by Win Blevins
My crucial job here, though, was to paint the picture of a crisis of the soul of Sam Morgan, the young hero of the Rendezvous series. In this book he matures by journeying through a great darkness and into light.
In telling this personal story, within the strict limits of what is known about the expedition of 1826–27, I’ve sought to put the flesh of living men on the bones of history.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Laurie Langland of the Layne Library for her help and to the Library for permission to quote from its manuscript of Jedediah Smith’s journal. Thanks as well to the Missouri Historical Society, an extraordinary repository of records of the fur trade, for permission to quote from its manuscript of other parts of Jedediah’s journal.
I’m grateful to a host of people for expert advice: Pam Blevins, Phil Hawley, Charlotte Hinger, Robert Hudson of the Kansas University Medical School, Dick James, and Craig Stinson.
My companions on this long journey into the past have been the Honorable Clyde Hall of the Fort Hall Reservation, novelist Richard Wheeler, and my editor, Dale Walker. I’m honored to walk with you.
About the Author
Win Blevins is the author of thirty-one books. He has received the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature, has thrice been named Writer of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, has been selected for the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won two Spur Awards for Novel of the West. His novel about Crazy Horse, Stone Song, was a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize.
A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Blevins is of Cherokee and Welsh Irish descent. He received a master’s degree from Columbia University and attended the music conservatory of the University of Southern California. He started his writing career as a music and drama reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and then became the entertainment editor and principal theater and movie critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His first book was published in 1973, and since then he has made a living as a freelance writer, publishing essays, articles, and reviews. From 2010 to 2012, Blevins served as Gaylord Family Visiting Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Blevins has five children and a growing number of grandchildren. He lives with his wife, the novelist Meredith Blevins, among the Navajos in San Juan County, Utah. He has been a river runner and has climbed mountains on three continents. His greatest loves are his family, music, and the untamed places of the West.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Win Blevins
Cover design by Mimi Bark and Amanda Shaffer
978-1-5040-3310-7
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10038
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