With this follow-up to his award-winning first novel, A Road We Do Not Know, about Custer's fight at Little Bighorn, Chiaventone delivers a stirring tale of the only frontier war the Native Americans actually won. Red Cloud's War (1866–1868) in Montana and Wyoming saw the U.S. government sue for peace, yielding to every Indian demand in the treaty. With the same skill and style he put to good use in his first novel, Chiaventone tells the violent and bloody story of a war that could not be avoided no matter how honorable the intentions of those involved. By 1866, with the Civil War over, settlers and gold miners swept into the Western plains and mountains. The Indians fiercely resisted, but it took Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux to unite the tribes and drive the whites from Indian land. Army Col. Henry Carrington, who did not want war with the Indians, commanded an infantry regiment sent up the Bozeman Trail to build Fort Phil Kearney in the middle of Sioux country. The Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho combined forces and Colonel Carrington soon found himself struggling with hostile Indians, harsh winter weather and poorly equipped, inexperienced troops. Chiaventone gives himself enough fictional license to bring the soldiers, Indians and their families to life, a talent he exercises well. The clash of cultures, rivalries among the Indians and grandstanding among the soldiers, as well as the vivid portrayal of the inhospitable environment, make this novel stand out. (Apr.)
