First published 2021
Colonel Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming's Powder River Valley in 1866 with orders to construct a fort protecting the new Bozeman Trail. The road will bring gold miners and settlers through sacred Lakota hunting grounds. Red Cloud, a respected Lakota chief, sees the fort as an invasion that threatens his people's survival. The young warrior Crazy Horse shares this vision of the danger ahead. Carrington believes he can defend American expansion into the West. Red Cloud and Crazy Horse know they must fight for their homeland, their way of life, and their future. The collision between these forces builds toward an inevitable confrontation. Punke reconstructs this true story of 1866, when a recovering nation pushed westward and Native tribes made their stand. The conflict centers on more than territory. It becomes a clash between two ways of understanding the land and who belongs on it.
Genres: historical-fiction, american, military-fiction, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: clash-of-cultures, man-vs-nature
Setting: Wyoming, Powder River Valley, Bozeman Trail
Period: 1866
371 pages · Paperback · Borough Press
Content warnings: violence