The Rescue of Louisa Battiest

A journey into Texas to rescue the woman he loves becomes a story of identity, belonging, and the terrible consequences of being mistaken for someone you are not.In 1839, William "Bill" McCoy leaves his family in the Choctaw Nation and boards a Red River steamboat bound south. His purpose is simple: find Louisa Battiest and bring her home.The journey is anything but simple.Traveling through a frontier transformed by Indian Removal, expanding American settlement, slavery, and the uncertain borders of the young Republic of Texas, Bill moves between worlds. His blue eyes and frontier appearance allow him to pass easily among white settlers, while his family, loyalties, and identity remain firmly rooted among the Choctaw.Along the way, an unlikely friendship with a young Army officer changes Bill's understanding of the United States-and gives others reason to see Bill differently as well. From the crowded decks of a Red River steamboat to the raw new streets of Shreveport, across the Sabine and into East Texas, Bill follows the trail that finally leads him to Louisa.For a brief time, they find the life they hoped for.But Texas is becoming increasingly dangerous for the Native people who remain there. Communities disappear. Families quietly leave. Rumors of violence travel faster than the roads themselves. And when violence finally reaches Bill and Louisa, the very identity that once protected him becomes deadly.Inspired by people, places, and events preserved in family history and the historical record, The Rescue of Louisa Battiest is a novel about two people caught in one of the great upheavals of nineteenth-century America-and about the child whose survival ensures that their story does not end with them.A historical novel of love, migration, survival, and the uncertain boundaries between cultures on the American frontier.