by Laura Frantz
“Aye.” As if sealing some sort of bargain, he caught up her hand in a mere skim of a kiss, a slight tingling arising from his whiskers on her open palm.
Done with courting, she stole her arms round his shoulders and circled his neck. She kissed him hard. The moonbow was nearly forgotten. There was just the two of them, the sheer delight of his presence, the reassuring scent and feel of him as she nestled in his embrace as his bride.
Together they looked skyward. The moonbow was shattering—mere bits of color in the blackness, a sort of bridge between heaven and earth—reminding her that even on the darkest nights there was a glimmer of hope, of promise, however hazy.
Sion’s low words were nearly lost beneath the tumult of the falls. “Best bid the moonbow good night, Tempe Tucker.”
She smiled and held on to hope. Their hard-won future loomed bright. “Tempe Tucker Morgan.”
1
KENTUCKE, INDIAN TERRITORY, 1777
In the fading lavender twilight, at the edge of a clearing, stood half a dozen Shawnee warriors. They looked to the small log cabin nestled in the bosom of the greening ridge, as earthy and unassuming as the ground it sat upon. If not for the cabin’s breathtaking view of the river and rolling hills, arguably the finest in the territory, most passersby would easily dismiss such a place, provided they found it at all. The Indians regarded it with studied intent, taking in the sagging front porch, the willow baskets and butter churn to one side, and the vacant rocking chair still astir from the hurry of a moment before. Six brown bodies gleamed with bear grease, each perfectly still, their only movement that of sharp, dark eyes.
Inside the cabin, Ezekial Click handed a rifle to his son, Ransom, before opening the door and stepping onto the porch. His wife, Sara, took up a second gun just inside. A sudden breath of wind sent the spent blossoms of a lone dogwood tree scurrying across the clearing. From the porch, Click began speaking in the Shawnee tongue. Slowly. Respectfully. A smattering of Shawnee followed—forceful yet oddly, even hauntingly, melodic.
Sara and Ransom darted a glance out the door, troubled by every word, yet the unintelligible banter continued. At last, silence came. And then, in plain English, one brave shouted, “Click, show us your pretty daughter!”
Within the cabin, all eyes fastened on the girl hovering on the loft steps. At thirteen, Lael Click was just a slip of a thing, but her oval face showed a woman’s composure. Her pale green eyes fastened on her father’s back just beyond the yawning door frame.
She put one cautious foot to the floor, then tread the worn pine boards until she stood in her father’s shadow. She dared not look at her mother. Without further prompting she stepped forward into a dying shaft of sunlight. A sudden breeze caught the hem of her thin indigo shift and it ballooned, exposing two bare brown feet.
The same brave shouted, “Let down your hair!”
She hesitated, hearing her mother’s sharp intake of breath. With trembling hands she reached for the horn combs that held back the weight of fair hair. Her mane tumbled nearly to her feet, as tangled and luxuriant as wild honeysuckle vine.
Woven in with the evening shadows was a chorus of tree frogs and katydids and the scent of soil and spring, but Lael noticed none of these things. Beside her, her father stood stoically and she fought to do the same, remembering his oft-repeated words of warning: Never give way to fear in an Indian’s sight.
Softly she expelled a ragged breath, watching as each warrior turned away. Only the tallest tarried, his eyes lingering on her as she swept up her hair with unsteady hands and subdued it with the combs.
At last they were gone, slipping away into the wall of woods. Invisible but ever present. Silent. Perhaps deadly.
Evening was a somber affair, as if the Shawnee themselves had stayed for supper. To Lael, the cold cornbread and buttermilk that filled their wooden bowls seemed as tasteless as the cabin’s chinking. Somehow she managed a sip of cider and a halfhearted bite now and then. Across from her, her mother managed neither. Only her younger brother Ransom ate, taking his portion and her own, as if oblivious to all the trouble.
Looking up, she saw a hint of a smile on her father’s face. Was he trying to put her at ease? Not possible. He sat facing the cabin door, his loaded rifle lounging against the table like an uninvited guest. Despite his defensive stance, he seemed not at all anxious like her ma but so calm she could almost believe the Indians had simply paid them a social call and they could go on about their business as if nothing had happened.
He took out his hunting knife, sliced a second sliver of cornbread, then stood. Lael watched his long shadow fall across the table and caught his quick wink as he turned away. Swallowing a smile, she concentrated on the cabin’s rafters and the ropes strung like spiderwebs above their heads. The sight of her favorite coverlet brought some comfort, its pattern made bright with dogwood blossoms and running vines. Here and there hung linsey dresses, a pair of winter boots, some woolen leggings, strings of dried apples and leather-britches beans, bunches of tobacco, and other sundry articles. Opposite was the loft where she and Ransom slept.
