Ann Robbins Phillips
Published: 2012-06-02
Total Pages: 0
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On October 28, 1862, Hoopers break into the house of the Watson family and kill three men, injure and resultantly kill one teenage girl and rape another. Nine-year-old Nathe Watson is witness to this western North Carolina Mountain massacre, but escpaes through a window at the urging of his mother. When he returns, he finds heads of the men atop pike poles on display in his front yard. Sent to live in Tennessee with a cousin, Nathe changes his name to Milsaps for protection and stays until he reaches age twenty. He returns to the mountains, burdened with desire for revenge. He is forced to find work to sustain himself as he searches for the murderers. A young civil-war widow, Addie Fisher, and her two children, Davie and Clare, are on near starvation when Nathe comes to work with promise of food and a barn roof over his head. He is torn with fear he will be found by the Hoopers and desire for a family. Sickness, fire, and death abound, but so do love, family, and loyalty. Nathe keeps away from most residents of Rich Mountain but one, known only as Amps, seems to know too much and offer unwanted advice on things that pertain to Nathe ... things he thought no one knew. There is a fact about Addie which could threaten everything. Something Nathe never thought to ask and Addie never assumed to share.