Messenger by Moonlight
Fourteen-year-old Annie, her twin brother, Frank, older brother, Emmet, and their widowed father eke out a living on a Missouri farm in 1860. Pa dies, leaving his children nothing but debts, and they head for St. Joseph. Frank and Emmet sign on with the newly-formed Pony Express, and Annie as a cook at the Clearwater trail station in Nebraska Territory. The story covers about one year in the adventures of the Pony Express. Interesting secondary characters –from army officer Wade Hart and his journalist sister to Billy, a Native American survivor of smallpox, and the stuttering Clearwater’s owner, George Morgan – ring true. Annie soon discovers that cooking and keeping house for a family of four is no training for feeding carriage and caravan passengers and their crews from dawn to late at night. Annie and her brothers must survive unruly or injured horses, a wolf pack, oppressive summers and brutal winters, even a rattlesnake hunting Annie’s precious chickens. Bible passages provide anchors and comfort.
Unfortunately, the manuscript contains some clunky prose (“except for the fact that,” “what replaced the smile was”) and inauthentic dialogue for these folks (“aggrandize,” “notwithstanding”). Some scenes end too soon. A variety of lesser facts (Annie killing that rattler with her bare hands, George Morgan “inevitably” winning at checkers “even if he only played with two checkers”) seem implausible. Despite its rough edges, Messenger by Moonlight is a well-researched tribute to the strong and courageous men and women of the Pony Express.
