The Plainsmen Series

The Plainsmen Series

Sioux Dawn - Riding west for the gold fields of Montana at the end of the Civil War, cavalry sergeant Seamus Donegan reaches Fort Phil Kearny on the Bozeman Trail and is swept into the Fetterman Massacre of December 21, 1866.

Red Cloud’s Revenge - Donegan’s friend Sam Marr is pinned down at the Wagon Box Fight near Fort Phil Kearny on August 1, 1867, while Seamus is embroiled in the Hayfield Fight near Fort C. F. Smith on the Bighorn, August 2, 1867.

The Stalkers - Going south in search of his uncle, Donegan joins Forsyth’s 50 civilian scouts who track Roman Nose’s Dog Soldiers. On a narrow strip of sand the white men will hold out for 9 days against the Cheyenne on Beecher Island that hot September of 1868.

Black Sun - Seamus joins Bill Cody to scout for Major Carr’s 5th Cavalry through the winter of 1868 on the Southern Plains, then on to the Central Plains where the Fifth will crush Tall Bull’s Dog Soldiers at Summit Springs that hot July day in 1869.

Devil’s Backbone - Chasing a string of rumors, Donegan learns that a second uncle now farms in Oregon, where Seamus will become entangled with Captain Jack’s Modoc War, 1872-73, the army’s longest and most costly Indian campaign to date.

Shadow Riders - Returning to the Southern Plains with fellow scout Sharp Grover, Donegan finds himself a captive in the opening skirmishes of the Southern Plains Uprising of 1873.

Dying Thunder - With fellow buffalo hunter Billy Dixon, Donegan is thrust into the Red River War of 1874-75, from the Battle of Adobe Walls to the Buffalo Wallow Fight, and on to Mackenzie’s crushing of Quanah Parker’s Comanche at Palo Duro Canyon.

Blood Song - Gambling on reaching the Montana goldfields with his new wife Samantha, Seamus is stopped dead in his tracks with the opening battle of the Great Sioux War when he rides north to scout for Crook and fights with Reynolds’s cavalry at Powder River, March 17, 1876.

Reap the Whirlwind - After his disastrous stalemate on Powder River, Crook retreats south for the winter. In spring his is the first column to set off for Indian Country. From his supply base at Goose Creek, Crook plunges after the hostiles reportedly on Rosebud Creek. Caught napping three months to the day after the fight on Powder River, Crook wages his personal duel with Crazy Horse in a dramatic day-long battle just eight days before Crazy Horse will crush Custer.

Trumpet on the Land - Licking his wounds after the Rosebud debacle, Crook again retreats south to his supply base, from which he dispatches patrols north to learn what he can of that largest hostile village ever gathered on the Plains. From the Sibley Scout in July, to the Battle of Slim Buttes, and on through the rain-sodden horsemeat march, you relive the tragic aftermath of the Little Bighorn.

A Cold Day in Hell - After his inconclusive victory at Slim Buttes, Crook prepares for an all-out winter campaign. Once again punching north from Fort Fetterman, Crook orders Mackenzie’s Fourth Cavalry to attack a large Cheyenne village in the fastness of the Bighorn Mountains. Five months to the day after the Northern Cheyenne and Lakota have crushed Custer’s Seventh, Mackenzie’s troops and Indian auxiliaries drive the Cheyenne into the snowy hills for a sub-zero day-long Dull Knife Battle, destroying forever the might and culture of the Northern Cheyenne.

Wolf Mountain Moon - Volunteering to probe north in hopes of reaching Col. Nelson A. Miles on the Yellowstone, Seamus carries Crook’s dispatches for the Fifth Infantry, and is immediately swept up in Miles’s winter campaign against Sitting Bull in the Missouri River country and chasing the Crazy Horse people up Tongue River for the stirring Battle of the Butte on January 8, 1877 — Crazy Horse’s last fight against the U. S. Army. As Miles returns to his post on the Yellowstone, Donegan races south through the winter wilderness to reach Samantha at Fort Laramie where they will christen their newborn son.

Ashes of Heaven - Driven by Bear Coat Miles into the maw of winter after the fight at Wolf Mountain, the Crazy Horse village now begins to splinter as they lurch through a snow-drifted country in search of buffalo to feed their starving families. As winter reaps its terrible harvest, the wandering camps are tracked down by the soldier chief’s emissaries, who attempt to convince the Lakota and Cheyenne to surrender to Miles at the mouth of the Tongue River for the sake of their suffering women and children. As White Bull’s people stumble north to give up, many more head south for the reservation with Little Wolf and Crazy Horse...yet a small band of hold-outs flee into the hills to rally at the camp of chief Lame Deer, where the Fifth Infantry will catch the last of these warriors bands on Muddy Creek in the spring of 1877--the day after Crazy Horse surrenders to the army in the south. The Great Sioux War was over.

Cries From the Earth - The army and Nez Perce agent deliver an ultimatum to the non-treaty bands, "Come to the reservation or we will destroy our villages." As White Bird and Joseph reluctantly prepare to submit, a few young men are made bold by a bellyful of whiskey and they set off to begin a bloody rampage of revenge on innocent white settlers--men, women, and children alike. The powderkeg explodes when General Howard sends Captain David Perry and 100 cavalrymen to drive the renegade Nez Perce back to the reservation. In White Bird Canyon a third of those soldiers are killed, the rest put to rout...and this tale is but the beginning of three intricate and haunting novels that will chronicle the five-month, 1300-mile tragedy of the Nez Perce.

Lay the Mountains Low - (hardcover - June 2000, paperback - February 2001) Now that the Non-Treaty bands of Nez Perce have soundly defeated the army at White Bird Canyon, they stay one step ahead of General Howard’s army in a series of skirmishes with the soldiers at Cottonwood Station, and against seventeen brave civilians on Camas Prairie, showing their dominance in the war to that point. But Howard eventually catches the warrior bands camped at the Clearwater. After a two-day battle, Looking Glass leads the Nez Perce north to the western end of the Lolo Trail, where they prepare to abandon their ancestral lands for the buffalo country of Montana Territory and their long-time friends, the Crow. After by-passing a weak outpost of soldiers at "Fort Fizzle," the Nez Perce trade with merchants in the Bitterroot Valley, white men they have trusted for many generations, slowly making their way south by east, believing they have left both the war and Howard’s army behind. Little do they know that another army, the Seventh U.S. Infantry led by Colonel John Gibbon, is already on their trail and closing fast. Stopping to rest and cut new lodgepoles at the "Place of the Ground Squirrels," Looking Glass scoffs at those who warn of danger coming up behind them. On the morning of August 9, 1877, Gibbon leads his infantry and more than fifty civilian volunteers from the Bitterroot in a bloody attack on the sleeping Nez Perce village. It will not take the enraged warriors long to regroup and counter-attack, driving the white men back against the hillside where they are forced to dig in for their lives. The Battle of the Big Hole will rage on into a second day before the warriors hastily bury their dead and limp away, following their grieving families south across the mountains into the Lemhi Valley. No longer will they trust any white man as they push on for freedom.

Turn the Stars Upside Down - (hardcover August 2001)