Showing results by author "B.N. Rundell" in All Categories

Louisiana Territory had been the exclusive domain of Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, seeking to fill their larders with the riches of the uncharted wilderness. But into that territory came two friends, determined to explore and learn about this vast land, land that had seldom if ever had the footprint of a White man. With their journey already taking them through the lands of the Shawnee, Osage, Pawnee, Omaha, and more, they have finally come within sight of the Rocky Mountains, but their way is blocked by the Plains tribes of Arapaho, Ute, Shoshoni, Crow, and others.

The Osage, Kansa, and Otoe were all tribes west of the Mississippi and dwelt directly in the path of the two friends determined to escape the bounty hunters from Philadelphia and to explore the uncharted wilderness of the West. But when they encounter former French Voyageurs turned slave traders who take Pawnee women captive, their purposes take a turn. But slave-traders are nothing compared to the Omaha and Ponca tribes that have the market cornered on all trade from the Missouri and North Platte Rivers.

This is a story about a horse and a boy, but not just any horse: a wild mustang stallion. And not just any boy, but a native American proud member of the Arapahoe nation on the Wind River reservation in Wild Wyoming. When these two wild hearts are knit together through unique circumstances and challenges, they become a championship team.

After a friendly encounter with the Yapudttka Ute, their journey would take them into the middle of a fight between the Mouache Ute and an expedition of gold-hungry Spaniards. The prospectors traveled across the southern tier of the land known as New Spain in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola—the same cities of gold once sought by Coronado—now thought to be in the headwaters of a river in the Sawatch mountains of the Rockies. When the leader of the Spaniards tries to enslave the band of Utes to dig for gold, it starts a bloody battle.

It was nothing more than a resupply trip to Santa Fe, but an encounter with the Tabeguache Ute and the Caputa Ute changed the course of their journey. It wasn’t until they came upon the massacre at a Mexican Hacienda and the subsequent attack from a rampaging band of renegade Jicarilla Apache that they would uncover a prospering trade in captives and slaves that would raise the ire of both Gabe and Ezra.

Gabe and company spent the winter with the Mouache Ute, but the buffalo hunt was watched by a hunting party of Yaparuhka Comanche. That hunting party soon became a raiding party, and the blood began to flow.