Ride the Moon Down
A Novel
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The time of the mountain man is coming to an end, but some—like Titus Bass will not exit gently. A brilliantly exciting and thoroughly researched novel of the end of the dream that was the unmapped and virgin wilderness in the American West starring the king of the mountain men, Titus Bass.
A new dawn was rising over the vast, once uncharted territories west of the Mississippi. And for the original trailblazers like Titus Bass—bold, resourceful men who dine on buffalo meat, trade in beaver pelts, and live among the warrior bands—the world will never be the same. Traveling with his wife and infant daughter, Bass heads north into Crow territory. But what should have been a joyous reunion with his wife’s people turns to tragedy when Bass’s family is kidnapped by the warring Blackfoot. A deadly outbreak of smallpox, brought west by the white man, threatens both Indian nations with annihilation. And another kind of epidemic—this one of greed—brought by two powerful, profit-hungry trading outfits will determine the fate not only of free trappers like Titus Bass . . . but the destiny of the entire nation.
Praise for Terry C. Johnston
“No one does it better . . . one of the great frontier historical novelists of our generation.”—Tulsa World
“Terry C. Johnston is an authentic American treasure.”—Loren D. Estleman
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Roughcut, venerable mountainman Titus Bass is back in Johnston's seventh installment (Crack in the Sky) in the bloody adventures of the free-spirited Rocky Mountain fur trapper. Here Johnston fills seven years (1834-1840) with exploring, beaver trapping, Indian fighting, whiskey drinking, man-killing and other mountain mayhem. At 40, Bass is getting a little old for this line of work. Half-bald from a scalping, half-blind and scarred from bullets, arrows, tomahawks and knives, Bass embodies the decline of the once-booming fur trade. With his beautiful Crow Indian wife, Waits-by-the-Water, and two small children, Bass rides across New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming in search of the ever elusive beaver, refusing to believe that his way of life is disappearing. Between the annual revelry of the trappers' rendezvous, Bass faces horse thieves, feuding Frenchmen and swarms of Indian enemies, as well as the bitter enmity of his Crow brother-in-law, Strikes-in-Camp, and the scourge of smallpox. As usual, Johnston carefully weaves together history and legend: here the backdrop is the business rivalry of the two remaining fur companies and the ribald and violent antics of frontier heroes like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Ol' Bill Williams.
