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Trail to Wounded Knee: A Western Story
It is 1876, and Lt. Thaddeus Coyle is stationed with the U.S. Army at Fort Hartsuff, Nebraska. Driven to oppose his commanding officer on a question of honor, Coyle winds up court-martialed and abandoned by his wife and family. For a time he works the mining camps in the Black Hills, becoming a partner to Tom Merritt, known as Swift Hawk on the reservation. Reconciling with his family, Coyle takes a position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and is assigned to advise the Indian Agent at the Pine Ridge Agency at Wounded Knee -- where he and Swift Hawk will meet again...
325 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2001
About the author
Tim Champlin
68 books8 followersTim Champlin was born in North Dakota. He graduated from Middle Tennessee State College and earned a Masters degree in English from Peabody College, Nashville. He writes novels of the American West.
(source: Penguin Random House)
(source: Penguin Random House)
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 12, 2014
A solid relating of the events leading up to the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Champlin creates a few main characters for the reader to follow over the years, providing insights into how people lived in the late 1800s on the frontier.
His main character, Thaddeus Coyle, works first in the Army, then as a prospector, and finally an Indian agent over the course of the story. In each phase, the author paints an authentic landscape of not only the physical attributes of town and country lives, but of people's prejudices and beliefs of the period.
Also familiar with Lakota lore, he adds depth and understanding for the motives of this Native American race. So one learns, for example, of how the Ghost Dance entered the culture as an outlet or counterweight for the collapsing lifestyle of the northern plains Indians.
Another character, Tom Merritt or Swift Hawk, is an Indian who finds a way to live in the new "white man" world, but is torn by his heritage and the plight of his own people. At one point he muses, "As one who made his own successful way into the white world, he felt qualified to teach others of his kind how to do the same. Those who did not adapt to change perished. It was true of all species. Those giant beasts whose bones occasionally eroded out of the soft Badlands soil had died off centuries before. Perhaps they could not cope with change. On the other hand, the opportunistic coyote had learned to live with man, adapting its omnivorous habits from finding carrion and small game to raiding chicken houses."
A somber, tragic story really, the author also narrates the aftermath of the Wounded Knee battle, the newspaper reporters - real and wannabes - photographing corpses, plundering small object for later resale, etc.
Short, dense, detailed, substantive.
Champlin creates a few main characters for the reader to follow over the years, providing insights into how people lived in the late 1800s on the frontier.
His main character, Thaddeus Coyle, works first in the Army, then as a prospector, and finally an Indian agent over the course of the story. In each phase, the author paints an authentic landscape of not only the physical attributes of town and country lives, but of people's prejudices and beliefs of the period.
Also familiar with Lakota lore, he adds depth and understanding for the motives of this Native American race. So one learns, for example, of how the Ghost Dance entered the culture as an outlet or counterweight for the collapsing lifestyle of the northern plains Indians.
Another character, Tom Merritt or Swift Hawk, is an Indian who finds a way to live in the new "white man" world, but is torn by his heritage and the plight of his own people. At one point he muses, "As one who made his own successful way into the white world, he felt qualified to teach others of his kind how to do the same. Those who did not adapt to change perished. It was true of all species. Those giant beasts whose bones occasionally eroded out of the soft Badlands soil had died off centuries before. Perhaps they could not cope with change. On the other hand, the opportunistic coyote had learned to live with man, adapting its omnivorous habits from finding carrion and small game to raiding chicken houses."
A somber, tragic story really, the author also narrates the aftermath of the Wounded Knee battle, the newspaper reporters - real and wannabes - photographing corpses, plundering small object for later resale, etc.
Short, dense, detailed, substantive.
Displaying 1 of 1 review