Stan Hoig's new book "Perilous Pursuit" is highly sympathetic to the Northern Cheyennes who, mistreated and betrayed by the US Government, were exiled from their Northern Plains homeland to the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma). After a year of misery, a few hundred of the Cheyennes fled from their new reservation and headed north towards their old home. Immediately, the US Army was ordered to find them and force their return. Despite Hoig's sympathy for the fleeing Indians, he does not make the easy mistake of depicting the pursuing cavalry as villains. Instead, they are viewed as ordinary soldiers doing a difficult, dangerous job as best they can. Hoig does not hesitate to point out where individual soldiers stepped over the lines of acceptable conduct to murder indiscriminately, but he also does not draw back from recounting the murders and rapes carried out by young Cheyenne warriors during their exodus across Kansas. Plainly, virtue was not universally on one side.

My major criticism of "Perilous Pursuit" is the lack of adequate maps to clearly depict the movements of Cheyennes and Army units. What maps exist are somewhat generalized, lacking in details.

On the whole, however, I would recommend Hoig's book for anyone wishing to read a balanced account of a tragic event.

Union Pacific Cheyenne West- Part 1 is a photographic tour along the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming and Utah. Wesley Fox is an excellant black and white photographer who has captured the Union Pacific railroad in the harsh country of Wyoming. His sharp photography takes you up close and you can almost feel the trains roaring by. If you love the golden age of steam, then the last chapter will bring back great memories as Fox photographs the Union Pacific's remaining steam locomotives in passenger service. If you like the Union Pacific Railroad and appreciate sharp and well printed black and white photographs, then this a book for you. Part 2, which will cover the Union Pacific west of Ogden, UT to Los Angeles, Oakland and Portland should be available soon.

Judd Lassetier is your typical anti-hero, attractive to the heroine because of his faults, not despite them. One thing that I am really sick of in these Indian romance novels is the frequent and unecessary use of the term "Half-breed". Now I know that someone out there is going to try to tell me that it is historically acurate to use that term, and I agree, in the context of the novel it may sometimes be required. However, why do the authors and publishers use this all over the dust jackets? It's a very offensive term that these authors who claim to respect the native peoples of this land should use carefully. That said, I like the hero and heroine's characters a lot, but in the last third of the novel the author seems to be struggling to keep these two from getting to know each other as individuals as well as keeping them apart romantically. I reccomend this book if you like Indian romance and want a change from the kidnapped white-woman thing.

Judd Lassiter is the man they call Panther. He's a half-breed, a wanderer, a bounty hunter who can face any danger without blinking. Kat Diamond needs Lassiter. He's the only man who can save her from her stepfather's hired killers. So Kat offers Judd a fortune to get her safely to her destination, little knowing that Lassiter has already made a deal--with her enemy. Historical romance lovers will be thrilled by Kat and Judd's story and will eagerly await the next installment of Finch's Mystics of the Four Winds.

I found this book a very simple read that didn't flow naturally. While the landscape and town descriptions were adequate, the character developement and dialog was lacking. The fact the the main male character was understanding and excepting of the female character's unusual accomplishments and profession is commendable and unusual for a romance, but his lack of visible protective feelings seemed very unnatural. The plot and everybody involved fell together much to easily to make it a compelling read.

I thought the writing was simple. I did not read to me the way people would actually talk to each other and that kept me from enjoying the book as much as I could have. And I got so tired of "partner" and "women." It was just not my taste.

Janelle Taylor does it again. Wild Winds, what a great believable story. Wonderful, colorful characters, caring, needing... Hawk Reynolds, strong, handsome, sexy and half Cheyenne!! yes!! Maggie Malone, woman of my heart. Fearless, strong, sexy - a dangerous combination in a woman falls in love with Hawk, dark, dangerous and oh so daring. They both seek out the truth yet are hesitant about how they feel, lies, confusion only add to the mystery of this story. Can't put the book down. Read it and love it...

there is very little material in this book, practically no grammar, so you won't make your own sentences, no explanations of pecularities of Cheyenne verb, there is a file containing this book somewhere on the Internet, but no sounds to it

I have'nt read this book yet but plan on it asap,the reason why i rated it 5 stars is because I am half indian and everything I read on indians I like so I rated it 5 stars.

Hardorff writes well but its an awful waste of time to put out two small books, one for the Dakota and one for the Cheyenne which are essentially reprints of the Camp interviews. It is nice to have these interviews available but you can order Camp direct. This particular book I thought was flawed because it starts with American Horse who by all other accounts (but his own) was not in the Little Bighorn Fight.

Bonvillain, Nancy. The Cheyennes: People of the Plains. Native Americans The Millbrook Press, Brookfield, CT, 1996. ISBN 0-7613-0015-5. 64p. Juvenile Literature. (age 8 and up)

This informational book on the Cheyennes is a good resource for any student. Included are a recipe, a glossary, a bibliography, photos, and drawings of the Cheyenne culture. The information rages from life on the reservation a long time ago to Cheyennes today. This book is one in a series of different books about Native American people and their culture. Bonvillain does a brilliant job of communicating that each Native American culture has its own personality. The stereotypical term "Indian" is long gone with Bonvillain's brilliant research.

