News of the World

News of the World Plot Summary

Introduction

In the winter of 1870, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd stands before a restless crowd in Wichita Falls, Texas, his weathered hands gripping a newspaper from distant Boston. At seventy-one, he has become a traveling reader of news, carrying stories from the civilized world to frontier towns hungry for connection to something beyond their harsh existence. His voice cuts through the lamplight, delivering tales of Constitutional amendments and Arctic expeditions to faces hardened by war and loss. But tonight, waiting in a freight wagon outside, sits a burden that will change everything. Ten-year-old Johanna Leonberger was taken by Kiowa raiders four years ago, her parents murdered before her eyes. Now, after living as one of them, she has been sold back to the white world for fifteen Hudson Bay blankets and some German silverware. Her Kiowa mother's cries could be heard for a mile as they tore the child away. The Indian Agent needs someone to transport her south to relatives near San Antonio, four hundred miles through dangerous country where Comanche and Kiowa war parties still strike without warning. Captain Kidd, a man whose own life has grown thin and purposeless since his wife's death, finds himself accepting fifty dollars in Spanish gold to deliver this fierce, damaged child back to a world she no longer recognizes or wants.

Chapter 1: The Reader of News and the Wild Child

Captain Kidd first sees her crouched in the back of a freight wagon like a cornered animal, wearing deerskin and elk teeth, eagle feathers bound into hair the color of maple sugar. Her blue eyes hold no more expression than an egg, yet they track every movement with predatory awareness. Johanna Leonberger, if that is still her name, believes herself to be Ay-ti-Podle, the Cicada, daughter of Turning Water and Three Spotted. The Kiowa words live in her head like music, but the white world has become alien territory filled with enemies. Britt Johnson, the black freighter who brought her from Indian Territory, refuses to take her farther south. He has his own painful history with captives—his own family was taken years ago—and he knows the dangers that lie ahead. The girl has already tried to escape twice, and worse, there are rumors of men who trade in captive children for purposes too dark to speak aloud. She needs protection that only an armed escort can provide. The Captain examines this strange creature who sits motionless for hours yet can explode into violence without warning. She makes the sign for fire when he demonstrates his camp stove, her callused fingers moving in the ancient language of the Plains. When the town women try to bathe her and burn her Kiowa dress, she fights like a wildcat, her small hands capable of startling strength. They dress her in blue and yellow stripes, lace her into confining corsets, force shoes onto feet that have known only moccasins. She endures it all with the stoic courage of her adopted people, but tears run down her cheeks when she thinks no one is watching. As they prepare to leave Wichita Falls in a green spring wagon painted with the words "Curative Waters East Mineral Springs Texas," the Captain wonders what he has gotten himself into. Behind them, watching from the shadows, pale-haired Almay and his Caddo companions mark their departure. Some predators follow a scent across hundreds of miles.

Chapter 2: Across Dangerous Territory

The journey south becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse through the Cross Timbers and the hill country of central Texas. Captain Kidd teaches Johanna English as they travel, pointing to objects and repeating their names. "Horse," he says, and she responds "Hoas," unable to form the unfamiliar R sound. But she learns with startling quickness, as if some buried part of her German childhood is slowly awakening. Their wagon attracts attention everywhere they stop. The bullet holes in its sides tell of previous troubles, and the strange silent girl who collects admission fees with fierce determination becomes the subject of whispered speculation. In Spanish Fort, she tries to run back to her Kiowa family across the flooding Red River, calling out in the darkness to warriors who cannot hear her voice over the thundering water. When they fire warning shots, not recognizing her in her white girl's clothing, she finally understands that path is closed forever. In Dallas, Captain Kidd gives readings in exchange for the coins they need to survive. Johanna learns to guard the door, pointing sternly at the paint can and demanding "Dime-ah!" from anyone who tries to enter without paying. But their brief respite ends when Almay approaches with his cold gray eyes and talk of buying the girl for premium prices. The Captain realizes they are being hunted by something far worse than Comanche raiders—white men who trade in children's flesh. They flee Dallas in the middle of the night, taking back roads and hidden paths. Behind them, Almay and his Caddo trackers follow like wolves, patient and relentless. The spring wagon's iron tire develops a crack that counts out the miles with each revolution: click, click, click. It sounds like a clock measuring the time they have left before their pursuers catch up.

