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All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Jade Twilight
Deirdre’s Tale © 2008 Jennifer Campbell
eXcessica publishing
A Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved
Deirdre’s Tale
By Jennifer Campbell
CHAPTER ONE
Innocence Exposed
Determinedly, Deirdre struggled through the tangled underbrush, which seemed to reach out and grab at her light-blue everyday dress. Hating to fetch water for her mother Elizabeth, she knew she would be stuck with the task until her younger brother Cian was old enough to do it. Grimacing as a branch caught hold of her long, golden hair, she wiped sweat from her forehead. Her bright, green eyes flashed as she saw the clearing near the fast-running Swift River. Straining her shoulders, she pulled the yoke and empty buckets through the last few yards of thicket to the riverbank.
I wish we were back home in Boston. Why did father have to move us to this darn wilderness? As Deirdre dropped the yoke and buckets on the ground, she impulsively took off her shoes to plop her sore feet in the chilly May waters of the river. Hiking her long skirt up to mid-thigh to cool her legs, she glanced north to the big rocky cone of the ominous mountain which dominated the landscape for miles around. All my girlfriends, and those cute boys I used to flirt with, I’ll never see them again.
For a budding woman-child approaching her eighteenth birthday, life with only her small family the tiny settlement of Tamworth in the King’s grant of New Hampshire in 1729 was perhaps sheer boredom. For two years Deidre had faced this life after her father, Cornelius Macgregor, had bought a plot of land and uprooted her from the hustle and bustle of her precious life in Boston which she had adored. Now for months at a time she saw no one but her family or an occasional trader and the normally friendly native people, the Pequankets. Yet recently their had been an ugly incident with their chief, Chocorua, and the death of his son, Tuamba.
Someday there will be more than this for me, but I may be an old maid by then. Father speaks of remaining here for the rest of his life and I couldn’t bear that.
Lying back in the fresh, new grass, she let loose of everything; her chores, the boredom, the pranks her mischievous, eight-year old brother Cian always played on her, and most of all her yearning to be a grown woman. Always one to daydream of a better life, a life with excitement and thrills, she slipped into her dreaming mode as she watched the clouds play in the bright blue, spring sky.
In five days I’ll be eighteen, and then father cannot tell me what to do, but however will I get back to Boston, and who shall support me in the life I wish to live. A husband, I must have a handsome husband who is rich, or capable of being so. Ohhh, but how will I find such a man amongst these Indians and traders. It’s hopeless.
Closing her eyes she tried to remember the faces of her old girlfriends from Boston, Hanna and Aislinn. Not wishing to forget them ever, she drifted further back into that old life, remembering the adoring looks the schoolboys were just beginning to give her at the tender age of fifteen. In hindsight, she believed she would be courting the best of those boys by now, or perhaps she would be already married, if not for her father.
It had been far too easy for Deirdre Macgregor to turn the boy’s heads and even though sex with a man was still a foreign thing to her, she had already discovered her body could provide heady delights. With her long, golden hair and attention-drawing green eyes, she instinctively knew she held a man’s eye, and as she lay there she ran her hands up her dress to cup her breasts and squeeze them. The sensitivity of her nipples had been her first sexual discovery, and playing with them when they got erect had lead her to her secret place which seemed to get slick and wet feeling when she played with her breasts.
While listening to the chirping of birds and the gurgle of the river, she began undoing the lacing of her dress at her bosom to expose her ample beasts. When her nipple had become pebble hard in the brisk spring air, she reached under her skirt and inside her drawers to touch what her mother Elizabeth had called her cunny.
Elizabeth’s sexual education of her daughter was minimal, perhaps because Elizabeth had been abused as a child, and although Cornelius treated her gently during their sex she never completely felt comfortable with the act. She had named a man’s penis a manroot for her daughter, insinuating it was perhaps the root of all evil and when telling a young Deirdre of the carnal duties of marriage, Elizabeth had spoken as if it were required drudgery not lovemaking.