The cabin door creaked then closed as Pa disappeared onto the porch, leaving her to gather up the dirty dishes while her mother made mountain tea. Lael watched her add sassafras roots to the kettle, her bony hands shaking.
“Ma, I don’t care for any tea tonight,” she said.
“Very well. Cover the coals, then.”
Lael took a small shovel and buried the red embers with a small mountain of ash to better start a fire come morning. When she turned around, her ma had disappeared behind the tattered quilt that divided the main cabin from their corner bedroom. Ransom soon followed suit, climbing the loft ladder to play quietly with a small army of wooden soldiers garrisoned under the trundle bed.
Left alone, she couldn’t stay still, so taut in mind and body she felt she might snap. Soon every last dish and remaining crumb were cleaned up and put away. With Ma looking as though she might fall to pieces, Lael’s resolve to stay grounded only strengthened. Yet she found herself doing foolish things like snuffing out the candles before their time and pouring the dirty dishwater through a crack in the floor rather than risk setting foot outside.
The clock on the mantel sounded overloud in the strained silence, reminding her the day was done. Soon she’d have to settle in for the night. But where was Pa? She took in the open door, dangerously ajar, and the fireflies dancing in the mounting gloom. She sighed, pushed back a wisp of hair, and took a timid step toward the porch.
How far could an Indian arrow fly?
Peering around the door frame, she found Pa sitting in the same place she’d found him years ago that raw November morning after his escape from the Shawnee. They had long thought him dead, and indeed all remnants of his life as a white man seemed to have been stamped out of him. His caped hunting shirt was smeared with bear grease, his deerskin leggings soiled beyond redemption. Except for an eagle-feathered scalp lock, his head was plucked completely clean of the hair that had been as fair as her own. Savage as he was, she’d hardly recognized him. Only his eyes reminded her of the man she once knew, their depths a wild, unsurrendered blue.
Tonight he was watching the woods, his gun across his knees, and his demeanor told her he shouldn’t be disturbed. Without a word she turned and climbed to the loft, where she found Ransom asleep. There, in the lonesome light of a tallow candle, she shook her hair free of the horn combs a second time.
The shears she’d kept hidden since the Shawnee departed seemed cold and heavy in her hand, but her unbound hair was warm and soft as melted butter. She brought the two together, then hesitated. Looking down, she imagined the strands lying like discarded ribbon at her feet.
A sudden noise below made her jerk the scissors out of sight. Pa had come in to collect his pipe. Her sudden movement seemed to catch his eye.
“You’d best be abed, Daughter,” he called over his shoulder, his tone a trifle scolding.
She sank down on the
corn-husk tick, losing the last of her resolve, and tucked the scissors away. If she changed her mind come morning, they’d be near. Catlike, she climbed over the slumbering body in the trundle bed beneath her, surprised that a seven-year-old boy could snore so loud.
The night was black as the inside of an iron skillet and nearly as hot. She lay atop the rustling tick, eyes open, craving sleep. The night sounds outside the loft window were reassuringly familiar, as was her brother’s rhythmic breathing. All was the same as it had ever been but different. The coming of the Indians had changed everything.
In just a few moments’ time the Shawnee had thrown open the door to Pa’s past, and now there would be no shutting it.
She, for one, didn’t like looking back.
Author’s Note
Since I was a child, the death of James Boone has haunted me. I never imagined that particular event would work its way into one of my novels. While researching A Moonbow Night, I visited the spot along Wallen’s Creek in Virginia thought to be the burial place of James Boone and party, only to discover another site that claimed to be the one instead.
At the time of the massacre, Daniel Boone was not a well-known figure on the frontier. Another young man who died with James that day, son of the wealthy Henry Russell, was the one who made headlines. James was rarely mentioned in newspaper accounts.
Sadly, little is known of Daniel and Rebecca Boone’s firstborn. In the words of John D. Smythe, “What should have been one of the richest pages of pioneer history is a blank.” Given that, I took what is left to us historically and tried to capture James Boone’s personality and presence, if only briefly.
As a young man of sixteen coming of age in 1773 and living in his intrepid father’s shadow, James Boone must have been quite an interesting character. There are touching accounts of him accompanying his father into the woods when James was very small. Later, when Daniel Boone went off on long hunts and was gone for extended periods of time, James would have been his mother’s closest ally and help about the farm. He likely filled a fatherly role with his many brothers and sisters. He might have had a love interest. Hardworking, of solid Quaker stock, he would have been a first-rate farmer and settler in his day.
The days leading up to his death are shadowy at best. We know that Daniel expressed confidence in James by sending him back to Castle’s Woods to get supplies during that first try at Kentucky in 1773. We know that James and his small group made their way back but camped that fateful night only three miles behind Daniel’s advance party. The site of the massacre itself is disputed. Just who found the slain party is also in question.
