Free The Maidenhead by Parris Afton Bonds

the more she realized the river’s awful power.
    In the New World, according to Mistress Pierce, other than a few Indian paths, the only roads were rivers, which, Modesty suspected, was why farms were granted in long strips along a river. Occasionally she sighted a farm amidst the trackless forest, but it had been several hours since she had last seen sign of human habitation.
    At a place of vine-hung coolness, the wild man beached the canoe. She glanced at him inquiringly.
    “We’ll spend the night here. We got a late start, and Ant Hill is too far upstream to make in the time we have left.”
    Cautiously, she stepped from the wobbly canoe. She was sure there must be a trick to keeping the canoe upright in the water. She followed him ashore. "Ant Hill—yewr place?”
    “Aye.” In a clearing, he collected twigs and dead leaves for tinder, then opened his leather possibles bag.
    “I hope the name isn't an apt description of yewr place." She slapped at a whining mosquito that had lit on her temple, where once rebellious curls had strayed from her cap. The shame of having her head shaved and then having to stand practically naked before the minister crackled like a flame inside her brain.
    "Let’s just say that Ant Hill is a far sight better than the Jamestown gaol.” Hunkering down, he struck a glancing blow with the steel on the chunk of flint. At the glow of a spark, he began blowing, and nursed it into a small flame.
    "Let’s hope that yew aren’t as barbaric as the good people of Jamestown.”
    From the canoe, he took out a fishnet of some sort of bark fiber and lines equipped with hooks that looked like fish bone. “I have the distinct notion that you have no idea of the concept of the word ‘good.’ ’’
    She huddled before the fire, where the smoke warded off the pesky mosquitoes. "It has been me experience that goodness and virtue are seldom rewarded."
    Her temporary husband sat on his haunches at the bank to spread his net in the shoal water. "Oh? What is?"
    In the day’s dying light, she watched an egret search the opposite shoreline for crayfish. “Quickness of wit for one thing. ’Tis far better to be wise than good, and better still to be shrewd.”
    He jerked in the net with its catch of fish. "Ahhh,” he said in a bitter tone, “‘An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels.’"
    "Proverbs." She rested her chin in her hand, grinned, and said, “‘A joyful heart makes a cheerful face.’ ’’
    He looked askance at her. "So you can read.”
    He proceeded to clean, then plank the fish over the flame.
    "Aye. Books and people. Now yew—well, yew’re the kind of man who takes pleasure in the precise application of logic. No imagination to yewrself."
    Over the fire's blazing streamers, he flashed her a disgruntled look. "And you think you are imaginative?"
    "Aye.” She shrugged. ‘"Tis like being a fairy. Yew can make anything happen."
    "I trust you are not confused between a fairy and a fury. Or perhaps it is I who am confused. I would swear I have taken the latter for a wife.”
    She ignored him. "What kind of fish are yew cooking?"
    "Shad. Do you ever stop talking?”
    "Fairies are good talkers.”
    "If you've ever read Spenser’s The Faerie Queene , then you know a lock put on the tongue is an excellent way to achieve silence."
    "Never read anything but the Bible and a broadside about Jamestown." But his reference to silence made her realize that with nightfall the forest was alive with sounds of screeches, hoots, howls, and chatters. By now, a muggy fog shrouded the river.
    Then she heard the trill of a clear liquid note, and the rough-hewn man across from her answered it with a warbled whistle.
    She tensed. "What was that?"
    He didn’t reply but passed her a portion of the planked shad on a palmetto leaf. Behind her, the brush rustled. She whirled, almost dropping her food. A tall, dusky-skinned Indian stepped from the tangled copses. He carried a