High in the Rockies lay the Bayou Salade, a lush beaver-rich valley so untouched that the few white men who had seen it called it paradise. But for Scratch Bass, his young partner Josiah Paddock, and the two Indian women they loved, this paradise would open up a hell of violence. Pursued by a vengeful Arapaho raiding party, Scratch will lead his small band through a flurry of arrows all the way to Taos itself. Yet the trail of blood will not end there. For in St. Louis an old enemy waits, and the time is ripe for Scratch to settle a ten-year score. Through the desert known as the Journey of Death to the rough-and-tumble town of St. Louis, Scratch and Josiah will defy the wilderness to bury the past-and a blackhearted killer-once and for all.
They had settled a bloody score and put the turncoat McAfferty to rest in the snowbound Rockies. Slowly, painfully, the wounded Paddock and Scratch found their way back to the Crow village, where they were welcomed as brother and son. The people of Chief Arapooesh offered rest, healing, and home to the mountain men. Then a misunderstanding over a beautiful Crow woman drove the friends apart, propelling Scratch into the unforgiving wilderness on a lonely, dangerous quest. Paddock, too ill to travel, was at first unable to follow, unable to explain. But they were destined to meet again, and to reaffirm a bond deeper than blood, at the historic 1833 Green River Rendezvous. And together, they would face an enemy greater than either had ever known.
Young Josiah Paddock, on the run from his past in St. Louis, didn't have much hope of survival. Winter was coming to the Rockies, and if the cold cutting through his city clothes didn't kill him, grizzlies or Indians would. Then his luck turned. He stumbled across the trail of Ol' Scratch, a solitary mountain man eager enough for company to take the brash youngster under his wing. Pure chance brought Paddock to the old trapper's camp, but it was skill with a gun and a knife that kept them both alive as they rode deep into the majestic land of Blackfeet and Crow, bible-spouting pioneers, and sensual women where only the best and bravest survived ... and only the luckiest rode back again. Carry The Wind is a gripping historical saga set in the Grand Tetons during a time when the horizon never ended and a nation was being born.
Blow for blow, blood for blood, a heart-thundering account of the outbreak of the Nez Perce War, by America’s bestselling historical frontier novelist. With gripping, authentic detail, CRIES FROM THE EARTH chronicles the lives of courageous men and women engaged in an ongoing chain of bloody skirmishes– another breathtaking ride through a Western frontier rife with brutal conflict and astounding bravery. By mid-1877, trouble in the Northwest is brewing like a foul broth. Ill will is growing between white settlers and the Non-Treaty bands of the Nez Perce. The American government is forcing the Indians from their homelands onto the reservation. Many go quietly, thinking more about their families than of the pride of their warriors. But for a few holdouts, there’s no room for compromise. Their history, their heritage and their ancestors are buried beneath that land. Although severely outnumbered and outgunned, a few brave warriors will heed the call of….CRIES FROM THE EARTH