Yet to her credit, Deirdre had transcended these pitfalls and she was curious and excited to learn about sex with a man, and indeed to have it. As she touched her inner wetness, she longed to go further, exploring the feelings pulsing inside her as she touched the little nub of flesh above her cleft.
Suddenly the flapping of wings from a hawk roused her back to the utter boredom of her reality, and as she watched the magnificent bird of prey she had the feeling it too was watching her. Watching the hawk plummet and soar in the blue sky above, she envied the bird’s freedom, to be able to fly away as it pleased, go anywhere it desired. I wish it would take me to Boston, and drop me in the lap of a rich gentleman. Perhaps if I ask, it would fly over the mercantile exchange, so I could pick out a handsome one?
Deirdre laughed inside, knowing the fantasy would be harder to achieve, but she spotted a quick change of direction and plummet by the feathered raptor and knew he had spied prey. She watched him plummet down getting closer and closer until her fascination turned quickly and completely to terror. Wait, he’s diving right down on me!
The feathered hunter was indeed plunging down rapidly in her direction and as the seconds ticked by and the avian carnivore did not seem to veer away Deirdre looked with terror at its talons, growing larger and larger by the instant.
Despite her father’s teachings and her own logic that the bird was much too small to carry away a person, Deirdre found herself staring at the huge wings, fierce beak, and sharp talons of the predator and reason was cold comfort. Screaming, she rolled over on her stomach to keep her face away from the plummeting hawk, and as she covered her head she wondered. Why is he falling from the sky after me? Have I done something wrong?
Bracing for impact and the bite of the talons into her flesh, she trembled at the mere thought of having to fight the fearful bird for her life, but nothing happened save for the whoosh of the wings over her head and breeze from their flapping. Then there was a furtive sound, little feet scampering to escape, and Deirdre looked up to see a rabbit not six feet from her. A burst of speed, a deadening thud, a shrill squeal, and the rustle of feathers and it was all over as Deirdre looked up to see the hawk taking to the air again, the unlucky rabbit clutched in its talons. It was not after me at all, yet it was also not afraid of me.
Her sexual arousal dissipated by the hawk’s mistaken attack, she felt shaky but realized time had passed and Elizabeth would be angry at her for not fetching the water promptly. Pausing to put her drawers in order, and lace up the top of her dress, she began filling the water buckets for the uphill climb back to the cabin.
Deirdre struggled with her burden on the trip of just under a mile, and she again silently promised herself she would not allow herself to grow old in this heathen wilderness. Finally coming up over the rise to view the cabin, she became immediately alarmed as things were out of place. First of all, the smoke house beside the cabin was on fire, and there was a figure on the ground covered in red: blood, someone has been killed.
Quickening her pace to get closer, she felt her heart thumping in her chest. When she saw clearly the black hair on the body lying in front of the cabin she threw the yoke from her shoulders and ran, terrified that her father was lying dead on the ground. No, this cannot be. Dear Lord, no. Holding her breath in her throat, she arrived over the familiar body lying still on the hard ground. Please, no, this cannot be.
Still drenched in his blood, her father lay there silent forever and his body might have been sleeping if not for the awful, deep gash in its throat. Deirdre knew her father was dead, but now she had to fight off the welling of terror as she wondered about the rest of her family. Mother, Cian, where are they? Coming back to her senses, she turned and faced the cabin, but seeing the door was wide open was not a good sign. Whoever killed father went into the cabin.
Bolting from her father’s lifeless body into the cabin, she did not even think of the danger present if the killer was still inside. Entering the cabin, more ghastly horror confronted her, as the bodies of Elizabeth and Cian, both with the same ugly throat gashes her father had lay still on the floor. No, not Cian, he’s only eight. Please, this can’t be happening to everyone I love. Approaching the bodies, Deirdre had tears streaming down her face, but she saw something else, which frightened her deeply. There written in blood on the floor was a single word which explained that the tragedy was the revenge of an angry father. T-U-A-M-B-A it read.
