going to let the incident ruin their arrival. For now, he’d forget the crude men.
He trotted his horse out in front of their group.
His heartbeat quickened, as he took in his first glimpses of the Fort and the roughhewn town. The fortress’ blemished walls and bulwarks, blackened by fires and pitted by lead and arrows, called to the warrior in him. Sam knew that the blood of scores of pioneers wounded or killed by the British or Shawnee stained the Fort’s ramparts. Despite its battle scars, like an old soldier, the Fort seemed to stand proudly, having succeeded in keeping Boonesborough’s first settlers alive.
Now, against the fortress’ sturdy fifteen-foot palisade, dozens of settlers completed daily chores or passed the time near lean-tos or crude tents made of hides or oiled cloth, trying to make do in a wilderness highly intolerant of the ill prepared or underprivileged.
He watched dirty squealing children chase one another in the sunshine between the tents, finding joy among the somber adults. But the blank looks on many of their parents’ faces made him wonder how many wanted to return to where they had come from.