The High Missouri (42 page)

Yes, the High Missouri.

He laughed, and wept, and his tears ran down his face and onto the earth and mingled with the rain and trickled toward the river.

Acknowledgments

Thanks for help on this book to my longtime researcher, Ruth Valsing; to Montreal historian Kathryn Harvey; to Howard Rides-at-the-Door for help with the language and customs of his Piegan people; to Dorothy Holland for advice about the character Red Sky at Morning, and to Rose Fraser, Chris Guier, and Jacques Roux for some Canadian French.

This book is inspired by Joseph Campbell and his ideas. Its six parts are titled after the six parts of the hero’s adventure in tribute to him.

About the Author

Win Blevins is the author of thirty-one books. He has received the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature, has twice been named Writer of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, has been selected for the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won two Spur Awards for Novel of the West. His novel about Crazy Horse,
Stone Song
, was a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize.

A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Blevins is of Cherokee and Welsh Irish descent. He received a master’s degree from Columbia University and attended the music conservatory of the University of Southern California. He started his writing career as a music and drama reviewer for the
Los Angeles Times
and then became the entertainment editor and principal theater and movie critic for the
Los Angeles Herald Examiner
. His first book was published in 1973, and since then he has made a living as a freelance writer, publishing essays, articles, and reviews. From 2010 to 2012, Blevins served as Gaylord Family Visiting Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Blevins has five children and a growing number of grandchildren. He lives with his wife, the novelist Meredith Blevins, among the Navajos in San Juan County, Utah. He has been a river runner and has climbed mountains on three continents. His greatest loves are his family, music, and the untamed places of the West.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Winfred Blevins

Cover design by Mimi Bark

978-1-5040-1288-1

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

Videos, Archival Documents,
and
New Releases

Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign up now at

www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters