Wild Glory

Wild Glory

Andrea Parnell

Wild Glory

Copyright © 1990, 2014 by Andrea Parnell.

All rights reserved.

Published 2014 by Trove Books LLC

TroveBooks.com

Smashwords edition 1.0, October 2014

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Publisher’s Note

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was previously published by Popular Library in 1990.

Cover design by Kimberly Killion of The Killion Group, Inc.

Discover other tales of romance and intrigue by Andrea Parnell at Smashwords:

Guns & Garters Western Romances

Guns & Garters*

Delilah’s Flame

Devil Moon

My Only Desire

Colonial Gothic Romances

Dark Prelude

Dark Splendor

Whispers at Midnight

Sea Swept Romances

Aurelia*

Celeste*

*Coming soon!

Visit the author at AndreaParnell.com

To Kyla and Jack who bring so much delight to my life.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 • Chapter 2

Chapter 3 • Chapter 4

Chapter 5 • Chapter 6

Chapter 7 • Chapter 8

Chapter 9 • Chapter 10

Chapter 11 • Chapter 12

Chapter 13 • Chapter 14

Chapter 15 • Chapter 16

Epilogue

About the Author

Preview of Aurelia

Also by Andrea Parnell

Copyright

Chapter 1

Massachusetts, 1690

Glory’s wet footprints stayed a fleeting moment on the warm stones. The pace of her breathing quickened, half from excitement, half from fear. She was too far away from home, miles farther than she had permission to go. She had just crossed the river that was the unspoken boundary between her people and the remaining Indians near the township of Sealy Grove, Massachusetts. Skirts held high and blue eyes nervously alert, she scuttled into the gnarled brush at the base of a rocky hill.

Women in town whispered grim stories of the horrors captured females suffered at the hands of savages. Those tales came all too easily to Glory’s mind as she crept through the wood. For a moment, when the hem of her linsey-woolsey petticoat snagged on a thorny bush, she hesitated and toyed with the thought of turning back, but the irreverent curiosity and daring that set Glory Warren so apart from other Puritan girls took a firmer hold and wrestled her fears aside. Guided by a quiet inner voice that spoke more firmly than dread or danger, Glory, one hand clenched over her furiously pounding heart so that the weight might steady it, pressed on.

With the grace of a mountain cat, the lissome girl climbed from rock to rock. She gave no thought to the fact that she was indeed behaving more like an animal stalking prey than a girl tottering on the verge of womanhood. Given a choice she might have chosen the life of a wild feline over the fate given her. As many in Sealy Grove had pointed out, Glory Warren, tomboyish and with an appetite for excitement, hardly fit the mold of a Puritan maid. Much of the credit, or blame, could be laid on her late father. He had not viewed meekness as desirable in a woman.

Speak up, girl, he would say to the sprightly youngster if ever she hung her head. Stand your ground.

A rowdy Englishman who had fallen in love with a Puritan woman, Noble Warren had found it hard to yield to Puritan ideals. He indulged his young daughter with license to think and to question what life required of her. Perhaps his failing was that he lacked the vision to predict how an early taste of freedom might handicap such a girl when she no longer lived within the sturdy ring of his protection.

Glory’s mind spun to thoughts of her father as she gained the top of the bluff and paused catlike to confirm that the ripple of noise she heard was that of human voices. The sounds were soft and rhythmic, like water lapping on stone. Just for a moment, Glory found herself swaying and stepping to the tempo of the haunting chant. When she was a small lass her father had taught her an Indian dance. Once she had been soundly scolded by one of the church elders for performing her dance on the meetinghouse grounds.

Glory smiled at the memory. Sometimes when she was completely alone she still practiced the shuffling steps and turns. Now, however, was not a time for dancing. Now was the time to practice moving as soundlessly as a shadow. That too she had learned from her trapper father, as well as how to sit so quiet and still that woodland animals took no notice of her presence.

’Tis a gift, daughter, to gain their trust when ’tis given to few, Noble Warren had told her. Do not abuse it and you will always have a friend at hand.

