The Spook

The setting for my novel, The Spook, is Nebraska Territory in MarchMay 1861, centered on Fort Laramie. The central character, J. D. Davis, is a guard for an inspector from the general land office who is investigating a fraudulent eighteen-township survey in the vicinity of the Niobrara River. A romance with and marriage to a widow with three children is weaved in the story. The inspector determines the fraud and undertakes to perform the contract and pursue the guilty party. The guilty fight back, attempting murder to stop the report. Davis kills the assassin among the defrauders, known as the Spook, and takes his horse. Davis possesses both a Spencer repeating rifle and a Whitworth sharpshooting rifle through the effort of his wealthy father. A dead shot from an early age with muzzle loaders, Davis has the first repeating rifle seen by the Brule Sioux Indians who are a threat to the surveying. A survivor of the destroyed defrauders sets the Brule Sioux Indians on the surveyors by shooting into the Brule village from a horse that is identified as the Spook horse. The Brule are divided partly because the Spook horse is seen in different places at the same times. A battle takes place in which Davis destroys an entire Brule force and has the army bury all the bodies in a mysterious place and way. The Sioux elders eventually confront Davis with their demand for the bodies, and an interesting finish to the novel takes place.