The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl

The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl

Author:Matthew Pearl [Pearl, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2021-07-28T00:00:00+00:00


Book III

The Reckoning

Chapter

8

Risen

DANIEL BOONE WAS DEAD. For the second time in six months, another family, this time Shawnee, had reason to reach this conclusion about him. With only a pony, a rifle, and a trifling amount of food, surviving a 160-mile journey was unlikely. True, Andrew Johnson had escaped back to Kentucky—but no one had been chasing him. Unlike Johnson, who had fooled the tribe long enough as Pequolly that they believed he had to be lost, Boone would have some of the finest warriors on the frontier tracking him almost immediately. He wouldn’t be able to pause to catch his breath, much less to hunt or sleep, heightening the risk of injury and death in dark, unforgiving woods. Boone’s brother-in-law and dear friend, John Stuart, had once concealed himself in a hollow sycamore tree while hiding from Indians and was never seen again; his skeletal remains were found by Boone inside the tree five years later, in 1775, identified by the initials engraved on his powder horn and horse tack.

Blackfish had a choice to make. He could take Boone’s death as a given and not squander resources by deploying his braves on a demanding search mission so soon before the planned attack against Boonesboro. But Blackfish had come to know Boone, and he knew better than to underestimate him. Plus, Boone was still Sheltowee to him. He was his son. Family or not, though, Blackfish could not take any chances that he could warn Boonesboro. Too much rested on the impending campaign. The tribes needed to regain Kentucky to save their way of life, and this was their best chance.

Jimmy Rogers, the captive-turned-chief, was called in to join Blackfish’s search expedition and raced into the woods with other braves. They came upon the tracks of Boone’s pony. After following these into the next afternoon, they came to the Ohio River, “swollen from bank to bank” and impossible to cross without a vessel. Boone’s bridle and saddle were spotted hanging in a tree. Rogers later recalled the next incredible clue. “We found where [Boone] had cut a grapevine, the top of which was fast to the top of a tree on the opposite side, with which [he] swang [himself] across.”

The search party held a meeting at the river. The consensus was to let Boone go, that he would starve to death before getting home on foot. Giving up the chase, Shawnee messengers went to Fort Detroit to inform Henry Hamilton that Boone had escaped. Meanwhile, Rogers disagreed with the conclusion that Boone was a goner. As a former captive himself, Rogers may have felt a special insight into Boone, and he later recalled telling the council that the fugitive would get home going “as straight as a leather string.” One of the captive saltmakers recalls other Indians returning from the unsuccessful pursuit, buzzing with speculation on Boone’s fate.

Upon departing from his “old mamma,” Boone had been traveling as fast as the pony would go, relishing the fact that his instrument of escape had been provided by Henry Hamilton and the British.



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