Her father’s praise had encouraged Glory to hone her skills until in time she made pets of creatures who fled before any other. Deep in her mind was a secret belief the chanting savages would be no different should she encounter them. As for Noble Warren, she reasoned to her nagging conscience, were he still alive he might have led the way on this merry adventure.

Perhaps she was out of practice. A few pebbles rattled unexpectedly beneath her feet. Glory halted and held the warm cloud of her breath tight within her lungs. By a quick count she saw below a dozen braves, mostly old and wizened men, sitting in a rough circle on the sandy soil at the foot of the bluff. The oldest among them chanted and thumped the ground with carved and feather-laden sticks as others sharpened the blades of their hunting weapons. The clack of metal striking stone mixed and rose with the muffled voices.

Assured she had not alerted them, Glory freed her breath and noiselessly hoisted herself to the highest point of the rocky prominence. To her left stretched the new lodges of the small band. To her right lay shallows in the river where women sloshed water into clay jugs. Her nerves tingled beneath a coating of excitement and wonder that the Indians could not hear her every breath and heartbeat.

The sudden shrill shout of a rambunctious child splashing water on his playmates tightened her nerves even more. Cautiously, she scrunched down as the added noise of women’s laughter joined the excited screeches of the children in an eerie echo up the walls of the bluff.

She knew who they were—the Narragansett, a once mighty tribe nearly decimated sixteen years before in King Phillip’s War, a bloody struggle which had also claimed the lives of almost a thousand colonists. Now a pitiful remnant of the Indian nation that once ruled these woods had banded together to reform the tribe. She wondered if they knew that the men in Sealy Grove already spoke gravely of the threat to the town. Burrell Collier, often vocal where Indians were concerned, had proposed that all able-bodied men make ready to smite these last of the Narragansett.

But what need for fighting if the Indians proved peaceful rather than warlike? In a moment she would know for herself which they were, these people who had once fought so ferociously to retain their lands, who had slaughtered and been slaughtered in years past.

With a flick of her fingers Glory tossed one tumbling black braid over her shoulder and edged out a bit more for a better view. Her white kerchief and cap, her shoes, and the basket of herbs she had been sent to gather were tied to the saddle of the mare tethered and grazing across the river. If Paddy, her pet crow, had minded, he would be perched in the branch of a tree near the mare, waiting for the return of his mistress.

It would not do to have Paddy here with his mischief and cawing. The crow was as talkative as the goodmen of Sealy Grove and she sometimes wondered if the bird did not know just as much. For several weeks the men had argued about the Narragansett. When she could she listened, but as far as she could tell no one from either side had actually seen the camp. She would be the first.

An insect buzzed around the bared shell of her ear. Glory reflexively swiped at it before realizing the move might be seen from below. When the pesky biting thing came back she acted more wisely, merely grimacing silently and covering her face until the bug relented and flew away. When she slid her fingers from her face and peered down once more, the women and children had grown quiet and the old men had ceased their chanting. The feathered heads bobbed slowly as the old braves mumbled among themselves. Glory shook hers ever so slowly. It was no wonder they had been defeated if a mere girl could slip upon them as easily as she had.

A sudden thought took away her disdain as she made ready to leave. Had she not counted twelve men at first glance? Now only ten sat in the circle. Lips drawn tightly together, she puzzled over the matter for a moment, then ignoring the inner voice that warned she was wrong, concluded she had misjudged on the first look. Her nerves had been more on edge then, a handful might have looked like a hundred. The problem was forgotten as she watched one brave, already round-shouldered with age, bend forward and draw lines in the dust. Her eyes strained to see the shape dexterously rendered by the aged hand. A religious symbol, she thought, the sign of one of their gods, one whose magic had failed to protect the people who believed in it.

Momentarily Glory’s disappointment at being unable to make out clearly the swirl of lines turned to satisfaction that she had nevertheless accomplished what she’d come for. A slight but contented smile softened the firm line of her mouth. She had seen enough. The once-fierce Narragansett looked harmless, the braves mostly aging men, the children few, their weapons readied for hunting and not for war. The number of lodges indicated less than two dozen families and hardly enough young braves among them to constitute danger to Sealy Grove.

