Majestic mountains, deserts of gold and red and bronze, elk and deer and endless herds of buffalo roaming the Western plains. This is the picture of the old West painted in Richard S. Wheeler's Western novel "The Far Tribes."
The novel was published in 1990 by Forge Press, and the copywrite has been held by Wheeler since the same year.
Wheeler is author of more than 50 westerns. He holds six Spur Awards, and is a recipient of the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to the literature of the West.
This novel is one in a series featuring mountain man Barnaby Skye, a former pressed British sailor who jumped ship in British Columbia and made his name with the American Fur Company before moving to the far northwest, settling among the Crow and Sioux and Cheyenne, taking two wives and starting his own guide business for white settlers heading to the new lands.
The time period is 1852, shortly after the United States had acquired lands on the Pacific Ocean and across the plains, according to the Manifest Destiny theory. A group of travelers arrive at Fort Benton, located on the furthest western reaches of the Missouri River, somewhere in Wyoming, after having traveled by pole barge from St. Louis. The party consists of Elkanah Morse, an inventor and industrialist, who has come to the west to visit with the most remote Indian tribes and ascertain their needs, so that he may come up with items to sell them in trade; his wife Betsy, an accomplished watercolorist; their 21-year-old daughter Arabella; Jarvis Cobb, and captain in the U.S. Army and West Point instructor who has come along to gather intelligence on the little-known far west Indian tribes; Rudolpho Danzig, a Swiss-born Harvard instructor of history and geology, who has joined the party for the adventure; and finally Percy Connaught, a scholar and book bindery owner, who is making the trip with the hope of writing several books on the Indians and their way of life.
This group is met by Skye, who prefers to be called "Mister Skye," his two native wives Victoria and Mary, and Skye's killer horse Jawbone, at the fort, and what begins at that point is pure American adventure.
The group starts out with the preconceived notions held by most people of that day; that the Indians are na*ve and uncivilized, and will jump at any chance to better their lives by adopting the ways of the white man. But by the time the book ends, those who return to the East do so with a much better understanding and appreciation of the beautiful and sophisticated society of the Native American of the old West.
This book is absolutely a joy to read. It has everything any reader would want in a book, including adventure, love, comedy, tragedy, and history. The language is wonderfully colorful and unique to the mountain men and their native companions.
The story moves through a large stretch of Wyoming, including the Yellowstone area and the hot springs that lie there. It also conforms, in the last third of the book, to the journey of Lewis and Clark, and details that journey quite well.
There is some foul language, but it is spoken in a comedic manner by one of Skye's native wives and not in a cursing way. There is an adult situation, but it is not explicit. There is also, of course, some violence, but it is not presented in gory detail.
I would give this book 9 out of 10, because of the foul language, but I would absolutely recommend it for any reader old enough to read and understand the text. "The Far Tribes" can be purchased online or at your local book seller.
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