Elizabeth the Brave

By Trisha Thomas and Stephen Adams

Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Spicer is a plucky pioneer girl living in a time when settlers and frontiersmen are pushing Native American Indians off their lands, invading their hunting grounds, and killing them. As she and her family go about their daily life in a log cabin in Pennsylvania, they begin to hear rumblings that the Indians are on the warpath. When she glances up one day and sees Indians approaching their cabin, Elizabeth does not realize that her life is about to be changed forever.

Without any idea of what has happened to the rest of her family, Elizabeth is captured along with her brother, Billy, and taken to a Shawnee village by Singing Arrow, a fierce warrior. Fearing her parents are dead, Elizabeth bravely attempts to learn the Indian culture and befriends the daughter of Elizabeths adoptive mother, Raincloud. While Elizabeth nurses a grudge against Singing Arrow, Billy throws himself into his new life. As they learn to survive in different ways, Elizabeth and Billy discover the bonds of friendship, the value of peace, and the significance of unconditional love.

In this tale based on a true story, a feisty pioneer girl and her brother must find happiness among a Shawnee Indian tribe after they are captured and taken away from their family and home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781480828254

Trisha Thomas

Trisha Thomas is an American-born journalist who has been working in the Rome Bureau of the Associated Press Television since 1994. In addition to covering two Papal Conclaves, she has traveled around the globe with Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Trisha is a blogger, mother of three, and lives with her husband in Italy.

Book preview

Elizabeth

THE BRAVE

Trisha Thomas

Copyright © 2016 Patricia Karen Thomas.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction based on the true story of Elizabeth Spicer. Some of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2823-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2824-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2825-4 (e)

Archway Publishing rev. date: 05/17/2016

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One - A Cloud Is Born

Chapter Two - A Warning

Chapter Three - Captured

Chapter Four - Trying To Be Brave

Chapter Five - Life At Wakatomika

Chapter Six - Shawnee Spring

Chapter Seven - Signs Of War

Chapter Eight - Battle

Chapter Nine - Peace

Chapter Ten - Return

Chapter Eleven - Grandma Elizabeth

Epilogue

Afterword

To my grandmother, Mary Stephens Thomas,

Who first told me the story of our ancestor Elizabeth Spicer,

And whose lifelong passion for words inspired us all.

To my father, John Woodward Thomas,

Who showed me that courage and a sense of adventure run in the family.

PROLOGUE

N ico sat in the back seat of the car staring out at the snarled Roman traffic. He didn’t like going to his monthly visits to the orthodontist, but he thought it was all right to be stuck in traffic. He liked being able to talk with his Mom without any distractions from his younger sisters.

Mom, you know Daddy said that my Great Grandfather was an officer who fought in World War II.

Really, Nico, his Mom answered swerving around a vespa and whizzing through a yellow light. Strange, your father has never mentioned anything about that to me. I’ll have to ask him. But I can tell you about an interesting American ancestor that you have.

Ok, tell me.

Your great-great-great-great-great…well at least five or six or seven times great-grandmother was a pioneer girl who was captured by Indians in Western Pennsylvania and was held captive for a year and a half before being traded back in a prisoner exchange.

Maaaaa, you are making it up, Nico said moving into the middle of the back seat and pushing his head up between the two front seats. The car was stuck in stop-and-go traffic. A