John Stark's Gauntlet: A Novel of the New Hampshire Frontier

In the wilderness of eighteenth-century New Hampshire, courage can mean more than winning a fight. In 1752, young frontier hunter John Stark ventures deep into the New England wilderness with his brother William and several companions. What begins as an expedition for game turns into a desperate struggle for survival when they are ambushed and captured. One companion is killed. Another escapes. The survivors are marched north through an unforgiving wilderness, hungry, exhausted, and uncertain of their fate. Among their captors are people Stark has been taught to fear. But captivity forces him to see the frontier-and his enemies-in a different way. As the prisoners learn to survive among the Abenaki, they encounter a world of families, traditions, hunting, storytelling, diplomacy, and warfare far more complicated than the simple stories they had known. Then comes the gauntlet. Forced to run between lines of warriors, Stark faces the moment that will define his captivity. Rather than surrender to fear, he does the unthinkable: he seizes a warrior's club and fights back. What follows is not simply an act of defiance. It is the beginning of a grudging respect that may determine whether Stark lives long enough to see home again. Based on the documented captivity of John Stark in 1752, John Stark's Gauntlet brings to life the people, dangers, and moral complexities of the New Hampshire frontier. Historical figures stand alongside fictional companions as the story explores courage, captivity, cultural conflict, survival, and the difficult process of seeing an enemy as human. Long before John Stark became a legendary Revolutionary general, he was a young man lost in the wilderness. This is the story of how he endured.