Unfortunately, she could not report her conclusions to anyone, so neither the Indians nor the townspeople would be better off for her having come. She dared not reveal to even her closest friend Sarah—the daughter of Burrell Collier—that she had crossed the river and spied on the Indians.

Glory’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of the trouble she would be in should her mother learn of this breach of trust. Apprehension over that possibility chewed at the edges of her heart. What a shame trouble came in so many forms. She would have a batch of it for sure if she was late reaching home. Abruptly conscious she had tarried longer than intended, Glory sought to establish the hour. With all the caution of a wary woodsman she glanced about. From the fall of the shadows she determined that noon was but a few minutes away. She might just reach home at the appointed time if she hurried. Slithering back from the edge of the overhang, she prepared to spin about and start down the incline.

But she stopped short and glanced hurriedly back. Had one of the braves looked her way? Instinctively she peered in every direction, confirming that the escape route remained clear. Still, she felt a sudden prickling at the back of her neck and was overcome with a peculiar feeling that something was wrong. Though worried, her haste to leave did not prevent continued caution. Without so much as the patter of one bare foot she shimmied to the ground, surreptitiously eyed the path she had taken up, then started down it, taking care to remain behind a cover of brush until she reached the river.

Daring to breathe a loud sigh of relief, Glory held her dusty skirts up to her knees and stepped onto a rock at the water’s edge. Though it was a sunny day in early spring the river was still wintry cold and she wished to cross as quickly as she could. She lowered her gaze to follow the staggered path of stones which made fording possible though the water was fairly deep at that spot.

Mercy of God! she cried, halting sharply on the second stone. A chill of fear ran the length of her as she stared into the deep, flowing river. From the clear, cold depths two pairs of black eyes set in distorted, dark-skinned faces stared back at her.

Glory’s scream split the still air and sent a startled covey of quail bursting out of a nearby bush. Her heart pounded like an explosion of cannon fire against the walls of her chest. The skirt she had so carefully kept dry on her first crossing fell from her hands and dipped into the water.

Her thoughts raced. Had an attack begun? Had the Indians been caught on the wrong side of the river, been killed, and their bodies thrown in? She shivered anew as the bodies drifted nearer the rock, the current waving lifeless arms and legs not yet grown stiff. Glory whimpered as a bolt of dread shot through her girlish frame. Whoever had done this might still be near. Caught between them and the Indians she might be in as much danger as those who had recently lost their lives.

Using all the courage that remained within her, Glory gathered her wits, intent on dashing to the far bank and escaping. But no matter how hard she tried to move, her unwilling feet would not obey the command to hop to the next stone. Time seemed brought to a chilling halt by her fear, though in truth only a few seconds had passed since she spotted the braves beneath the water.

Dead men, she mumbled, hoping the sound of her voice would calm her. Dead men cannot hurt me. Her voice would have calmed no one; it had the sound of breaking glass. Her dry but terror-ridden eyes darted from bank to bank. No path but this one would lead her clear, this one that led past those bodies pitching beneath the blue-green waters.

Moaning her distress, she tried recalling that she had seen dead men before. Whatever reassurance she might have mustered in that way was lost in the rupturing sound of her own scream as hands shot from the water and snared her ankles. Fear, burning like a gush of hot oil in her veins jolted life back into frozen muscles, goading her to attempt to wrench free of the snaring hands. She succeeded in kicking one leg loose, but with the sudden move on the slick rocks her balance failed. Thrashing her arms and shouting for help, Glory plunged headlong into the cold river water.

The two braves who hauled her out were anything but dead. They effortlessly lifted the slight girl to their shoulders, though not before she had swallowed many mouthfuls of icy water and exhausted herself trying to break free. On the bank one brave clamped her ankles tight while the other grasped her outstretched arms.

Too frightened to open her eyes, Glory faced the thousand dreadful thoughts that poured into her mind. If she did not break loose, at least some of them would become realities. Pleading, screaming useless threats, she twisted and pulled against the iron grip of the braves until the effort left her drained and gasping for breath. Her lips were blue with cold, but when she could breathe freely she bit them until they were white as her blanched cheeks. Even the least horrible thing she had heard of what Indians did to captives was too ghastly to bear.