What little is known about that fatal October morning comes from the slave who escaped and hid behind a log and watched the tragedy unfold. It is said that James’s mother, Rebecca Boone, gave linen sheets for the bodies to be buried in. The next spring, Daniel Boone returned to the gravesites and was overtaken by a severe storm. For years after, he was said to be visibly moved upon the mention of James’s death. Daniel and Rebecca were to lose another son, Israel Boone, in the Indian Wars years later. What is perhaps most remarkable is that Daniel Boone seems never to have held a grudge.
There are many sources that enriched my research and writing, these being foremost: Women at Fort Boonesborough by Harry G. Enoch and Anne Crabb; Boone: A Biography by Robert Morgan; the Draper Manuscripts; and a great many other sources, too numerous to mention here.
As an author of fiction, I often take what history hands me and use it to the story’s advantage without staying true to actual dates. Though there are early accounts of longhunters and surveyors in the region of Cumberland Falls, settlement was slow in coming. It was held sacred by many Native American tribes, and in early 1780, Zachariah Green and his companions endured a rough river ride and abandoned their boat to the falls, which inspired the scene of Sion Morgan doing the same. Not until 1800 did the Commonwealth of Kentucky grant two men Cumberland Falls along with two hundred acres. Later, in 1850, Louis and Mary Renfro bought four hundred acres, including the Great Falls of the Cumberland, and built a cabin there, inviting visitors to fish and enjoy the beauty of what historian Richard Henry Collins called “a succession of scenery as romantic and picturesque as any in the state.” The subsequent Moonbow Inn was destroyed by fire in the 1940s. But this spectacular setting lends itself vividly to fiction and was easily reconstructed in this writer’s eighteenth-century imagination.
I invite you to visit my website, www.LauraFrantz.net, and also Pinterest, where I share maps and images of A Moonbow Night and the inspiration behind the writing of this novel, which was particularly dear to me since I am a Kentuckian.
Acknowledgments
Recently I read an acknowledgment by Agatha Christie that sums up what I hope my humble stories convey: “To all those that lead monotonous lives, in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure.” I’m ever grateful that books have done that for me. I’m continually inspired by men and women like Daniel and Rebecca Boone, whose lives leave an extraordinarily rich historical trail for us to follow.
Special thanks to Jenny Q, Jenny Quinlan, for being the first to read this manuscript and for sharing her expertise and insight. Historical Editorial is all that and more! I look forward to working with you again.
For my great team at Revell: To editor Andrea Doering, who takes the finished manuscript and is able to read with an eye for making the story the best it can be for readers. Your heart for those who pick up my novels always inspires and humbles me. To my patient, ever-faithful editor Jessica English, who takes the timelessness in my novel and helps me nail down days, something I am not very good at! Heartfelt thanks to Cheryl Van Andel and the art team for covers that reflect the heart of my stories. Last but not least, to all those folks who comprise Revell’s sales and marketing team, and the sales reps who place my books in brick-and-mortar stores—you all are the absolute best. And to the extraordinary Karen Steele, who can take a book and make it shine on her end once finished—many, many thanks.
Heartfelt thanks to my savvy agent, Janet Grant of Books & Such Literary Agency, who made this story possible and the two to follow, all standalone novels after the Ballantyne Legacy series. Knowing she is always in the wings, able to take care of anything needed, is remarkable.
Special thanks to the Friends of Boone Trace, Dr. John Fox, Curtis Penix, and all those who’ve worked tirelessly to preserve the trail Boone blazed in 1775. In the spring of 2016, I was able to walk a portion of this trace starting at Fort Boonesborough to Twitty’s Fort in Kentucky, following in the steps of my hero and those settlers who braved so much to embrace a new land. It was during this trek that I met some of the kin of Kentucky’s first settlers, including Jasper Castle, a direct descendant of the very Castle who settled Castle’s Woods, where James Boone went for supplies in 1773, days before his death. To learn more about this vital preservation effort to keep Boone Trace alive, please visit www.boonetrace1775.com.
And last but not least, to my readers near and far, who are God’s ongoing gift to me. What would my stories be without you?
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.
Philippians 1:3
Laura Frantz is a Christy Award finalist and the author of The Frontiersman’s Daughter, Courting Morrow Little, The Colonel’s Lady, The Mistress of Tall Acre, and the Ballantyne Legacy series. She lives and writes in a log cabin in the heart of the Kentucky woods. Please visit her at www.LauraFrantz.net.
Books by Laura Frantz
The Frontiersman’s Daughter
Courting Morrow Little
The Colonel’s Lady
The Mistress of Tall Acre
A Moonbow Night
THE BALLANTYNE LEGACY
Love’s Reckoning
Love’s Awakening
Love’s Fortune
LauraFrantz.net
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