Read Online Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) by Angela Hunt, Angela Elwell Hunt - Free Book Online Page A

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