Plot
In 1840, U.S. Army General Zachary Taylor sends out Lieutenant Tufts and scout Monk to a remote Florida island home where the reclusive Captain Quincy Watts lives with a 5-year-old son.
The soldiers' mission is to rescue men and women taken prisoner by Seminole warriors. One of them, Judy Beckett, develops a romantic attraction to Capt. Watts as they flee the Indians into the Everglades.
Most of the other Army troops are massacred after Watts and Tufts separate from them to construct canoes. Back at his home, Watts is distraught to find that his son is gone. He has an underwater fight to the death with Seminole chief Ocala, then is relieved to learn that his boy is safe.
Read more about this topic: Distant Drums
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)