The Color of Lightning

by Paulette Jiles

Britt Johnson is mentioned in many histories of north Texas, and the accounts are often contradictory or confusing. They all come down to two or three oral histories taken down in the early 1900s, and three pieces of hard evidence; a census of 1860, an 1864 muster of a scouting company, and the diary of Samuel A. Kingman, who was present at the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 and whose diary mentions Britt Johnson in search of captives. The story of Britt’s journey to rescue his wife and children from captivity is beyond doubt, as are the brief accounts of his life afterward. Entering Britt’s name in a search engine will lead to several good Web sites. This is a work of fiction, but any full rendering of Britt’s story would of necessity be close to fiction since there is so little to go on, but that little is arresting and quite moving. I have sorted out the names of his children and of his former “owner” as best I could. Many of the Comanche and Kiowa people named here were real people, such as Kicking Bird, Toshana, Hears the Dawn, Aperian Crow, Esa Havey, Setanta, Satank, and Old Man Komah. Others are invented. Sergeant Elijah Earl was a real person, as were Dennis Cureton, Vesey Smith, Paint Crawford, and Medal of Honor winner Emmanuel

From Paulette Jiles ' Afterword