Moaning helplessly, Glory anticipated being scalped alive then slowly killed, or tortured and kept as a slave, or sold to a renegade Frenchman who would haul her up to Canada for some dread purpose.

Free me! Having regained a little of her strength, Glory shouted and twisted violently until the Indian who held her arms grabbed her hair and jerked back so hard her eyes sprang open. The pain was enough to quiet her struggles for good, but if it had not been, the reaction of the Indians, upon looking her in the face, would have served as well. The brave who held her hair stiffened and gave a cry of alarm. The other spoke rapidly, staring first at her face then at his companion. By the grim set of their mouths, neither was pleased with what he saw.

An argument broke out between the two. For a time Glory feared she would have her limbs ripped off as each pulled in a different direction. Finally one gave in to the other. He hastily tied a leather thong about her bruised ankles. The other bound her hands. A moment later she lay draped like a sack of corn across the stoutest one’s shoulder, bouncing roughly as he carried her in the direction of the camp.

***

An arrow killed quietly. Crouched behind a cover of bushes, Quade Wylde reminded himself of that as he shifted his weight from one cramping leg to the other. The steel-eyed Indian hidden in the brush a few feet beyond hadn’t moved a muscle in close to an hour, hadn’t breathed as far as the trapper could tell.

Quade willed away the knotting pain in his calves. Sweat flowed in a tickling stream from brow to cheeks despite the cool air. The Indian, who seemed immune to discomfort, sat like a carved rock. Quade cursed himself for the challenge he had issued the old warrior. It wasn’t the fact he had to beat the red man with his own weapon that bothered him; it was the long wait for the right shot.

Ahead and almost hidden by a full growth of new spring leaves, his quarry stirred and tested the wind for reassurance no danger lay ahead. Quade hoped the smell of his sweat had not overcome the animal scent smeared on his skin. The moment of truth came as the sound of cautious footsteps revealed the movement of the quarry toward him. Giving no more thought to discomfort, Quade pulled taut the slack string of his bow and felt the weight of the arrow poised for a silent and deadly flight.

A few more steps, he counted them with the thump of his pulse, and the range would be right to send the missile directly through the heart. Quade held his breath so the action of his lungs would not interfere with his aim. He still preferred his musket, he decided, even if it did blast a hole a moose could run through and announce his presence to every Indian and animal for a mile around.

Damnation, he muttered inside his head. The wrong one. He had misjudged. The other one, the one he wanted, would be moving off at an angle, probably circling behind him right now. Disappointed but determined, Quade corrected his aim and started to ease the grip that held the arrow fast in the bow. Maybe he could get this one and then the other. That ought to show the Indian what he was up against.

The instant came to free the arrow, but a sudden skittishness in his quarry caused Quade to instinctively tighten his fingers. The cause of the alarm, a fawn with the spots barely faded from his back, trotted up to the doe’s side and nudged his nose beneath her belly. The nervous doe relaxed and returned to feeding on the tender leaves of a sapling. A few minutes later, as both deer ambled past, Quade’s unused arrow rested in the quiver on his back.

Not far away he heard the crackle of brush and the heavy thud that indicated the Indian’s arrow, unlike his, had found a mark.

Fires of hell! He rose and shook each leg in turn to restore the faltering circulation. The deer would have been his first big kill with the bow and would have proved his worth to Tomanick. The hide would have provided the new shirt the women in the village had promised to sew for him. Prepared for a ribbing from the Narragansett sachem who had bested him in the hunt, and not for the first time, Quade hurried through the undergrowth to where Tomanick had already begun preparations for skinning a big buck.

Tomanick lifted jet black eyes to Quade, but instead of the expected boast gave a nod of approval that the trapper had held his shot.

You take to our ways quickly, my friend, he said. Tomanick knew with pride the growing skill of this white man with the bow. He himself had taught Quade Wylde to use the red man’s weapon. It pleased him to see his friend also use the red man’s thinking. He pulled his arrow from the buck’s flesh. To kill the doe now is to lose next year’s meat.