Deirdre knew that Tuamba had been the son of Chocorua, chief of the Pequankets, who had died while in the care of a white family barely a month ago. Since then Chocorua had wreaked revenge on the settlers for the death of his only son. Feeling lost and profoundly sad, Deirdre sat at the kitchen table crying for her lost family with no idea what would become of her.
After getting out some of her grief, Deirdre realized her own situation was precarious. Will Chocorua return to kill me? Is he lurking about in the forest? Her first instinct was to leave the cabin and run over paths she knew to the home of another settler family, but then she considered, and other thoughts came to her mind.
If I run to another family they will surely take me in, but I will be an orphan, a foundling with no place in the world. They won’t care about me and will devote their resources to their own children, and I might be trapped in this wilderness forever. If I want a different life, the life of a fine lady perhaps, there is only one thing to do. This may be my only chance, but I have to grab it now. My old life is done, and I must strike out on my own, to forge a new one.
Galvanized to action, she gathered a second dress and two blankets from the loft. Placing them in an old sack, she headed to the kitchen where she took her mother’s stout rolling pin, for defense should it become necessary. Taking what there was stored of her mother’s corn cakes, she rejected the jug of molasses, deeming it too heavy to carry. Looking down at the dozen corn cakes, clothing, and rolling pin, she realized they were now all there was of her world.
As she sat and cried some more, she thought about the scene at the river. Had the hawk and the rabbit been a potent of her future? Will I soon be dead like the rabbit, or rise renewed like the hawk?
After holding the cold hands and voicing tearful goodbyes to all three bodies, Deirdre drew in a deep breath and threw the sack over her shoulder quietly slipping out the front door. As the sunlight faded, she slipped into the deep woods amongst the lengthening shadows. There was only one direction and destination on her mind, the one she had come from, and where she felt her dreams would come true. Keeping the setting sun to her back and left, she hoped to remember the way she had once come, south to Boston.
CHAPTER TWO
Lost and Found
Deirdre felt the cold lance of fear in her belly now, as she continued to walk along the path that followed the shore of this seemingly endless lake. I must be lost, as we never passed a lake this big two years ago. With pervasive doubt growing in her mind, she had been walking for five days now, and today by her best reckoning was her eighteenth birthday. Lost in the wilderness she so hated, she could at least be thankful to the sun for drying her dress from the miserable drenching she had experienced on her first night in the wilderness.
On that night she had wanted to get as far away from the horrors of her dead family as possible, so she had tried to continue after the sun had set in the inky blackness that was the forest. Stumbling on tree roots, rocks, and low branches, Deirdre had struggled just a few miles through darkening woods before something she dreaded happened; a torrential downpour. Giving up on her hiking, she tried to cover herself as best she could with the blankets from her sack and seek shelter under a pine tree, but the rain quickly soaked through the blankets and her clothes to her skin. This left her no choice but to lie there shivering in misery. On the first morning of her journey she had tried to light a fire, something she had seen her father do countless times, but she had no success. Briefly she considered returning to the cabin, but when she stood up and looked around her, she realized the problem. I probably only stumbled a few miles last night, but in the dark wood it was aimless, and I’ve lost the path so I really don’t know where the cabin is from here. Accepting the decision she had committed to when she left the cabin, she picked herself up and trudged off to the south, thinking about Boston.
After her dress had dried, things had gone fairly well for three days, until this impassible lake had blocked her path south. Now as the spring breeze danced through her flaxen hair, she felt it ripple across her now dry dress as she came to another one of the countless side paths which merged and diverged along the path she had chosen because it seemed to go generally south. Pausing to consider, she remembered the lessons other side paths had taught her. Many just stop, in the middle of a thicket, or the lead to one of those blasted fingers of land that stick out into the lake but leave me with no choice but to retrace my steps going back the way I came.
