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

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