Chapter 3: The Battle at Brazos River

At Carlyle Springs on the Brazos River, their luck runs out. Captain Kidd parks the wagon on high ground, hoping to spot trouble before it finds them, but they are already in the crosshairs. Rifle shots shatter their morning camp as Almay and his men attack from the ravine below, using the old hunter's tactic of shooting uphill at trapped prey. The Captain has only a .38 revolver and a twenty-gauge shotgun loaded with bird shot—useless against rifles at long range. Johanna scrambles under the wagon as bullets splinter wood around them, but instead of cowering, she emerges with a box of ammunition she has hidden in the flour keg. Her blue eyes are bright with battle fever, not fear. This ten-year-old child has seen warfare before. When the Captain despairs at his light bird shot, Johanna shows him something that changes everything. She has been loading shotgun shells with dimes from their earnings, creating makeshift cannon rounds that can reach much farther than their enemies expect. The heavy coins whistle through the air at lethal velocity, and suddenly the hunted become the hunters. The battle becomes a legend whispered around campfires for years afterward. Johanna tips a slab of stone down on one attacker while the Captain fires dimes that print bloody hyphens across Almay's forehead. The child sings the Kiowa scalping chant, her voice high and fierce, as their enemies flee in terror. When she tries to claim trophies from the dead, the Captain must physically restrain her. "It's not done," he tells her, but she looks at him with confusion. Among her people, courage in battle deserves its rewards. They bury Almay under a pile of rocks and move on, leaving only bones and questions for whoever might find them later.

Chapter 4: Languages of Trust and Survival

Their relationship deepens as they travel the dangerous roads south. Johanna begins to trust this stern but protective grandfather figure who faced down killers to keep her safe. She learns to tend their horses, start fires with the little camp stove, and count money, though she still thinks of coins primarily as ammunition rather than currency. In the evenings, Captain Kidd reads her passages from newspapers, explaining the wider world beyond Texas. She listens with intense concentration as he describes places called England and India, trying to fit these impossible concepts into her understanding of reality. Sometimes fragments of German emerge from deep memory—"Ja," she says when he mentions her aunt and uncle, and for a moment her face shows confusion as different worlds collide in her mind. The Captain sees how she scans every treeline for threats, how she moves with the silent efficiency of someone raised among warriors. When they encounter a U.S. Army patrol, she slides a hand toward his hidden revolver, ready to fight federal soldiers if necessary. Her loyalty has shifted to this elderly man who treats her with rough kindness and expects nothing but her safety in return. But he also sees her tears when she thinks he's not watching, the way she sometimes speaks to their horses in Kiowa, telling them of grass and buffalo that exist only in memory. She is a child caught between worlds, belonging fully to neither, and the weight of her displacement grows heavier with each mile toward the German settlements where her blood relatives wait. They pass through small towns where Captain Kidd gives readings, and Johanna becomes expert at collecting fees and managing hostile crowds. She learns the rhythms of civilized life—sleeping in beds, using forks, wearing shoes—but her compliance feels like an act performed for someone she loves rather than a natural return to her origins.

Chapter 5: Homecoming and Heartbreak

At Castroville, they find the graves of Jan and Greta Leonberger, Johanna's birth parents, buried with their youngest daughter under weeping stone angels. Johanna examines the headstones with curious detachment, like artifacts from someone else's life. "We go back Dallas?" she asks quietly, making one last attempt to avoid her fate. But the Captain's jaw is set in grim determination. A promise is a promise, and he gave his word. Wilhelm and Anna Leonberger, her aunt and uncle, receive them with cold efficiency rather than joy. They are hard-working German farmers more concerned with property receipts than with welcoming a traumatized child. Anna looks at Johanna's bare feet and wild hair with visible disapproval, while Wilhelm questions the Captain about documentation and ownership papers for the wagon he bought with their gold. The community celebrates Johanna's return with feasts and speeches about God's mercy, but the child herself climbs into the barn loft and refuses to come down when they try to speak German to her. She hurls farm tools at anyone who climbs the ladder, defending her high ground like a Kiowa warrior. The Captain tries to explain that she needs time and patience, but the Leonbergers see only a willful child who requires correction. When the Captain prepares to leave the next morning, the full horror of the situation becomes clear. These people view Johanna as free labor, not a beloved family member returned from the dead. They have no legal obligation to care for her, no intention of adoption, and no understanding of what she has endured. She is simply another mouth to feed and hands to work their land. The Captain drives away with a heart heavy as stone, knowing he has delivered an innocent child into a kind of slavery. Behind him, Johanna watches from the barn loft, her small figure silhouetted against the sky like a prisoner in a tower.

