Dawn on a Distant Shore

  PRAISE FOR SARA
DONATI'S

        CAPTIVATING
EPIC

        INTO THE
WILDERNESS

"The author
builds a powerful adventure story, animating everyone--German villagers, slaves
and Scottish trappers alike--in a gorgeous, vividly described American landscape."--People

"One of those
rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your
footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place. I can think of no better
adventure than to explore the wilderness in the company of such engaging and independent
lovers as Elizabeth and her Nathaniel."--Diana Gabaldon

SARA DONATI lives with
her husband and daughter in the Pacific Northwest, where she is working on her
next novel.

         Jacket
illustration

     (copyright)
Daniel Craig

   Jacket design by
Yook Louie

   Bantam Books by
Sara Donati

INTO THE WILDERNESS

DAWN ON A DISTANT
SHORE

     For my daughter,
Elisabeth

    She discovered
with great delight that

   one does not love
one's children just because

          they are
one's children

        but because of
the friendship formed

          while
raising them.

             
--Gabriel García Marquez

Just after I began
writing this novel, we moved across the country. My sincere thanks to old
friends who didn't lose sight of me or my characters, and to new friends--in
particular, Suzanne Paola, Bruce Beasley, and Robin Hemley--for spending so
much of their time with me on the high seas of historical fiction. I am
especially grateful to Suzanne, Bruce, and Jin Woo for their support and
friendship in interesting times. I truly don't know what we would do without
them, and I hope we never have to find out.

I owe a special debt
of gratitude to He-Who-Must-Remain Anonymous, the editor of the Baronage
website (www.baronage.com/.co.com.uk), whose expertise and generosity made many
things possible. The blueprints of Carryckcastle came from him; he discovered
the earl's genealogy and unearthed his coat of arms. Without the help of
Anonymous and his staff (most particularly, Brother Septimus and his nose for scandal),
my Alasdair Scott, fourth Earl of Carryck, would be a mere shadow of himself.

At most I am an
armchair sailor, and so in the writing of this story I depended greatly on the
help of those who love the sea: Ric Day, James Doody, Steven L. Lopata, John
Woram, and Ray Briscoe shared their expertise and experience, and I am thankful
to them. I married into a sailing family, and I thank my husband, Bill, and my parents-in-law,
Ken and Mary, for background information and, most of all, encouragement.

Another anonymous
friend was of great help in my attempts to render eighteenth-century Scots into
an accessible form. Accuracy must be the first casualty in such an endeavor,
for which I take full responsibility.

I am indebted to
Michelle LaFrance for close readings, supportive words, Gaelic translations,
and perspective; George Bray III for extensive help on eighteenth-century
military history, dress, and customs; Hakim Ibrahim Chishti for invaluable
detail on Islamic medical practices, naming conventions, history, and theology;
Dr. Jim Gilsdorf for background on specific illnesses and their surgical treatment;
Dr. Ellen Mandell for medical history, convincing detail, and photocopies; and
Mac Beckett, Jo Bourne, Rob Carr, Leigh Cooper, Lisa Dillon, Walter Hawn, Nurmi
Husa, Susan Leigh, Rosina Lippi, Susan Martin, Sandra Parshall, Susan Lynn Peterson,
Stephen Ratterman, Beth Shope, Elise Skidmore, Jack Turley, Arnold Wagner,
Karen Watson, and Michael Lee West. Thanks to another obsessive (obsessed?)
writer of historical fiction, Mr. Calwaugh, for dessert, garden tours, and
rounding up half Portland for readings.

The Women of the
Wilderness at AOL have been consistently supportive. Many times when I was having
trouble putting one word after the next they kept me going. Maria, Pokey,
Tracey, Lynn, Nancy, Jeanette, Melinda, Liz, Justine, Kit, Sue, Tara, Julie,
Sharon, Theresa, Rose Mary, Barb, Christy, Chris, Lee, Mary Rose, Kim Elaine,
Susan, Jenni, Michelle, Judy, Ann, Kathleen, and the Kathies--these generous
and supportive women have been a great source of energy and inspiration for me,
and I hope they find this novel worth the wait.

About four chapters
into this undertaking I asked Diana Gabaldon if the second volume in a series
is the hardest, to which she immediately shot back, "No, the fifth one
is." My thanks to Diana for perspective, for worry-stones and phone calls,
and for her friendship and support in an endeavor that never gets easier.

My continued thanks to
Jill Grinberg, my friend and agent and ever the voice of calm in the storm; and
to Wendy McCurdy, Nita Taublib, and Irwyn Applebaum at Bantam for their
continued enthusiasm and for invigorating phone calls.

Tamar Groffman has
gotten me and mine through many a rough spot with sound good words and dahlias,
for which I will always be thankful. Now if she would only adopt me.

I am ever thankful for
my daughter, Elisabeth, who is learning to cope with a Mother Who Writes
without losing her sense of humor, and to Bill, who refuses to be surprised by
any of this. Without them, the whole business would be no fun at all.

Judge Alfred
Middleton, landowner

Curiosity Freeman, a
freed slave, his housekeeper

Galileo Freeman, a
freed slave, the manager of his farm and holdings, and Curiosity's husband

Axel Metzler, owner of
the tavern

Nathaniel Bonner (also
known as Wolf-Running-Fast or Between-Two-Lives), a hunter and trapper

Elizabeth Middleton
Bonner (also known as Bone-in-Her-Back), a schoolteacher and Nathaniel's wife

Hannah (also known as
Squirrel), Nathaniel's daughter by his first wife

Mathilde (lily) and
Daniel Bonner, Elizabeth and Nathaniel's children

Liam Kirby, an orphan
living with the Bonners

Falling-Day, of the
Kahnyen'kehâka (mohawk) Wolf clan, Nathaniel's former mother-in-law

Many-Doves, Falling-Day's
daughter and the wife of Runs-from-Bears

Runs-from-Bears, of
the Kahnyen'kehâka Turtle clan

Blue-Jay, infant son
of Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears

General Major Phillip
Schuyler and his wife, Catherine; some of their children and grandchildren

Augusta Merriweather,
Lady Crofton, Elizabeth Bonner's aunt, visiting from England along with her
daughter, Amanda Spencer, Lady Durbeyfield, with her husband, William Spencer,
Viscount Durbeyfield

Grievous Mudge, ship's
captain

Dan'l Bonner (known
also as Hawkeye), Nathaniel's father

Robbie MacLachlan,
Scot, hunter and trapper

Iona Fraser, a
Scottish immigrant to Canada and Luke, her grandson

Otter, son of
Falling-Day

Pépin, a pig farmer

Denier, a butcher

Ron Jones, a sergeant
of the dragoons

Angus Moncrieff,
secretary and factor to the Earl of Carryck

George Somerville,
Lord Bainbridge, lieutenant governor of Lower Canada, also called Pink George

Giselle Somerville,
daughter of Lord Bainbridge

Sir Guy Carleton, Lord
Dorchester, governor of Lower Canada

Maria Carleton, Lady
Dorchester, the governor's wife