Scott Russell Sanders is a local Bloomington, IN novelist and essayist. He is the author of more than 20 works of fiction and nonfiction.

In 1815, the McClure family travels down the Ohio River in a flatboat loaded with their wagon, farm tools, and household goods, as well as their horse, cow, pig, and mule. Young Mary and Jonathan watch for sandbars and dangers up ahead while their parents steer. The children listen for the roar of rapids, a sign they are nearing their destination, the frontier village of Jeffersonville, Indiana. When the McClures reach that place, with the help of other settlers, they take their flatboat apart and use the wood to build their new home.