Cindy Hopp 07/02/00

when I saw it's non-authenticity, I returned it for full credit. Fr. Powell has been duped!

Powell, a Catholic priest, has an agenda unrelated to the great mythic story of Sweet Medicine (Motseyoef in the Tsistsistas [Cheyenne] language; untranslatable in English), in which he has tried to blend the ancient indigenous spirituality of the proto-Algonquians with Christianity. Beginning only around 1830 with Suhtaio and Tsistsitas conflicts with the Pawnees and other Native Nations of the upper -trans-Missouri Basin, he doesn't even talk about Sweet Medicine, barely mentioning him and then going on to a standard replay of American history. It is a uninspired recitation of questionable information used to justify the missionaries converting the Indians to a better God and Civilization.

Father Peter J. Powell (who, contrary to the misinformation passed in another reader's review, is an Episcopalian priest) is the premium scholar of Cheyenne culture and religion. A Sun Dance priest himself, adopted by the Cheyenne, Father Powell renders the beautiful story of Sweet Medicine in evocative prose. After reading his work, I was privileged to meet Father Powell on a sad, but touching occasion, when he presided over the funeral of the great Cheyenne educator Bill Tall Bull in Lame Deer, Montana several years ago. Father Powell is held in great reverence by the Northern Cheyenne people, and on that day was sought out after the service by countless members of the tribe with greetings, hugs, and thanks. I can recommend SWEET MEDICINE without reservation to anyone with interest in Plains Indian culture.

There are some books which glorify everything a Native American ever said or did, and blame all history's woes on evil white men. Those are usually called "politically correct," because they basically tell palatable lies to people who, for political reasons, prefer them to the truth.

There are also some books which vehemently deny that a white American could ever have committed an atrocity. These are equally politically correct; their palatable lies just service a different audience.

This book falls into the latter category. Sorry, but Scott plainly ignores a vast body of evidence against Chivington. Were all the thousands of people who reported seeing children's body parts displayed as trophies in on the great conspiracy? How about the dozens of oral histories provided to the descendants of soldiers, which mesh reasonably well with those of the Cheyennes?

There are plenty of historical acts of aggression, against Native Americans or anyone else, which could be reasonably argued to have been at some level justifiable. Scott chooses not to take any of them on. By refusing to accept that ANYTHING a white guy did could possibly be evil--even killing pregnant women and keeping the fetuses as souvenirs--Scott effectively puts himself in the same boat, if the opposite end, as the misty new-age folks who refuse to believe Native Americans knew what evil was before the Europeans got here.