The peninsulas of land common to the lake had robbed her of many hours of walking, and the reason she worried so badly became evident when she took the canvas sack off her shoulder and took out a folded piece on cloth inside. Unfolding the cloth, Deirdre stared down at the two measly corncakes she had left. These cakes baked with love by her now dead mother were all that separated her from starvation, or the difficulty of having to find food in the wilderness. I must not lose time, for I must find people soon, a settlement, or I shall surely starve out here.
Deirdre had taken stock of the dozen cakes she had left the cabin with, and had told herself she would only eat one per day, but she knew she had abused that rule. I always seem to be hungry now, and I have eaten too many of the cakes. How long will I have when they run out?
Looking forward at the high ridge this new side path wanted to take her to, Deirdre made her decision thinking it unlikely a peninsula would be so high, and not seeing more lake on the other side. Her mistake was in not climbing to the top here and now to verify that, but she went tramping off down the path thinking, at last, I’ve made it around this infernal lake.
Moving quickly around a bend in the trail, she stopped suddenly in her tracks instantly realizing she had come to another frustrating point of land. Furious at the delay and the wasted steps, she raged over losing her hard earned advancement. Frustrated and tired, she sat down on a rock near the lake shore to consider the few options she had.
The natural panorama spread out before her made her feel somewhat better. Under the gentle sun, tiny swells of lake water lapped at the shoreline next to her rock. Above her the sky sang crystal blue, accompanied by tiny, puffy clouds spaced far apart. A flight of loons flying in their natural V formation passed over her head, making their distinctive cry.
Scanning the horizon, she saw the budding oaks and maples and the already leafed white wood shafts of birches. Conifers, like gentle guardians, crowned the hill on the far shore, as if to protect their still bare brothers from any last attacks of winter weather.
Examining the opposite shore in greater detail, she noticed something, a detail different than other times she had gazed across the lake. It is much closer. Closer than ever I have seen it before. Opening her sack, she looked at her two lonely corncakes and then looked again at the far shore. In Deidre’s head a wild gamble for survival was forming.
I will swim the lake. There is no other choice, I have to. Having no idea of the implications and dangers of her bold decision, she only understood that starvation awaited her if she did not try this.
In just a short time, she stood knee-deep in water much colder than she imagined. Finding a loose driftwood log, she had tied her sack, dress, and petticoat to it. Standing in only her drawers, she had no illusions about her possessions staying dry, only a desire to keep them with her. Hopefully, the driftwood would also provide some buoyancy. Pushing the log deeper out into the lake with her body already shivering at the frigidity of the dark water, she began to kick with her legs. It is so damn cold.
With her natural stubbornness, Deirdre kicked and pushed the log in front of her as fast and hard as she could. However, the water only seemed to get icier the further out into the lake she swam. When her body could not stop shivering, she began to question the wisdom of her decision. P. . . perh. . . happs, this iis nottt a gggood idea, bbbut what elssse ccan I dddo?
Exhausted, her body shivered uncontrollably, she felt her arms and legs become like immovable rocks. It is closer now, I can make it. Pressing forward, she splashed desperately in the freezing water. After more weakened sloshing, she realized the life-deadening water would soon overwhelm her. Although markedly closer to her goal, she found herself in real danger of floundering, her legs having become useless stumps under the icy touch of hypothermia. Splashing about in panic, using only her arms, she bobbed in the water, having to use all her effort to simply stay above the surface.
Screaming in utter desperation, she called for help which would not come. Struggling and splashing wildly against her fate, she slowly sank beneath the lapping waves. So this is death. Will mother, father and Cian be waiting for me? Deirdre’s terror-stricken mind went dark, as oblivion sucked her in.
* * * *
Deirdre awoke alive and warm not the cold stiff corpse she might have been. Lying on her back on a grassy bank, she looked about her to get her bearings. On the opposite shore, she saw the jutting peninsula from which she had come, and she realized she was indeed across the lake. But how did I get here? The last memory I have is drowning. Did I imagine the drowning?
