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Summary
Summary
The time of the mountain man is coming to an end...but some--like Titus Bass will not exit gently. A brilliantly exciting and thoroughly researched novel of the end of the dream that was the unmapped and virgin wilderness in the American West starring the king of the mountain men, Titus Bass.
Author Notes
Terry C. Johnson was born in 1947 on the plains of Kansas and has lived a varied life as a roustabout, history teacher, printer, paramedic, dog catcher, and car salesman, all the while immersing himself in this history of the early West. His first novel, CARRY THE WIND, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award from the Western Writer's of America, and his subsequent books, among them CRY OF THE HAWK, WINTER RAIN, and THE SON OF THE PLAINS TRILOGY, have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Roughcut, venerable mountainman Titus Bass is back in Johnston's seventh installment (Crack in the Sky) in the bloody adventures of the free-spirited Rocky Mountain fur trapper. Here Johnston fills seven years (1834-1840) with exploring, beaver trapping, Indian fighting, whiskey drinking, man-killing and other mountain mayhem. At 40, Bass is getting a little old for this line of work. Half-bald from a scalping, half-blind and scarred from bullets, arrows, tomahawks and knives, Bass embodies the decline of the once-booming fur trade. With his beautiful Crow Indian wife, Waits-by-the-Water, and two small children, Bass rides across New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming in search of the ever elusive beaver, refusing to believe that his way of life is disappearing. Between the annual revelry of the trappers' rendezvous, Bass faces horse thieves, feuding Frenchmen and swarms of Indian enemies, as well as the bitter enmity of his Crow brother-in-law, Strikes-in-Camp, and the scourge of smallpox. As usual, Johnston carefully weaves together history and legend: here the backdrop is the business rivalry of the two remaining fur companies and the ribald and violent antics of frontier heroes like Jim Bridger, Kit Carson and Ol' Bill Williams. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Ultraprolific Johnston offers the seventh installment in the Northwest wilderness saga of mountain man/trapper Titus ``Scratch'' Bass (Dance on the Wind, 1995, etc.), who watches his fiercely loved Big Sky country fade but hopes to hang onto the old ways. The time-span of the series splits after the middle volume, with the last three as prequels. The present story picks up after volume three. Now past the meridian of his life and married to Waits-by-the-Water, a handsome Crow Indian, with Magpie, his baby daughter, Titus is on the his way to the Crow nation and falls into violent adventures, once being attacked by four wolves. He sustains wounds of all varieties, ``the very marrow of his soul cut, healed, and now scarred.'' He has seen the slaughter of the beaver by hunters working for the Hudson Bay Company and the American Fur Company, who are robbing him of his livelihood through overtrapping. Also, the vengeful Blackfoot tribe has come down with smallpox, which has taken the devil out of them and ``pulled the pegs right out from under the whole teetering balance of things in the North Country.'' Titus's attack on the Blackfoot results in the kidnaping of Waits-by-the-Water and Magpie, which sends him out on an icy trek to recover them. He also has a deep friendship with fellow trapper Shadrach Sweete that breaks his heart when it ends: Shad, tired of fighting ``red niggers,'' leaves for more civilized posts, while Titus and his family turn back to the high mountains far from the Indians. Nothing new in the stewbut loyal fans will not be disappointed.
Booklist Review
Titus Bass and his beautiful Crow wife, Waits-by-the-Water, learn that her beloved uncle has recently been killed by a Blackfoot war party, and Titus joins the group to exact revenge. Upon his return, he finds his little family has been taken prisoner by another war party. Revenge be damned, Titus sets out to reclaim the only true happiness he has ever known. He must not only contend with warring Indian tribes but also with duplicitous white traders, the elements, and one enemy even Titus can't defeat: smallpox. The continuing saga of Titus Bass provides readers with a genuine sense of frontier life and the hardships of the very earliest settlers in the context of an epic adventure. Bass is a near-mythic Davy Crockett^-like character, but author Johnston imbues him with Everyman emotions, which makes his despair over the loss of his loved ones genuine. This is a popular series, and readers of past Bass adventures will not be disappointed. --Wes Lukowsky
