Preserved by a Promise
A Novella
“A faithful friend is a strong defense; and he that has found him has found a treasure.”
Sirach 6:14
Set sometime in the 1800s, Preserved by a Promise is a short, fun, not-quite-historically-accurate read about an unlikely friendship between two young men at a time when pioneers and Native Americans didn’t always get along.
Ben McCullough, a pioneer, and Kai, a Sioux brave, met in the woods when they were fifteen. Unsure how to explain their friendship to their families, the two kept it secret. But now war threatens to tear them apart.
Will the troubled times destroy them, or will a promise made when they parted ways drive them to risk everything for one another?
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“But Ben,” he remonstrated. “You can’t march into a Dakota camp and carry off a captive single-handed. You’d be killed for sure!”
“I’ll have Shappa and maybe some others with me.”
“It’s not worth it.”
I met his eye, my tone even and deadly-serious. “A promise is a promise, Jack. But even had no promise and no friendship stood between Kai and I, gratitude would compel me to act on his behalf.”
Excerpt from ‘A Partner’s Promise,’ by Abigail Timm © 2024
The old adage that we are our own worst critics is so true.
I absolutely loved writing this story but it’s not my best writing.
Why?
This entire book was written in a mere two and a half weeks. A personal record!
It was inspired by a photo a friend sent me which I jokingly said I would write a story about. I put it off for a couple months, and then my good-humored friend said, “I’m still waiting for that story,” (or something to that effect) prompting me to buckle down to business and start writing. Two and a half weeks later, I sent my group of friends this story.
Originally, it wasn’t meant to be long enough to publish, it just sort of grew. When I finished writing it and my friends and beta readers deemed it worthy of sharing with the world, I was elated!
. . . And terrified.
See, I like to do things right, to have them under control. I am spontaneous sometimes, like my decision to write this in the first place, but I don’t generally share unpolished work with the world!
Did I really want my debut as an author to be less than perfect?
So I considered rewriting the story: I could fix it, make it historically accurate, clean up the clichés, and add in all the details that ran through my mind as I wrote but didn’t make it into the story.
But that would steal the charm of how it came about, don’t you think?
Nothing is perfect, and I fully expect to second-guess publishing future books, so I may as well get over myself now. 😅
What I love about this book isn’t a flawless delivery, a perfect plot, complex characters, or a realistic historical setting. This book is special because of how it came to be. It’s a memory, worth all the imperfections and the author-cringe of my inner critic.
I could rewrite it.
But I won’t.
Because memories are only made once, and this one, I get to preserve.
