John Barlow

Headin' West: a Novel John Barlow

Fourteen year old Sam Starr, homeless in the southern Georgia swamps and the sole survivor of a once large family, took a longshot and headed for parts unknown. Rounding up all of the farm animals, including the chickens, the cats and dogs, as well as every usable item on the family farm, Sam headed blindly out of the swamp after the Smiths and murdered his father, the last of Sam's family, and burned the cabin. Sam had been out of the swamp just once before, when he was twelve, and knew nothing about the outside world. His neighbors, those who had murdered his family, lived thirty miles to the south, while the nearest settlement was fifty miles to the northwest. Blindly leading his yoke of oxen and team of mules toward the west, Sam experiencd hundreds of set backs and many triumphs before reching the place he decided to call home, five years later and three thousand miles from the swamps.