Lost Nation

Lent, Jeffrey. Lost Nation. 2002. 370p. ISBN 9780871138439. 

In 1834, Blood has been living a hard life, moving from place to place as if pursued by the devil himself. In some ways, Blood indeed is being pursued, but it is his own mind he can't escape, the things that he did following a personal tragedy. For seventeen years, he's been on the run from his past, seeking the most remote places to hide. Clearly educated, Blood purchases Sally, a sixteen-year-old girl from a brothel in Portland, and he takes her and a wagon full of supplies on little traveled roads all the way north to Indian Stream, a parcel of territory wedged between Canada and the United States, neither wanted by the British nor by New Hampshire. The struggle to get to Indian Stream foreshadows the hard life the two of them will experience on the frontier.

As Sally and Blood settle in their lives, both of them learn about themselves. Sally is uneducated, but is already wise to the ways of men and of the world. Blood chooses not to involve himself in the lives around him, but as tavern owner it is hard not to participate in his new community, especially since he is both revered and reviled by the locals. As spring turns to summer, events on Indian Stream begin to spiral out of control as state authorities seek to assert their laws against a group of men who fled governed territories. Blood is anew confronted by his past just as the spark that lit the fuse on war reaches the keg and explodes. When the smoke settles on Indian Stream, much will have changed, and the lives of Sally and Blood will be forever changed.