Tell that to an empty belly. Quade slipped the straps of the quiver from his shoulder and dropped it to the ground. Two more Narragansett braves appeared, moving without sound through the heavy brush and the litter of dry twigs on the forest floor. The pair joined in the skinning and in a matter of minutes had the hide off and the carcass strung up for butchering. Tomanick promised the hide to the braves and left them to complete the work as he and Quade walked to a small stream.

A Narragansett never goes hungry. Tomanick knelt at the water’s edge and washed the smears of blood from his hands.

Quade shrugged. I prefer hunger to some of what you call food. He was glad one of them had made a kill. Despite years spent living in the wild he hadn’t developed a taste for what the Indians often substituted for meat. Roots or leaves or even insects that the Indians found edible still turned his stomach. Nookick, the ground, parched corn that could sustain a man with just a few bites a day, he could tolerate well enough, but if he had a weakness as a woodsman, it was his craving for cooking better than his own.

The white man is too choosy. Tomanick rinsed his knife and wiped the blade dry. That will be his downfall. When what he likes is gone from the land he will go away. Then my people will take back what is theirs.

Quade opened his mouth to correct the sachem but changed his mind and kept quiet. From experience he knew the warrior would not accept his words. Being too choosy would not be the white man’s downfall; it would be his path to success. The settlers and soldiers who had nearly destroyed the Narragansett tribe would not stop pushing into the forest and chopping down trees to make new fields. They wouldn’t stop killing Indians they couldn’t convert and they wouldn’t go away. Trappers like him wouldn’t stop coming and taking the beaver and fox, and most of them wouldn’t worry about whether or not an animal had young before they killed it.

Tomanick, however, needed his dream that the Narragansett would someday reclaim the lands that had once been theirs. He was happier believing his people would again become a large and mighty nation. If the fact that only a handful of his tribe had survived the carnage of King Phillip’s War could not sway him, Quade knew nothing he said would either.

We will eat well tonight, Tomanick remarked as the signal came that meat was ready to be taken to the village for cooking.

Quade nodded and fell in line with the braves as they led the way to the bend in the river where Tomanick’s people made camp. The choice of the site was another matter on which he and the Indian disagreed. Sealy Grove was only a dozen miles away and as in every settlement, some men there would believe it their duty to rid the world of savages. He doubted if the small band of Narragansett would be left undisturbed for long.

Before the hunters reached the village the sound of a commotion within it reached them. Quade considered that those left behind might have come under attack, but as he drew nearer it was evident that only one English voice was responsible for all the disturbance. Women, children, and braves stood gathered in bewilderment around a black-haired Puritan girl who, though tied at wrists and ankles, demanded in no uncertain terms they set her free. What astonished Quade most was that the lot of them, even the worthy braves, seemed in awe of the girl.

Glory Warren’s eyes fell on the group approaching the village and she knew a moment of hope. One among them wore a lush black beard and was assuredly not an Indian.

You there, she cried to the man who towered a head above the savages. Heaving for breath, she raised her hands to show the bonds. Tell them to set me free.

And why should I do that? The trapper, garbed as the savages in fringed buckskins, though devoid of feathers, parted a path through those clustered around the girl. She was a sight to behold—chin held high, arms uplifted, a woman-child who faced the Indians with bold impudence rather than trembling and cowering before them.

Her beauty stole his breath and for a time he stood and stared, recalling the long space of time since he had seen or held a woman of his own kind. Aware he might have this one if he so chose, he allowed his senses to play out what he might do with so lovely a female. A stab of regret pained him, a pointed reminder that he was not totally uncivilized, decidedly not enough to bend an unwilling woman to his will.

The trace of a smile on his lips mocked the adjustment of his thoughts. The girl bore his lengthy perusal with surprising patience or else needed time to consider a reply to his crusty remark. Still uncertain of what was best done with her, he made no haste to pull his eyes away. She was worthy of a long look.

