The Foothill Spirits: Book One - Frontier Life & the Shawnees

The Foothill Spirits Series

The Foothill Spirits - Book One: Frontier Life & the Shawnees

by Betty Casbeer Carroll

with illustrations by Jackie Carroll

The Foothill Spirits – Book One: Frontier Life & the Shawnees

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 by Betty Casbeer Carroll

License Notes:

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This book is available in print-on-demand (POD) at most online retailers.

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Table of Contents

Part One: The Prologue

Part Two: The Foothills in the Year 1803

Part Three: The Epilogue

Sources

Fact versus Fiction: Book One

Author's Notes

Acknowledgments

Other Books by the Author

About the Author

Connect with Author

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Part One: The Prologue

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The Foothills–Summer 1997 - 5:00 p.m.

Every summer since she can remember, Heather Jean was sent to the rolling foothills in Southern Ohio to chase squirrels and jump over poisonous copperheads, listen to Nana talk about the olden days, and watch Uncle Mike zoom off every morning on his 1956 Harley-Davidson. Nana’s her great-grandmother and Uncle Mike is Nana’s grown son.

Heather Jean was bored way beyond despair the day she heard the Harley roaring up Careys Run Road. She ran down the driveway before Uncle Mike even turned the bend in the road. He idled his bike when he saw her waving both arms like a traffic cop, and waited.

When she climbed on his Harley, Uncle Mike reached back and tousled her hair, which is the one thing she hates the most in the whole world. And she sure doesn’t like people messing with it. First of all, her hair is so thick a chipmunk could hide in it. Next, it’s curly. And third, it sticks out all over.

When you going to fix that mop? he asked.

She pushed his hand away, and even managed to giggle, when his silky, blonde hair blew against her face, reminding her the men in her family got the good hair.

Uncle Mike, I’m bored, she said when she adjusted herself on the leather seat, and placed her arms around his waist. All Nana does is nap and talk about the olden days. Let’s go to town.

Hey-y-y. Try that again. Without that whiney noise, he replied.

He sounded just like her mom and grandma. Her mom said she was acting like a spoiled brat because she didn’t want to go to the foothills this summer. And her grandma said she was surly just because she wouldn’t talk on the drive down. They just didn‘t remember how it felt to be twelve years old and away from your friends all summer.

If they just wanted to ship her off for the summer, why didn’t they fly her to Tulsa where Aunt Marty has twin fawns playing in her front yard and armadilloes hiding in the woods? Or drive her to Fort Wayne where Aunt Jackie could give art lessons and take her to Artlink to see what local artists are doing. Or at least let her stay in downtown Portsmouth with Uncle Andy in his high-rise apartment overlooking the Ohio River near the Second Street stores where she could shop for antiques from the olden days and watch the artists work on the floodwall murals.

She began sliding sideways off the seat so she could jump off his Harley. She would have landed right in Careys Run, the creek that flows down the hill behind Nana’s house and under her barn. It’s dry in the summer and full of sharp rocks. It would serve them right if she broke her leg. Next year, Mom would think twice before shipping her off to the foothills.

Heather-r-r, Uncle Mike shrieked, jerking her back on with his left hand. He held his bike steady with the other. What’re you doing?

She jutted her chin out, gazed straight ahead, and didn’t say a word. She can be real quiet when she wants to. He squeezed the throttle with his right hand to rev up the motor. Its pan head engine rumbled like thunder on a stormy spring day. He says his bike has its own sound that tells the world a Harley is coming. Frankly, Heather Jean didn’t think anyone cared except people who own Harleys.

Don’t you ever, ever pull a stunt like that again, he shouted over the roaring of his bike. She still didn’t say anything, and just stared over his right shoulder toward Nana’s house at the end of the winding driveway. She clamped her teeth tight to keep from saying she wished she’d fallen and broken her leg.

Cat got your tongue? he asked, as they shot up the drive.

By the time they got to the house, Heather Jean was choking on her own silence. She leaped off before he turned the throttle off, and hollered over her shoulder, You’re just like the rest. Dashing up the path toward the barn, she didn’t even turn around. When she heard the front door slam, she knew Uncle Mike was more interested in his dinner than her. She should have known.

She passed the barn and followed a footpath into the woods, where Nana owns seventy-six acres of rolling hills right next to Shawnee State Forest. They call the foothills the Little Smokies. The real ones are named the Great Smokies. They’re in Tennessee, and Heather Jean had never once gone there.

Usually she couldn’t wait for school to let out. That was before she turned twelve, when it was fun to catch frogs and scare quail from their hiding places. But kids her age like to be with other kids. And there wasn’t another kid within a rolling foothill, which is a lot longer than a country mile.

If she got lost in the forest, the Governor of Ohio would have to send in the National Guard just to find her. She’d be crouched in the weeds, dirty and bruised, with stomach cramps from eating poison berries. They’d rush her to the hospital in one of those rescue helicopters with a red cross painted on both sides. She could actually hear the blades spinning overhead, just thinking about it.

But the trail winds around Nana’s foothill like a horseshoe. She couldn’t get lost as long as she stayed on course. She could go back the same way she came, or keep going. She would still end up behind Nana’s house regardless, just on different sides of the barn. At least that’s what Uncle Mike told her just a few days ago.Be cool, and keep your head, he lectured. Just stay on the path and watch out for copperheads. Uncle Mike loves to tell her what she can do and what she can’t do, like everybody else in the family. But he also tells her what to expect. But he forgot to warn her about the undergrowth that snagged her clothes and scratched her face and arms. It got thicker the farther she went.

He told her later he only went that far into the woods during fall and winter after the thickets had died, so he could make out where he was going, and the snakes are hibernating.

But she didn’t know that at the time. She just kept pushing through the brush and thistles, hoping the path would eventually clear. She wasn’t too worried at first. She knew it wouldn’t get dark until nine o’clock. Ohio has daylight saving time, and since it was only five when she left, she could easily be gone four hours.

Heather Jean could see it all in her mind’s eye. At six, Nana would ring the dinner bell. When she didn’t show up, Uncle Mike’d go peek in the barn. By seven, dinner would be cold, and they’d be worried sick. Then at eight, Nana would phone Mom and Grandma long distance, and tell them she was lost. They’d all be sorry. Her mom would be sorry she called her a brat, and Grandma ‘cause she called her surly. And she bet Uncle Mike would never call her a whiner again.

Well-l-l, she wasn’t absolutely sure about Uncle Mike.

She slowly wound her way around the hill, and kind of forgot why she was mad at Uncle Mike. But it didn’t really matter. She just kept on going deeper and deeper into the woods, where the trees were so tall, the tops weren’t visible even when she leaned way back.

Uncle Mike said the woods were mostly oak, maple and poplar, with a sprinkling here and there of beech and hickory. He could tell just by the bark. Last year he taught Heather Jean the different leaves, but she had already forgotten them. She spotted a few pine trees scattered about. Anyone can tell a pine, with its green needles, brown cones, and pungent aroma.

Her legs began to ache, and her stomach began to growl. She wished for a handful of her favorite food, fresh strawberries, or at least an apple. But what she needed most was to just sit down and rest, maybe even go home.

She spotted a large log a short way up the hill, and crawled toward it cautiously. She grabbed whatever saplings she could reach to pull herself upward. And when she got there, she kicked the log to scare off any snakes. Uncle Mike did that last year when they hiked together.

She sat down and stretched out her legs. A woodpecker was pecking on a nearby