In 1864, when the Sand Creek massacre happened, most of the plain indian nations, including the Cheyenne nation, had already been the victims of enumerous massacres, broken treaties, invasion of remote and ancient tribal hunting grounds, mass deportation, restrictions to hunting and trapping, inhumane treatment and inhuman conditions on reservations. Mr. Scott starts his book with the massacre of a corporal, a driver and seven weakened soldiers sick with scurvy. This massacre became known as the Cottonwood Massacre. He then suggests that the nine men were massacred by Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. It is known now, that most propably southern Lakota (Oglala or Brule) were involved in this raid. These warriors had propably relatives that had also been brutally slaughtered by General Harney's troops in 1855, when he ordered his soldiers to surround and attack a peacefull mixed Oglala and Brule Lakota village by the Blue Water area in Nebraska. When this massacre was over, about one hundred women and children had been killed. This was just one of the unspeakable and enumerous massacres committed for 372 years before Sand Creek by europeans and caucasian americans against native americans, since Colmubus landed in October 21,1492. It is true that the Cheyenne, the Comanche, the Kiowa and many other plain indian nations sometimes killed, scalped and mutilated white people, raped white women, and ocasionally also killed white children, as Spanish, Portuguese, British, French, Russian and later American soldiers indiscriminately and repeatedely massacred, murdered, dismenbered, scalped,raped, deported, robbed and kidnaped more than two hundred million men, women and children native americans between October 1492 and December 1890. In 1864, the Cheyenne nations ancestral hunting grounds were being invaded. The Cheyenne were a nomadic,spiritual and warlike society, clashing with a sedentary agrarian caucasian society wich showed no respect for the natural enviroment around them, for the values and spirituality of the resident indian nations, while most of the time treating native americans as wild beasts. Mr. Scott reveals himself as a able researcher when it comes to present a report of the unfortunated settlers, trappers and soldiers killed by Cheyenne warriors in eastern Colorado, western Kansas and Southern Nebraska, but he did not care to present a list of the thousands of men, women and children Navajo, Apache , Blackfeet, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Arapaho and Cheyenne killed approximately between 1780 and 1890. Mr. Scott, in this book, did not show to have any knowledge about the indian nation he is talking about. He wrote that chief Bull Bear, one of the four council chiefs of the Dog Soldier cheyenne died in Sand Creek, when any respected american historian such as George Bird Grinnel, Alvin M. Josephy Jr.,John Moore, William Chalfant and others, all know and have written that Chief Bull Bear was still leading Cheyenne Dog Soldier war parties in the early 1870s. He also refers that Roman Nose was a Chief and a Dog Soldier Cheyenne. In fact Roman Nose was a Northern Cheyenne, of the Omeheshes Cheyenne tribe and was only a proeminent warrior. He also suggets twice through obscure reports from soldiers present at the Sand Creek massacre, that probably 450 Cheyenne warriors were killed in Sand Creek. In 1864, the whole population of the Cheyenne nation was about 3600 people, including no more than 1000 able warriors, of wich probably half were in the north with the Omeheshes Cheyenne and the northern Sutaeo Cheyenne. So, it means, that according to Mr. Scott, the whole Southern Cheyenne male population was killed in Sand Creek. How come Mr. Scott at the end of the book refers that seven hundred southern Cheyenne Dog Soldier warriors participated in the battle of Beecher Island? Maybe someday we will have Mr. Scott writing a book entitled "Sand Creek 1864, the great Cheyenne Baby Boom". Then, Mr. Scott will eventually announce that for almost two hundred years the American Government had been hiding from the American Public that the Cheyenne population in 1864 was probably about fifty thousand people, including ten thousand warriors. Afterwards, he will most probably suggest that Genereal Lee was considering giving half of his weaponry to the Cheyenne nation, so they could invade Saint louis, Chigago and Tacoma Washington, because he keeps refering that the Confederates were turning the Cheyenne and other plain indian tribes against the Union in 1864. The whole book reveals that Mr. Scott did not care about doing any serious research about the Cheyenne nation or the Sand Creek massacre. He even suggests that almost no women or children had been killed in Sand Creek, when recognized and respected caucasian american historians like Dee Brown, Alvin Josephy, George Bird Grinnel and others have always given us the straight picture about the horrors that were commited against the Cheyenne Heviksnipahis and the Cheyenne Hisiometaneo at Sand Creek. Is Mr. Scott trying to call us all stupid? Everything in this book has something evil about it, as the massacre itself. Even the photo of chief Black Kettle was deformed to make him look like a demon, when compared with the original photo, that shows us the face of a kind and handsome man. It is a dangerous book for the people that never had the chance to do any research about native americans. Mr. Scott has the ability to start slowly portraying the Cheyenne people as a bunch of bloodthirsty savages, but maybe that is as far as he can get about native americans. This book is a shame, it is an indecent and racist attempt to cover one of the most horrendous act of war commited by the american army against native americans. Mr Scott uses obscure reports from soldiers present at Sand Creek, to finnaly have the demerit of suggesting that almost no Cheyenne children or women were assassinated in Sand Creek. You might expect me to teel you not to read this book, but on the contrary I will advise you to buy it and read it, to offer it to your family and friends and ask them to read it, because we all have in our hearts that angel that alaways let us know what is a lie and what is true, what is wrong and what is right. After all the suffering they endured, the Cheyenne American did not deserve to have to be the witnesses of such an aberrant book.

Blood at Sand Creek by Bob Scott tells the story of the Sand Creek Massacre (and the events leading up to and following it)through a non-politically correct viewpoint. The author doesn't try to portray the Plains Indians (Cheyennes in particular)as savages or "noble red men." He also doesn't absolve whites of guilt in the Indian Wars. In fact, neither side comes off very positively. Instead, Mr.Scott gives a balanced view through both Indian and white accounts, which are frequently quite different. His goal is to perhaps clear John Chivington of some of the enormous blame that has been laid on his shoulders. Scott acknowledges that the Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, and other Plains Indians were indeed hostile and committed numerous and terrible acts of torture, murder, rape, and theft and the fact that the U.S. Army could be quite brutal when dealing with the Indians. He supports his view that Black Kettle and his Cheyenne were indeed at least somewhat hostile and that Chivington was not the psychotic murderer that he is believed to be The author uses considerable evidence, with numerous accounts from both sides. Much of the incriminating evidence against Chivington is indeed questionable. (i.e. Jim Beckwourth was actually a murderer, horse thief, and prolific liar-not the hero he is made out to be.)It is true that there are numerous accounts of babies being butchered, genitalia taken as souviners, etc. However, none of these are documented in a manner that is historically acceptable. Unfortunately for revisionist "historians", as appealing as these stories may seem, historical sources need to be documented in a detailed manner. Oral history may sound good and can certainly be accurate, but it must be used carefully. Mr. Scott realizes that these accounts can be misleading or false. All in all, Scott's thesis is convincing and tears away the politically-correct nonsense about helpless women and children being slaughtered at Sand Creek. However, it will never be a popular idea. The history found in modern textbooks is very politically correct. The winners don't always write the history. The idea of Indians as killers and rapists is distasteful to modern readers and historians. The Indians Wars were a very complex series of cultural conflicts-the primitive nomads vs. the modern might of the whites. There were no bad guys or good guys, just two very different cultures colliding in violent wars where there could only be one winner. Mr. Scott is able to present a balanced account with no bad guys-there will always be plenty of misdeeds and glory for both sides.