Our songs prophesized the coming of a “strange people with white skin” ….
“The Coming takes the reader inside the tipi. You feel the warmth of the council fire, smell the aroma of roasted elk meat and hear the murmur of old voices as you gather your weapons. The copper taste of anxiety and fear fills your mouth as you depart on your best horse for a land called buffalo country. This is your first hunt and your first test of manhood. Your name is Daytime Smoke. You have red hair from a father you have never known. You want to know more about your father’s people, learn their ways understand their inventions but you must reconcile their many betrayals and countless lies. You search for understanding and wisdom as more white invaders move onto your ever shrinking homeland. You are torn from both worlds, the truth is inescapable. Mr. Osborne’s characters require the reader to listen to them, their many voices tell an undeniable truth that history alone can not. Experience the last open expanse of unbridled freedom in this gripping novel.” —book review by Steve Snow on Goodreads. Thanks, Steve, for your well written review!
(Title quote by Allen P. Slickpoo, from We, the Nez Perces: Culture and History of the Nez Perces)
In autumn, 1849, 14-year-old Janette Riker travels westward to Oregon Territory with her father and two brothers. Before crossing the Rockies, they stop briefly to hunt buffalo. The men leave camp early on the second day … and never return.
Based on actual events, and told in diary format, is the harrowing account of young Janette Riker’s struggle to survive the long winter alone. Facing certain death, and with blizzards, frostbite, and gnawing hunger her only companions, she endures repeated attacks by grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions.
Janette rises to each challenge, relying on herself more than she knew possible. Her only comfort comes in writing in her diary, where she shares her fears, her travails, and her dwindling hopes.