Ebony hair as dark as any savage’s hung to her waist in loose, luxuriant braids. The cords that had held the ends secure had been lost. Here and there a strand had worked free and lay in a damp abandon of curls against her neck and shoulders. As he observed the twists and turns of black silk he had the urge to free the whole of it and see how the dark masses would shine in the afternoon light.

Her skin was as tempting. She was no milk white English maid who looked as if she had grown without the benefit of the sun. Some Spaniard had cut a notch in the family tree and the subtle proof of it glowed in the honey and cream color of the girl’s skin. A steady glance at the fine-boned face revealed what it was about her that had the village mesmerized. Black-lashed eyes of an oddly crystalline blue sparkled as if they emitted a mystic light of their own. He had the strange feeling, as he suspected the Indians did, that if he looked into them long enough he might be set afire.

Glory’s patience gave way as she waited for the man to come to his senses. She found her tongue. Because you are English and because you ought to, she snapped, angry to find the Englishman as impossible to deal with as the Indians. She had not been mistreated other than being hauled to the village and put on public view. She’d concluded she was not to be scalped or tortured and that the Indians were as alarmed at having her among them as she was to be there, but not a single one could or would speak to her in words she could understand. For an hour they had stood and stared at each other. She’d had enough of it.

Quade laughed at this second display of spunk, though he detected in the tremble felt when he caught hold of her bound hands that it might soon run out. Still chuckling, he pulled a broad-bladed knife from a leather scabbard strapped to his side. The steel blade gleamed a threat as he tested the tip with his fingers.

I am not so English as you think and I do little I ought to. His dark eyes met the angry heat of hers for a moment, then he turned aside to speak to Tomanick and those on his council. Receiving a nod of approval he wheeled back to the girl. What’s in it for me if I cut you free? he taunted.

Cut me loose and find out, she returned, shooting a challenging glance at the trapper.

Quade laughed. She was as feisty as a badger. What Puritan household had fostered one such as this?

The girl hardly flinched when he raised the knife and sliced the tight leather thongs. As he knelt to cut through those binding her ankles she stood quietly and rubbed her wrists. The sodden hem of her skirts brushed his hands. He pushed it aside and uncovered the slim ankles above a dainty pair of bare feet. Her skin beneath his fingers was like cool, smooth satin. Intrigued by the sensual feel of it, he obligingly massaged the reddened flesh where the thongs had been, well aware his fingers lingered longer than required.

Don’t try to run, he warned without looking up. They will catch you.

I won’t run.

Glory shuddered at the feel of his warm fingertips against her skin. At sixteen she was unaccustomed to a man’s touch.

The Indians, when they caught her, had bound her with a methodical and impersonal quickness. She had thought only of escape as their hands moved on her limbs. Immediately she was aware of a difference in the way the trapper’s hands felt, though only vaguely aware the difference might constitute an entirely new danger.

Quade stood, taking another long, slow look at the girl. Rose pink lips were slightly parted, the cheeks flushed, the slender fingers laced together prayer-like. The simple dress of deep gray kersey, rather than minimizing, served to emphasize her beauty. And those curious blue eyes would always set her apart. She was younger than he had first observed, more child than woman, but the wet clothing defining the pleasing contours of her body revealed that it would not be long until she was as much a woman as any man had ever seen.

Glory forced herself to think logically. This man, though white, could be friend or foe. She had agreed she would not run but mentally measured the distance along the narrow footpath to the river crossing. She was quick on her feet and had always been capable of outrunning every lad in Sealy Grove. A comparative look at the lean-limbed savages soon brought her to the conclusion that she would not have the same advantage against them. Little choice was left to her but to stay at the trapper’s side and try to win his assistance.

You have got yourself in quite a fix. Quade made his voice deliberately gruff. The girl needed a lesson if she was prone to ramble alone where she had no business.

Aye, she agreed meekly, though the look on her face showed far more mettle.

Quade smiled. He had heard enough from the braves who captured her to discern they had taken the Puritan girl by mistake. One of them had spotted her on the bluff overlooking the camp and, seeing her black braids, believed her a runaway Indian servant from the town. Ever mindful