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Fighting Caravans
Twenty-eight wagons packed with families, supplies, and tough-as-nails Texans circle up and fight for their lives against relentless hostile Indian attacks in this action-packed adventure from "the greatest novelist of the American West." Over 30 million Zane Gray paperbacks sold since 1954.
361 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
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193 people want to read
About the author
Zane Grey
2,112 books594 followersPearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
March 3, 2014
While there is a great deal of fighting in this book--between the caravan trains and the Native American tribes--it is not a spaghetti western, nor does it really reach a high level of violence. Which isn't bad, except that our society today seems to expect a sort of brutality and viciousness. There is that in this book, except it violates all current PC rules and shows just how violent both the settlers and the Natives could be... and it is upon this dynamic between Comanche, Kiowa, Pawnee, which I would like to focus.
Why?
The West was Hell. Settling this land was no simple feat, even if one views it through the glass of "modern" understanding which paints the white man as the evil villain, raping the land of its resources and people. That happened, surely, there is no doubt. Then there is the view of some settlers at the time (which Grey expertly details), that the tribes were all savages and hell-bent on killing the poor settlers. Both extremes is disingenuous to reality, but both also have sparks of truth within them.
So, to get back to the book: I thought Grey did well at painting a picture that was not too clouded by any one way of thinking about history; that captured humanity as it was, and painted a picture of the harsh reality of the West. Again, I read Zane Grey as a master of telling the human condition of the Wild West, and not necessarily the Hollywood shoot-'em-up style of western. Not all villains are evil, and not all good guys sport halos.
Great book. It ain't Riders of the Purple Sage, but it's still good.
Why?
The West was Hell. Settling this land was no simple feat, even if one views it through the glass of "modern" understanding which paints the white man as the evil villain, raping the land of its resources and people. That happened, surely, there is no doubt. Then there is the view of some settlers at the time (which Grey expertly details), that the tribes were all savages and hell-bent on killing the poor settlers. Both extremes is disingenuous to reality, but both also have sparks of truth within them.
So, to get back to the book: I thought Grey did well at painting a picture that was not too clouded by any one way of thinking about history; that captured humanity as it was, and painted a picture of the harsh reality of the West. Again, I read Zane Grey as a master of telling the human condition of the Wild West, and not necessarily the Hollywood shoot-'em-up style of western. Not all villains are evil, and not all good guys sport halos.
Great book. It ain't Riders of the Purple Sage, but it's still good.
February 3, 2026
12-year old Clint Belmet, along with his ma and pa, set out from Independence, Missouri in 1856 as part of a wagon train heading west and he makes friends with a young girl named May Bell. What starts as a pretty standard old-fashioned coming-of-age and pioneer learning tale quickly turns into an illuminating, gripping, entertaining, and heartwarming adventure epic. Clint's gains and losses while he makes his way along the frontier, his growing reputation as a capable buffalo hunter and scout, his separation from May while finding his way, and his relatable descent into solitude and difficulties with social settings; just a well-sequenced read.
"Fighting Caravans" (1928) was a surprise for me. I've read ten other Zane Grey novels and this might be my new favorite among them. It isn't as poetically striking or immersive as "Riders of the Purple Sage," but otherwise, it is top notch. It keeps a reader's focus, for one, with some of Grey's other work having trouble keeping one vested. "Fighting Caravans" prose and pacing lend to a smooth but tense and descriptive read. The romantic narratives are a bit over-the-top at times, but where other Grey novels love stories feel unearned or inauthentic when compared to the western environment he's illustrating, this story's central love interest is actually fun to read and interesting, without his usual free use of romantic emoting and dialogue that are awkward in those other reads.
As Clint makes his way through a wild west in that period before, during and just after the Civil War, we see the untamed buffalo- and Indians-heavy plains and the simultaneous fear and respect he has for them, with a lot of fighting Indians and bandits, all just a backdrop for the troubles everyone has simply growing up, surviving, righting wrongs, finding purpose, and finding good people to share life with.
If there's one nitpick from this reader it would be that the action and "fighting caravans" sequences get a little wacky. Our hero is shot and stabbed many times over the course of this novel and is personally responsible for hundreds (thousands?) of Indian deaths. Not a read-killer by any means but it does tax our believability score a bit, which is a problem in an historical fiction-style read.
