That Dark and Bloody River

Informationen zum Autor A six-time Pulitzer Prize nominee,  Allan W. Eckert  is an Emmy Award–winning scriptwriter and a Newbery Honor author of books for young readers. He is also the author of the popular six-volume historical series  Narratives of America  and the creator of  Tecumseh! , an outdoor drama staged regularly in Chillicothe, Ohio, that has played to more than a million people over the past 20 years. Klappentext An award-winning author chronicles the settling of the Ohio River Valley, home to the defiant Shawnee Indians, who vow to defend their land against the seemingly unstoppable. They came on foot and by horseback, in wagons and on rafts, singly and by the score, restless, adventurous, enterprising, relentless, seeking a foothold on the future. European immigrants and American colonists, settlers and speculators, soldiers and missionaries, fugitives from justice and from despair-pioneers all, in the great and inexorable westward expansion defined at its heart by the majestic flow of the Ohio River. This is their story, a chronicle of monumental dimension, of resounding drama and impact set during a pivotal era in our history: the birth and growth of a nation. Drawing on a wealth of research, both scholarly and anecdotal-including letters, diaries, and journals of the era-Allan W. Eckert has delivered a landmark of historical authenticity, unprecedented in scope and detail.Chapter 1   [July 16, 1768 —Saturday]   Simon Girty stood silently in the dense cover fringing the area of the hunting camp, his garb blending so well with the underbrush about him that it would have required a keenly trained eye to pick him out and, even then, the eye would have to know exactly where to focus. His head turned slowly from side to side, cocking now and again as he listened intently for anything that might indicate the danger still existed.   A man of slightly less than average height, Girty was of a chunky, muscular build. His hair was black and flowed free to his shoulders, his features were well formed, and many of the women he encountered considered him quite handsome. But those features could harden into fierce, harsh lines at times, and now was one of those occasions. His expression was set in grim lines, making him look rather older than his 27 years, and his dark gray eyes probed deeply into the dappled foliage, searching as intently as his ears were listening. A jay scolded briefly from a nearby tree and his gaze flicked instantly to the source, then moved away and his head swiveled slightly when a trio of crows cawed raucously from the uppermost bare branches of a dead tree some 300 yards upriver.   To the west, the distant opposite shore of the Shawanoe showed no signs of movement. The river itself issued only a faint hissing gurgle as it slid past, heading for its junction with the Tennessee some 20 miles downstream and then, ultimately, with the Ohio another 25 miles below that.104 Girty let his gaze move back to the scene before him, and a muscle in his jaw twitched as he studied the jumbled bodies more closely. He could not decide from this distance whether anyone of the party was missing, but he knew he would find out soon enough.   He had known from the beginning that it was a mistake coming here; Shawnees did not take lightly to white hunters trespassing on their Kan-tuck-kee hunting grounds. The others had not listened to his warnings, however, and despite the presentiment that had risen in him, he had allowed himself to be talked into it.   They had left Kaskaskia on this hunt just two weeks earlier in two large canoes, each towing a sturdy piroque behind for transporting their take. All 19 in the party were traders or hunters associated with the Baynton, Wharton and Morgan Company. Not one of them had ever met either John Baynton or Samuel Wharton—those two, in recent years, rarely left the firm’s headquarter...

Product details

• Authors: Allan Eckert, Allan W. Eckert
• Publisher: Bantam Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.09.1996
• EAN: 9780553378658
• ISBN: 978-0-553-37865-8
• No. of pages: 880
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 235 mm x 45 mm
• Series: Mysteries & Horror; Mysteries & Horror
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature