Fleshed out from historical accounts and records, this is a strong
novelization of a true woman-versus-nature ordeal. In 1755 Mary
Draper Ingles, 23, pregnant mother of two, is kidnapped by Shawnees
following their massacre of Mary's West Virginia settlement - a
vivid bloodletting. She, her two sons, and sister-in-law Bettie are
taken downstream on Sinking Creek - as Mary gives birth to a
daughter, then next morning must ride horseback or be slaughtered.
(Almost bleeding to death, she nonetheless keeps a cheerful face
for the Indians, who respect strength.) They spend 17 days at a
salt lick, killing and salting game for winter, then push on to the
great O-y-o (Ohio) River and follow that until reaching the Shawnee
village - where prisoners are stripped and made to run a gauntlet
of whippers before being adopted by Indian families. Mary has a
sewing basket and goes into shirtmaking for profit. But when the
Shawnee chief asks for her hand, she turns him down; so he sells
her to a pair of French traders to work in their store, keeping her
sons to raise as braves. And when the traders take Mary and old
Dutch woman Ghetel to a second lick to collect salt, Mary decides
to abandon her baby to a squaw and strike out for home with Ghetel.
They sneak off and endure ever greater starvation for 43 days as
they trek about 600 miles, following the rivers back to Mary's
settlement. . . while her husband rides into the Cherokee nation
and tries to effect her ransom. The two women fail at fishing and
hunting, are skin and bone in the fruitless fall, vomiting plant
fibers, chewing a rotten doe's head or acorns and grubs. Then it's
sleet, wolves, and fording deep streams. Ghetel becomes demented
and hunts Mary to eat her. And finally: a crawl on skeletal hands
and knees straight up a snowy stone 500-foot bank. . . and more
banks beyond. More American Heritage than commercial romance,
unusually convincing and often quite moving. (Kirkus Reviews)
Mary Ingles was twenty-three, married, and pregnant, when Shawnee Indians invaded her peaceful Virginia settlement, killed the men and women, then took her captive. For months, she lived with them, unbroken, until she escaped, and followed a thousand mile trail to freedom--an extraordinary story of a pioneer woman who risked her life to return to her people.
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