Originally released in 1974 by Knopf,The Kentucky Traceis Harriette Simpson Arnow’s final novel published during her lifetime.¹ It is the story of William David Leslie Collins, raised in a Virginia gentry family of loyal British subjects, but he is covertly involved as a rebel patriot in the American Revolutionary War. Having already written in her novelsHunter’s HornandThe Dollmakerabout the experiences of Appalachian people who stayed home during World War II, Arnow once again describes American mountain people during wartime. Specific skirmishes and battles play a role in the action of the novel, but Arnow...

The wind died to a whisper, the pine-knot torches blown down to embers revived, and Leslie could again hear the about-to-die pray for the already dead: “—do thou give them rest there in the land of the living, in thy kingdom, in the delight of Paradise.”

The English officer stood tall on the tailgate of the wagon, taller-seeming than when they had ridden through the woods together. It was the rope around his neck made him hold his head so high, the hangman’s knot under one ear; his arms tied behind his back made him stand straight—or did...

“Take off your hat and let’s have a look. You three men over there doen nothen, bring up some torches.”

Leslie remained motionless. He’d fixed his hat low and tight to protect his eyes when he jumped; he didn’t aim to change it. The colonel stood on the low ledge above the shelving rock where he stood.

Light washed over him; the rounded mound of pale silk waistcoat in front of him took on the pale shine of a frog’s belly.

“How do you call yourself?”

“By my name.”

“And what in hell is your name?”

“Collins.”

“Collins? I’ve heard...

The early sun was sending long yellow rays into the pines above, but the narrow creek valley was buried in a cold, foggy twilight. He checked Kate; she knew home with her stable and Beau the fine stallion were less than two miles up the creek; but this was no place for fast traveling.

The creek valley was so narrow there was scarcely room between rock ledges and creek water for the trail. Worse, the rocks underfoot were slippery with their covering of yellow-red mud. Last year the mud had been mostly black with washed-away topsoil; this year yellow-red; next...

Another fine day to ride through the woods; leaves coloring up on the higher hills, but still green in the valleys. He’d enjoy the ride more if the swing and jounce of his powder horns didn’t constantly remind him they were empty, along with his bullet pouch. His long search yesterday had yielded no powder, lead, sulphur, or whiskey; all gone like the meat in the smokehouse.

He stopped Kate. They were now on a flank of the mountain almost directly above Scott’s Station. The nigh way was straight down over ledges and through woods. Too steep for Kate and...

Sunlight was still aslant the higher western slopes, but the valley was thick with twilight by the time he reached his barnyard. He dismounted to let down the drawbars. He let an end of each pole down, but continued to stand.

He would, he reckoned, look through the house again; he might yet find a letter. No, he wouldn’t. Ought he then to strike out for French Lick on the Cumberland? Sadie could have gone on a long visit to her mother away over in South Carolina. He shook his head. He’d thought of that before. Mr. Saufley had thought...

The sun was halfway to noon, and he was making no better time than yesterday or the day before. This was the beginning of his fifth day out, and he’d come only around a hundred miles, but this trace ought not to be measured in miles. Up and over Clinch Mountain; Clinch River to swim, Powell Mountain, Powell River, up and down over rocky-bottomed, steep-walled creeks, places so steep a man wondered why the horses didn’t fall backwards. The long pull up to Cumberland Gap, down and down into the flat land near the river, mud shank-deep on the mares,...

His wounded father, tied to a team of rearing, plunging horses, was being dragged to his death down a rocky mountain. Jethro astride one urged the horses on with a long black whip. Leslie screamed: “Jethro! Don’t, Jethro, don’t.” He could hear the crack of Jethro’s whip, but not his own voice. He couldn’t make a sound.

He knew what he saw and heard wasn’t real. Or was it? A nightmare would go away. He came fully awake at last, sitting in his blankets. He remembered the stars and looked overhead. Black as the night the boy had been hanged....

He had, Leslie figured, followed the Indian for about five miles of rough going, and through it all they’d done almost no hunting for cow sign. The Indian had covered the ground in a kind of loping walk that never flagged; each time Leslie paused to look for cow sign in what seemed a likely spot, the Indian vanished or got so far ahead he had to run to catch up with him.

They had reached a creek valley with no creek; he guessed it ran underground, but didn’t take time to lean above a sinkhole to listen. It didn’t...

He rode in fine October weather across wild meadows and over low hills, past familiar places, but had no heart to admire the great trees, most still holding their autumn-colored leaves; nor did he look for deer or elk sign. He gave the mares but little thought. They’d made this trace to Price’s Station three mornings ago, and were bringing him back no wiser than when he had gone.

Weaver’s party had camped near Price’s for a week or so while some of the men built dugouts to take their goods, women, and children under guard down the Cumberland. The...

Leslie stood on the shoulder of the ridge crest across the creek from his rockhouse. He listened again and took another look down into the next valley, but as before there was nothing to hear and nothing to see except the spires of cedars rising out of the creek fog. The only sign of humankind was the smell of boiling saltpeter coming out of the valley. He knew he was in the right place.

Daniel Strunk could be sleeping late. Leslie shook his head; not this late; sunlight, just touching the higher hill tops when he crested the ridge, was...