Chapter 6: The Choice Between Duty and Love

That night, unable to sleep with the weight of what he has done, Captain Kidd turns back toward the Leonberger farm. In the darkness, he sees a small figure stumbling across a field, weighted down with heavy horse halters and a wooden bucket of grain. Ten-year-old Johanna, sent alone into the night to catch horses she doesn't know in country that is foreign to her, struggling with equipment too heavy for her small frame. Dark stripes across her arms show where the dog whip has been used to enforce obedience. The sight fills him with a rage so pure and cold it nearly stops his heart. This child fought beside him against killers, showed more courage than most grown men, learned a new language and customs to please him. She deserves protection, not brutality. "Drop that goddamn bucket," he says quietly, and she comes running. Her relief is heartbreaking—she thought he had abandoned her forever. She vaults the fence with her skirts flying, landing on her feet with the grace of someone raised in freedom, and climbs into the wagon beside the only person left in the world who truly cares about her welfare. Wilhelm Leonberger runs from the house shouting about theft and legal documents, but Captain Kidd doesn't even slow down. Let them try to follow an old man and a determined child into the vast darkness of Texas. They have learned to fight together, to survive together, to trust each other completely. Some bonds are stronger than blood, and some duties higher than legal obligations. As they drive north again under the star-scattered sky, Johanna begins to laugh through her tears. She will never have to sleep under a roof again, never have to pretend to be something she is not, never have to endure the contempt of people who see her as damaged goods. The road stretches ahead of them, endless and free.

Chapter 7: New Beginnings on Familiar Roads

Captain Kidd and Johanna return to the life they were meant to live—traveling the roads of Texas together, carrying news from distant places to isolated settlements. She becomes his partner in the truest sense, collecting fees, managing their money, and watching for trouble with eyes that miss nothing. Their wagon with its bullet holes and gold lettering becomes a familiar sight across North Texas. The Indian Wars end with Colonel Mackenzie's final campaign against the Comanche in Palo Duro Canyon, making their travels safer but somehow less adventurous. They adapt to the changing times, moving east to the cotton country and south to the Gulf Coast, where Johanna sees the sea for the first time and marvels at its endless horizon. Years pass. Captain Kidd's daughters return from Georgia and establish themselves in San Antonio, beginning the long legal battle to recover their Spanish land grants. When his family is finally reunited, the Captain and Johanna settle into the old Betancort house, where she struggles to play the role of a civilized young woman while he advises at his son-in-law's printing press. But captivity has marked them both. Johanna endures dancing lessons and sidesaddle riding with grim patience, but her heart remains on the plains. She watches Mexican women washing clothes in the creek with desperate envy, remembering the freedom of water and laughter. The Captain sees her trapped behind the bars of respectability and knows he has failed her again. Salvation comes in the form of John Calley, the young man from Durand who once robbed them on the road but never forgot the Captain's dignity under pressure. Now a successful cattleman, he courts Johanna with patience and genuine admiration. When he teaches her to play piano and sing cowboy ballads, she smiles for the first time in months. Here is someone who offers not captivity but partnership, not correction but acceptance.

Summary

They marry in the Betancort house on a January evening, with Johanna shaking like a leaf and the Captain promising her that marriage, like everything else in life, would sort itself out. He gives her his gold hunting watch, the timepiece that has measured their journey together, and tells her she has been his curative waters in a life grown stale with age and loss. She calls him Kontah—grandfather—and promises to visit often. John Calley takes his bride north to the cattle country, where she can live the wandering life she was born for. They drive herds to Kansas and beyond, sleeping under stars, following seasons and grass and the ancient rhythms of the land. Johanna finds her place not as a rescued captive but as a partner in building something new. She lives to see airplanes and automobiles, always holding her husband's hand as they witness the world transform around them. Captain Kidd works on his Kiowa dictionary until his eyes fail, trying to preserve something of the language that lives in his memory of a fierce ten-year-old girl. He asks to be buried with his runner's badge from the War of 1812, saying he has a message to deliver, contents unknown. Perhaps it is simply this: that love transcends blood, that family is chosen as much as inherited, and that sometimes the greatest act of courage is learning to let go of those we would protect forever. In the end, all any of us can do is carry our news faithfully from one place to another, hoping it reaches those who need to hear it most.

About Author

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Paulette Jiles

Jiles investigates the human experience through her evocative use of language and narrative depth, capturing the intricacies of life with poetic precision. Her writing delves into themes of identity and resilience, reflecting a profound understanding of personal and collective histories. While primarily recognized as a novelist, Jiles's background as a poet enriches her prose with lyrical qualities that enhance her storytelling. This fusion of poetry and narrative creates a unique reading experience that resonates on both emotional and intellectual levels, providing readers with insights into the human condition.\n\nHer method involves weaving together the subtle and the significant, portraying characters who navigate complex emotional landscapes. By doing so, Jiles offers a nuanced exploration of themes such as memory, belonging, and transformation. The reader, therefore, benefits from engaging with stories that not only entertain but also provoke thoughtful reflection on universal human challenges. Her ability to connect deeply with her audience makes her work relevant to those interested in literature that challenges and enlightens.\n\nIn this way, Jiles's contributions as a poet, memoirist, and novelist have left a lasting impact on readers and the literary field. Her early book reflects her skill in blending these roles, making her bio a testament to her versatility and depth as a writer. As an author who deftly intertwines narrative and verse, Jiles continues to inspire a diverse audience with her insightful and captivating prose.

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