Traces: The Boone Women Remember

"This account of my adventures will inform the reader of the most remarkable events of this country. I now live in peace and safety, enjoying the sweets of liberty and the bounties of Providence with my once fellow-sufferers in this delightful country, which I have seen purchased with a vast expense of blood …."

—Daniel Boone, as told to John Filson in The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone, first published in 1784

Chapter 1: Limestone, Kentucky (1784)

I first laid eyes on John Filson the day he stepped through our tavern door and asked to speak to my husband. I sensed right away he wasn't there for any of the reasons people usually sought out Daniel: Indian trouble, land that needed surveying, a boatload of goods to be floated down the Ohio.

I was bent over the hearth, stirring a pot of stew, and took my time answering, studying the stranger out of the corner of my eye. He reminded me of a heron, thin and awkward, his movements hesitant. That alone marked him as an outsider, for folks in these parts move through life certain they're right, even if they're not.

A swirl of wind down the chimney blew smoke into the room, and I squinted but kept stirring, determined this batch of stew wouldn't scald to the pot bottom. Soon the rivermen would drift up from the docks for their midday meal, and whatever they didn't eat would be finished by travelers tying up their flatboats for the evening. I prided myself on serving tasty meals, though most folks fresh off the Ohio would pay whatever price I asked for anything hot, no matter how blackened.

"Good day, sir." I straightened slowly, back aching, hating the thought of how soon I'd have to stoop again.

He acknowledged my greeting with a nod, but remained silent, tapping his riding crop against a polished leather boot, studying me in return. I knew well enough what he saw: a tallish, dark-haired woman on the far side of forty—a tavern keeper's wife with a grease-stained apron, scraping out a living in the back of beyond. When he finally spoke, he explained that he was searching for Colonel Boone because he wanted to hear a first-hand account of Kentucky's earliest years. He wanted Daniel's stories and meant to write them down.

Now that was certainly different. We'd all been so busy trying not to starve or get scalped that our stories were no more than tales told around the fire at night, snatches remembered here or there, a crazy quilt of words. But Mister Filson saw something grander.

For several weeks, he boarded with us and followed Daniel about, asking endless questions. At night, while I sat with my mending, the men settled close to the fire, and Daniel talked. I watched Filson's quill scratch across the paper's face and knew instinctively the danger bound up in those little black marks. What's written down takes on the seemingness of truth, but truth is a slippery thing—one's lucky to catch a glimpse of it, like the silver flash of a brook trout just below the water's surface.

Less than a year after Filson's departure, Daniel placed a copy of The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone in my hands. It was a smallish book to carry such a load of pain and anger and gladness between its covers. My family's lives were bound up in those marching ant-like rows, and it made me uneasy. The book sat on the mantel, unopened, while we went about our chores that afternoon. I had the odd sensation that it was crouching there, shoulder-high and ready to pounce, like an angry housecat.

That night, after dinner, Daniel scooted his chair close to the fire, book in hand, and began to read aloud. My chair was in its usual place, opposite Daniel's, scooted close to the flames so I could see to do my mending. As I recall, it didn't take more...