Read more
Zusatztext Outlines A fascinating tale about a fascinating character. The best books leave the reader wanting more! and Frontiers begs for a sequel. Informationen zum Autor Michael Jensen has worked as a bank teller, a wedding photographer, and a tour guide in Australia. He currently works as a flight attendant and lives in Seattle with his partner. He is the author of Frontiers and Firelands . Klappentext The year is 1797. John Chapman, an impulsive young man and a sexual outlaw, forsaken in the bitter winter of the Allegheny Plateau, clings to his one tenuous dream: to claim a future in the Western outpost. Unarmed and near death, Chapman is on the brink of giving up when an unexpected rescue changes his course in life forever, and he discovers the true meaning of survival.The mysterious savior is Daniel McQuay, a loner whose overpowering bond with Chapman is as shifting as a shadow, as dark as the prairie tale he spins for the impressionable young man. For Chapman, McQuay's story of a deranged killer clings to his transient soul like a nightmare, tracking him further south and into the safe haven of a gentle Indian woman named Gwennie. His journey also takes him into the intimate deliverance of Palmer, a brash but irresistibly innocent seventeen-year old settler.As the three adventurers carve a new life out of the endless wilderness, they face the ultimate enemy -- man -- in a life-and-death struggle that unfolds in the shadow of a legendary and avenging evil. Chapter One My first memory is being lost on a cold December night when I was four. Behind our run-down house, I'd spotted an injured blue-wing duck flapping in distress. Wanting to catch it and take care of it, I chased it far into the woods, but the duck vanished into a thick row of gallberry bushes. I spent a few moments searching and calling out for the bird, but it was gone. I don't know how long I wandered amongst the forbidding trees pointlessly calling for Mother or Father or my sister, Elizabeth. Mother was dead since summer, Father was probably drunk, and Elizabeth was only seven. I started to cry. When night finally fell, I found a dry space under a log, crawled into it, and lay there shivering until the sun came up. Hungry and freezing, I staggered about the next morning until I was nearly trampled by cows being driven to pasture by a farmer. "Whoa, there, little fella," the farmer said to me. "'Tis awfully early for you to be out. Where's your pa or ma?" I was in such a daze, I could only look up at him. "You're lost then, aren't you?" he said, sliding off his horse. "I'll have you home in no time. What do you call yourself?" Ma called me her "Chappie," Pa called me his "Woe," but I didn't know what I called myself. November 1797 Snow spewed forth over my shivering form as I glanced backward one last time at that hellish region of western Pennsylvania known as the Allegheny Plateau. For the first three days of November, I'd battled across the plateau's stony, windswept heights, surviving only by some miracle. Thank God, it lay behind me. Peering ahead, I tried to make out the yawning valley stretching ahead of me, but it was quickly lost in the swelling gloom of night. My only hint of the best way down appeared to be the faint scoring of some animal's hooves upon the steep rocks descending beneath me. Even that trail would soon be lost in the dark, leaving me to find my way down the precipitous route by feel. I felt dizzy just looking at the descent. It was far too easy to imagine the fatal slip that would send me careening onto the rocks far below. My name was John Chapman, though I would gladly have been anyone else if given the chance. Two months had passed since I'd watched the Major die. Once again fingering the now tattered flyer upon which I'd foolishly pinned so many hopes, I...
