Forbes Road: Love, War, and Revenge on the Pennsylvania Frontier

The Pennsylvania frontier has erupted in flames! It is 1763: The French and Indian War is over. Victorious Britain is the master of the former French colonies of North America. But the tribes of the Ohio Country are infuriated with the British, who treat them with contempt, ignore treaties, and occupy a string of forts along the Allegheny River and into the Great Lakes region. They are even more disturbed by the growing stream of European settlers who are crossing the Allegheny Mountains, clearing land and threatening the Indians’ very way of life. Spurred by a spiritual prophet named Neolin and a charismatic Ottawa war leader called Pontiac, the tribes from the Great Lakes to the Ohio unite in bloody rebellion. In a few weeks eight frontier forts have been destroyed and war parties are sweeping through the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia settlements. Young Wend Eckert, German by birth and Scots-Irish by adoption, volunteers to march as a scout with the British Army as a way to find the dazzling English girl who was his first love and is now the captive mistress of a Mingo war captain. His job is to help Colonel Henry Bouquet of the Royal Americans guide an expedition along Forbes Road, the wilderness trail which connects Fort Pitt with Eastern Pennsylvania, in a desperate attempt to save hundreds of settlers besieged in the fort. Then a distraction appears in form of an enchanting Scots girl who is the darling of a highland regiment but has eyes only for the young colonial scout. The war and the youth’s future will hang in the balance at a place called Bushy Run where the ragtag British battalion and a massive force of tribal warriors battle for control of the Ohio Country. Somewhere along Forbes Road, the boy becomes a man and the man grows into a legend.