Wilderness Trail of Love (American Wilderness Series Romance Book 1) Read Free

starve.” He ended his threat with a swift kick to her buttocks, sending her face first into the dirt.
    “Enough!” Wanalancet barked at Bomazeen. Then he ordered one of his traders to turn her over to the tribe’s healers.
    Tears rolled down her face moistening the dried blood covering numerous scratches and cuts. She hung her head low, her long hair hiding her swollen face. It would take their best medicine and many weeks to mend Bomazeen’s vile handiwork. Wanalancet would be sure the women of the tribe healed this woman before one of his braves touched her. He knelt next to her. “What is your name?” he asked and Bomazeen translated.
    “Lucy,” she said, her voice trembling.
    As the traders lugged her to her feet, Wanalancet saw the light leave her eyes as hope left her heart. Her dulled apathetic stare was typical of someone who knows rescue is impossible. She probably wanted to die. It was a common problem with new slaves who thought captivity worse than death.
    The traders led her away. Lucy was now a slave.
    Among the Pennacook tribes, Wandering Evil intimidated everyone except Wanalancet. The despicable man needed his business. And while he hated to admit it, in addition to the slaves to replace their dead lost to smallpox, Bomazeen supplied items his people had grown accustomed to—tobacco, liquor, blankets, copper kettles, weapons, axes, and wampum—colorful trade beads used to decorate their clothing.
    In exchange, Bomazeen traded for skins and pelts of all kinds, receiving far more when the hides sold than the value of the goods traded to his people. Wanalancet recalled many others who hadprofited at his tribe’s expense. Double-dealing French traders, doling out disease along with whiskey and guns, nearly wiped out the Pennacook. Others sacked their small villages and often made off with their food stores on the eve of harsh winters. As their numbers dwindled, Wanalancet struggled to control his changing world.
    “Wandering one, you bring woman of few years this time, but she is badly broken,” Wanalancet said. He tugged his raccoon cloak tighter against the cool mountain wind, covering the long strings of pearls draped against his bare chest. “I want slaves. I don’t want the ailing. Bring no more to me who have suffered as this one has by your hand.”
    Bomazeen grunted. “I cut her some,” he answered in Algonquian, the Chief’s native tongue. Evil loitered behind the man’s dark eyes.
    Wanalancet remained silent, not revealing his disgust.
    A sneer crossed Bomazeen’s weathered face. “She showed too much spirit. But she won’t give you trouble now.”
    “Why do you tear slave bodies with your hatred? A man should not poison his heart with ill will. Some new people to our land are my enemy, but hate does not steal my mind until it is time to fight.”
    “My mind is as a stone. There is no soft spot in here,” Bomazeen replied, as he slowly drew a long yellowed fingernail across his grimy forehead.
    Bomazeen’s heart was be made of stone too. Wanalancet told him, “Whites walk in white man world. My people walk in Pennacook world. You, a métis, wander between.”
    “Yes, I am métis—my blood is half-Indian and half-French. But my spirit is not one or the other. To the Indian I am different, butI exist. But to the whites I am outcast, without being, like a stray dog you throw stones at to get it to run away.” Bomazeen’s eyes darkened even further. “They treat me like an animal so I attack like one.”
    The bitter remarks almost made the Chief pity the man. Bomazeen would never know the love of a woman. The heartless man was doomed to a life of cold loneliness.
    Wanalancet understood loneliness. He longed to feel the warm flesh of a woman he loved against his body. Last summer, his wife, along with many others, died of smallpox. He honored her at the Feast of the Dead with grave offerings and many gifts. But now it was time to turn his honor towards a living woman—to