Looking about, she saw a small fire crackling beside her and noticed her body was covered by a warm blanket of multi-hued furs, but underneath she was completely nude. Whoever saved me has taken all my clothes, leaving me naked. Her eyes searched desperately for her lost clothes and she spied them hanging from a nearby tree limb. Clutching the fur blanket around her naked body, she moved to the tree, but found her clothes were still soaked. However, something fascinating hung from another branch of the same tree, a rope festooned with animal pelts of all colors and patterns imaginable. Clearly they were the same kinds of animal pelts which made up the blanket she clenched around her nakedness.
Breaking the tranquility, a shot rang out, and Deirdre recognizing the sound of a flintlock rifle. Her father possessed one, but it had not saved him, as she did not remember seeing in beside his body. Whoever rescued me is about in the forest, perhaps hunting. When will he return and will he help me get to Boston? Oh, he simply must help.
Time passed and nobody came so after she warmed herself by the fire for a while, she sat by the tree and began feeling the soft furs which hung there. Deirdre reveled in the smooth delight they made on her bare skin and before long she was totally entranced with the touch of the fur and forgot where she was. Slowly she let her fingers find her breasts, nipples, and then her slick cunny under the fur blanket.
From behind her there came the distinctive click, of a cocking flintlock rifle. Whirling around, she beheld a mountain of a man with a thick beard looking at her with a smile down the barrel of his long rifle. Head to toe, he wore buckskin, topped with a black fur cap. Smirking, he looked her over at gunpoint.
“Stand up, little missy. I see thou art feeling a mite better. Course in thy case tis better than being dead.”
Standing up as he asked, she kept the fur clenched tight around her. What does one say when confronted by a woodsman at gunpoint? Deirdre wondered if all her mother’s seeming endless lessons in the manners of a young lady would apply now, but she let them guide her. Turning, she curtsied as she had been taught, introducing herself. “Good day to thee, gentle sir, I am Deirdre McGregor, now an orphan these five days as the savage chief Chocorua killed my family.” It cannot hurt to play upon his sympathy.
The stranger holding a gun on her only laughed a hearty belly laugh. “So did thou want to die or are thee just crazy, taking a dip in the May waters of Winnipesauke? If thou wanted to die, I should perhaps apologize for pulling thee out.”
Deirdre knew now her swim had been folly. As in the mid days of May the waters of the lake were just unfrozen, but she had not thought of that before. “No, kind sir, I was just frustrated trying to get around this Winnpi. . . well, whatever you called it. I thank thee, for thy gracious rescue, and for saving my clothes, how gentlemanly of thee.” Thinking if she treated him as a gentleman he would behave as such, she saw how wrong she had been with his next words.
“I be lookin for more of a thank thee than thou offer. We shall start by having you drop the blanket, soin I can get a look at you move. Before, I only saw thee lie still.” His glowing hungry eyes admitted to her he had already seen her female charms once, but he wanted to see her body move. She shivered at the thought of what he might want after that, but what was she to do?
What choice do I have? Realizing she had none, she let the blanket drop exposing all of her lush body to his ravenous gaze. Watching him drink in her naked beauty, she thought of what her mother would say, how shameful it would be to show a man your body before you were properly wed. Only harlots and whores would do such a thing. However, there was a problem, and Deirdre didn’t know quite what to make of it. I feel neither shame nor embarrassment with his eyes upon me, but rather my cunny is pulsing with raw desire. Do I desire to show him my flesh?
“Come now, missy, move about, shake those breasts for me. Set those fine hips to walkin, with a womanly wiggle. Thou art a beauty, for sure.” He moved the tip of his gun indicating which way she should walk.
Forced to sashay about swinging her nubile hips, she also shook her perk, young breasts and found the results surprising to her. This is not shaming, for I am becoming more excited by this. The slickness comes to my cunny, but I think it best not to let him know I like this.
