Foundling

In September, 1879, five-year-old Jamie wakes up from her nap and sees her eleven-year-old friend Laura stripped naked and staked out on a hill. She sees her father tortured and gutted and her mother gang-raped. She jumps out of back of the covered wagon and hides in the roots of a huge cottonwood blown over by a storm. Jess finds one burned wagon and evidence that seven other wagons were stolen. There are thirteen bodies that were scalped and murdered by renegade whites hoping to blame the Indians. Jess finds Jamie and sits down nearby and sings nursery rhymes until Jamie comes out of her hiding place and curls up in his lap. Jamie says, "Daddy, I thought you were dead." This is the story of how Jess, Jamie, and Kristin become a family after enduring trials and tribulations.