Leslie, on the way to his second day’s work with Daniel, had reached the garden when Yellow Eyes growled and showed himself. Leslie smiled. “Yes. I’m later than yesterday. Daniel told me to be. I tarried on the ridge to split that little hickory pole into four stout laths.”

Yellow Eyes sniffed his legs, growled, but made no move to bite. Leslie returned the laths to his shoulder. “Sorry to disappoint you, old boy, but I rubbed my shoepacs and put a few smears on my leggens from the same chunk of tallow Little Brother used. You’re maybe smellen his...

Little Brother rode Cleo as if they’d been raised together. Scorning Leslie’s offer of bridle and saddle, he rode bareback with a braided thong to serve as bridle. Daniel gave manyGha’s of wonder as he rode up to the saltpeter works and dismounted.

They took only time enough over dinner for Daniel to discuss his plan with Leslie. First, he was taking along plenty of food for supper, and breakfast too, if need be. Buffalo in these parts had been hunted so hard they’d run from the smell of smoke; they knew it meant men or the woods on...

Last night while they were roasting and cracking marrow bones, Daniel had predicted more rain. He’d been only partway right; a man could hardly call this wetness rain. It was more like a heavy fog, coming down from the sky, rising from the creeks and the ground to make a wet blanket that hid the world and wet a man inside and out. And he had spent half the day riding in it.

The three of them had, in two trips, leading their horses most of the time, packed out the buffalo head, hide, and meat. Little Brother had already...

His world had changed. The world about him had not. The creek was still there. The hill across the creek no longer glittered in the morning sunlight; the frost was going, but the hill was still there. Leaves and nuts were still falling straight into their own eternities, no wind to carry them hither and yon to give them a make-believe life for a little while.

He saw the pot of honey he’d brought to the creek. Why? He shook his head. He’d brought the honey because he’d wanted to wash the bail, dirty from his honey-smeared hands. The bail...

Jethro had fed the horses, but Leslie spent a long time with them, talking to each by turn as he felt hooves, shoes, backs, and mouths. Satisfied that all were well and in good spirits, he walked slowly back to his rockhouse with many stops to study the stars. He was in no hurry to read the letters Jimmy had brought.

Jethro had left the letters in a conspicuous place near the fire he’d built to give plenty of light. Leslie felt among the pile and took the three thin ones: two of these were from men claiming six square...

Early next morning he found the cow grazing. She let him get in a quick feel of her nose before running away, frisky as a pup. She was all right.

Daniel, though not exactly frisky, was in fine spirits, singing or whistling while he worked—until he remembered Leslie was a man of sorrow.

Leslie also found it difficult to think of himself as a grieving widower and father. Instead, he thought of his mother’s letter and his father, a rebel like himself. Working with Daniel, he had little opportunity to think on his answer to the letter. Still, he...

Cresting the hill next morning, Leslie heard Daniel singing down in the valley and stopped to listen. He soon decided it was a prayer song, something like the one he’d sung before going to hunt the buffalo. No different from other Cherokee warriors, Daniel prayed a good deal. Leslie wished he’d pray for William David; the little bastard needed all the help he could get.

The rangers met him in their usual place, and after a few suspicious sniffs led him across the horse pasture to within sight of Daniel on the hillside above the bigger creek. Unwilling to interrupt...

Leslie had washed all of himself, including his hair, in the sweet-smelling soap, and now whistled softly as he pulled on fresh nankeen drawers. He stopped the tune when he studied the fit of the drawers; too loose; that extra cloth would fold and wrinkle to make humps and bulges in his pantaloons. The weather was too warm for skintight knitted woolen drawers; they’d itch him to death; but his skintight breeches ought to be over tight drawers.

Whistling again, he found the woolen drawers, and in spite of the itchy wool nodded with satisfaction when he’d got himself into...

He’d heard his mother use the word. What was the word to describe this upcoming business? Sacrilegious? Profane? Neither was strong enough. Sinful? That was taken for granted as was desecration.

“Suh, I don’t know where your mind is, but it’s not on getten ready. I’ve begged you three times to get into your slippers, but there you stand in your stocken feet.”

“Jethro, I aim to wear my second-best boots, and not the gold buckled shoes; they’re dancen pumps, I think.”

Jethro, dressed in the sober outfit he’d worn when he brought news of Sadie’s death, was scandalized. “Now,...

Daniel was waiting dinner for Leslie when he got there, so he had to sit around, pretend to eat, and listen to the talk of the other three. He didn’t mind; it was good to let other men do the talking.

Nooning finished, he and John Sawyer put charcoal through the crusher while Daniel dug niter dirt and McGee worked on the pirogue. Daniel stopped for a rest and look at the crushed charcoal. He decided it wasn’t fine as it ought to be, and went into his private quarters to return with a corn pounder.

Pounding charcoal was a...

He stood near the saltpeter cooker and watched John Sawyer cross the creek and start up the hill. His mother would get the letter if John got through alive. Would she believe what he had written and accept William David as her grandson? He shook his head. No use in looking back at the letter. It was finished and gone. There was worse ahead.

He’d rather write that letter twice over than travel the Kentucky Trace with a divided party; more like two small parties. They’d have to be far enough apart that the damned yellow-headed shrew wouldn’t learn William...