“What doest thou intend for me, sir, to defile me? I only ask to be taken to Boston, for I have relatives there. They will pay you if thou help me, but not if thou savage me.” It was and out and out lie, as Deirdre had no relatives in Boston, but she felt she had to offer him something other than her body.
Moving forward quickly, the woodsman pressed the barrel of his gun to her belly. Then reaching over his weapon, he grabbed her right breast. “I wouldn’t be gettin all uppity, missy. Let’s not think of it as defiling, just as your payment to me for services rendered. Surely a sight, touch and tickle seem a small price to pay for thy life.” Letting his gun barrel roam down to her flaxen pubis, he pressed to hard metal to her sex, not entering her, but letting her know he could.
Deirdre remained still, as she endured his gun barrel at her cunny and his hand moving back and forth between her breasts kneading them liberally. Again she considered the fact that it wasn’t shame she felt from his touch, no, it was quite different. If he wanted more, to put his manroot inside me, I . . . would perhaps do such a thing.
Dropping the gun barrel from her sex, he touched and smelt the tip of his weapon. Laughing boisterously, his face come alive with delight. “Thou are wet, fragrant with desire, making me think your indignation is but a show. Doest thee want more?” Setting the weapon against a nearby tree trunk, he stared at her, forcing an answer from her.
Deirdre’s mind was fighting a battle, one she had no idea would be forced upon her. What sort of woman am I? I did feel disappointed when his hand and gun left my body. This is not as mother said it would be an onerous task to be performed. She never said anything about wanting him to take you. Looking into his grey eyes, she knew that if she simply said the word, he would take her virginity right here and now, but could she say it?
Taking a rope holding a fat partridge from the back of his wide leather belt, he dropped the bird at her feet, while still drinking in her nakedness. “Well, I be in no hurry, and thou be going nowhere, so thou take some time to consider me offer, and as thee do pluck and clean this bird for our sup.”
Knowing she must get dressed or sex would become inevitable, Deirdre spoke quietly, showing respect to him. “Thank thee, gentle sir. May I cover myself, else I become chilled.”
Drinking in another draft of her pale skin, he seemed unable to grant permission for her to cover her splendorous nudity, but as he took a last glance at her delta of flaxen fur, he sighed. “Ahhhh, if thou must, yet it seems shameful to cover such beauty.”
Not bothering with the fur blanket, Deirdre went right to her still damp clothes wanting their more permanent protection, yet the thought of sex with this man was still dancing in her head. Knowing her mother would be ashamed by what she thought, Deirdre dressed quickly and went about plucking the partridge. Yet she had barely started when she realized, I’m contemplating sex this him and don’t even know his name.
“Good sir, tis customary for a lady to at least know the names of men who have seen and touched her naked. Wouldst thee be good enough to introduce thyself?” She looked up at his eyes and knew she had shamed him a bit.
“Jedidiah Havens, the best darn fur trapper in the north woods. Taint a trapper like me from Boston clear to Canada, and I’m on me way to Portsmouth to sell this string.” He pointed the rope of soft pelts she had been entranced with earlier.
“So, whereabouts was this family of yours killed?”
Deirdre continued working on the partridge but swallowed hard at the question. “My family lived in a small cabin near Tamworth. It was always peaceful there until this trouble with Chocorua over the death of his son. Do you know why that settler family let his son die?”
“No, not rightly, just know there’s been trouble up there since, vengeful Injuns, failed crops, and mysterious happenings. How did you avoid being killed?”
“I was away at the river, fetching water.” For the first time, Deirdre considered how the chore she hated had saved her life from Chocorua’s hatchet.
“Well, Lord rest their souls, missy, but I’m bound for Portsmouth, not Boston. Thou art welcome to come along, ifin thee make thyself useful.” He winked and grinned at her giving Deirdre a good idea of how he intended her to be useful.
“I’ll come, Mr. Havens, and I’ll try to be useful, but I insist on one thing.” She stared at him unwilling to back down on the point she was about to press for.
“You must call me Deirdre, not missy.”