Follow the River (58 page)

Mrs. Steele sat with me on the broad, pleasant porch of her splendid Radford home, and we did our best to share our conceptions of the brave woman. Little by little she began to give me hints and leads for additional research, and also gave me a copy of
Escape From Indian Captivity
. She made a special trip away from the house to fetch a facsimile of the original manuscript for me. When I returned to Radford a few months later to continue my research, she arranged to drive me out to the site of Ingles’ Ferry for a look at the hewn-log structure William Ingles had built there as an adjunct to his wayside inn. Mrs. Steele was at this time much bothered by the encroachments of vandals on the properties, and, indeed, by the general decline in morality and character that she professed to see going on throughout modern society. It was obvious that she had high expectations of people and probably not much patience with moral sloppiness. The world built here through such risk and work and suffering by her ancestors was being eroded by modernity. I felt that her keen sense of worth and family pride, stemming from the pioneer heroism of Mary and William Ingles, is still trying to withstand the long siege of easier times, the slow softening of fiber. Through all her helpfulness and hospitality and dry humor, I could detect a sadder, more severe side. There was a vestige, I thought, of the pioneer woman, looking down the centuries through the eyes of her descendants onto an undreamed-of world. It may be only my writer’s fancy, but I think I glimpsed the character of Mary Draper Ingles, that doughty survivor, in the face and the demeanor of this keeper of her legend.

And so my special thanks go to Roberta Steele for lending me her ancestor so that I might try to tell an inspiring story. I am also grateful to Rev. Harold J. Dudley of Raleigh, North Carolina, editor of the Third Edition of John P. Hale’s
Trans-Allegheny Pioneers
(Derreth Printing Co., Raleigh, North Carolina), for making his thoughts and his insights available
to me; and to dozens of Virginians and West Virginians living along the New River Valley who gave me directions, hospitality and friendship, guided me to great views and campsites at the tops and bottoms of mountains and paddled me here and there in their fishing boats because, knowing I was writing a book about their legendary Mary Ingles, they apparently wanted to make my passage up the valley easier than hers.

lives in the southern Indiana hill country, near Bloomington, in an antique log cabin he recently moved onto his own wooded land.

Jim Thom has been a U.S. Marine, a newspaper and magazine editor, a freelance writer, and a member of the Indiana University Journalism School faculty. He now devotes all his time to writing.

Jim Thom researches his American historical novels meticulously, traveling, tracking down primary sources, and even walking in the footsteps of his characters. He walked, climbed and camped along much of the New River gorge in preparation for writing
Follow the River
. He traveled the entire route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition while writing
From Sea to Shining Sea
. To convey the experiences of the frontier soldiers in
Long Knife
, his first historical novel, he mastered the use of eighteenth-century tools and weapons and waded the icy flood waters of the Wabash.

For his latest novel,
Panther in the Sky
, Jim Thom immersed himself in present-day Shawnee tribal life, spending time with the Shawnee Nation United Remnant Band of Ohio.
The Washington Post
praised
Panther in the Sky
, which is based on the life of the leader Tecumseh, as “brave and honorable.… Thom’s rendering of the Shawnee world is authoritative.”

Frances Slocum, kidnapped from her frontier home when she was five by the Lenape, was raised by them to become an honored leader and healer of her adopted people. When she has a chance, as an adult, to return to her white family, there is no doubt in her mind that her heart is a red one.

THE RED HEART
by
James Alexander Thom

This powerful story about a real woman out of history adds another strong chapter to the large contribution James Alexander Thom is making to American literature.

Published by Ballantine Books.
Available in bookstores everywhere.