Buffalo Trail: A Novel of the American West by Jeff Guinn

Cash is on the run.  He stole some money from his former father-in-law (his wife committed suicide) and has headed out to make a new start.  Having a killer after him trying to recover the money makes him move faster.  He just wants to start over...

G P Putnam and Edelweiss allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published October 6th.  

Cash falls in with some buffalo hunters.  They prefer to be called hide men.  What they really are is killers who wasted the buffalo.  All they wanted was the hide; they let the rest rot.  But it paid some and Cash had dreams.  He'd given up the woman he loved to marry one that should have set him up for life.  Instead, she died and he lost his original woman.  He's determined to win her back.

This is historical fiction but it reads like actual history.  Mr. Guinn is like a story teller.  He takes you back to the era and walks you into another world.

Quanah is the Comanche chief and he's trying to unite the Indians to drive the white men away.  He knows they'll keep coming but he wants to keep some of the rich land and buffalo for his people.  He hopes a big victory will send a message to the white man.  The other Indians have fought long enough and lost enough people they don't want to fight.  He has to barter, use his medicine man ramblings and more to get some support.

Much of what you read in this story is cruel.  Sometimes life is.  While it may be hard to read, the atrocities happened on both sides.  No one person was right or wrong; it was just a clash of cultures.  It's still going on in the world today.

This is an informative look at how life was back in the days of Indians and hide hunters.  The story flows well, the author gives his characters interesting personalities, and even though I'm not fond of history, this was easy to read.  Would you like to walk a mile in Quanah's moccasins?