Verdict: "Fighting Caravans" employs a good mix of determination, fright, love, struggle, gunplay, and purpose via this classic protagonist Buff Belmet in a fun and interesting read. Also appropriate and entertaining for younger readers interested in historical fiction because of its frequent use of historical events and characters like Kit Carson.
Jeff's Rating: 4 / 5 (Very Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG
"Fighting Caravans" (1928) was a surprise for me. I've read ten other Zane Grey novels and this might be my new favorite among them. It isn't as poetically striking or immersive as "Riders of the Purple Sage," but otherwise, it is top notch. It keeps a reader's focus, for one, with some of Grey's other work having trouble keeping one vested. "Fighting Caravans" prose and pacing lend to a smooth but tense and descriptive read. The romantic narratives are a bit over-the-top at times, but where other Grey novels love stories feel unearned or inauthentic when compared to the western environment he's illustrating, this story's central love interest is actually fun to read and interesting, without his usual free use of romantic emoting and dialogue that are awkward in those other reads.
As Clint makes his way through a wild west in that period before, during and just after the Civil War, we see the untamed buffalo- and Indians-heavy plains and the simultaneous fear and respect he has for them, with a lot of fighting Indians and bandits, all just a backdrop for the troubles everyone has simply growing up, surviving, righting wrongs, finding purpose, and finding good people to share life with.
If there's one nitpick from this reader it would be that the action and "fighting caravans" sequences get a little wacky. Our hero is shot and stabbed many times over the course of this novel and is personally responsible for hundreds (thousands?) of Indian deaths. Not a read-killer by any means but it does tax our believability score a bit, which is a problem in an historical fiction-style read.
Verdict: "Fighting Caravans" employs a good mix of determination, fright, love, struggle, gunplay, and purpose via this classic protagonist Buff Belmet in a fun and interesting read. Also appropriate and entertaining for younger readers interested in historical fiction because of its frequent use of historical events and characters like Kit Carson.
Jeff's Rating: 4 / 5 (Very Good)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG
October 10, 2019
Good. another romance story.
August 4, 2023
Nothing is Like a First True Love
Yes they were kids when they met, but young people of that time were much more mature. A ten to thirteen year old then is or was equivalent to a twenty year old today, in some cases not same then as now. Boys were rough to be men at very young ages and were taught to keep their word as a solid contract. These were the type of men that the saying was made of "A Man's Word is His Bond" a handshake was as good as a written contract. Society today has been taught to steal, cheat, backstab, lie, or anything else they can do to get ahead and defraud the other guy. It's a sad state when morals and deeds of men were more upright two hundred years ago than today when we are supposedly much further advanced.
Excellent book for today and yesterday.
Yes they were kids when they met, but young people of that time were much more mature. A ten to thirteen year old then is or was equivalent to a twenty year old today, in some cases not same then as now. Boys were rough to be men at very young ages and were taught to keep their word as a solid contract. These were the type of men that the saying was made of "A Man's Word is His Bond" a handshake was as good as a written contract. Society today has been taught to steal, cheat, backstab, lie, or anything else they can do to get ahead and defraud the other guy. It's a sad state when morals and deeds of men were more upright two hundred years ago than today when we are supposedly much further advanced.
Excellent book for today and yesterday.
October 7, 2020
What a great story. So well written. I really enjoyed every bit of this book. You can imagine that live was really like this for those pioneers. Sorry that the end as so quickly and without much to go on with. I wonder what happen after they did finally met up.
Look forward reading more of Zane Grey's books.
Look forward reading more of Zane Grey's books.
August 20, 2023
Excellent!
Loved this story! It was a real education as to how the west was really won and what the cowboys and settlers had to deal with. Also, it was quite revealing to learn about the Indians and what drove them to become the fierce and valiant fighters that many of them were. I highly recommend this book to all those interested in American history.
Loved this story! It was a real education as to how the west was really won and what the cowboys and settlers had to deal with. Also, it was quite revealing to learn about the Indians and what drove them to become the fierce and valiant fighters that many of them were. I highly recommend this book to all those interested in American history.
December 24, 2017
Clint Belmer lost his parents in a Indian raid when he was young. Now he makes his living guiding caravans past Indian country. His biggest fight will not be with his enemy but with the man trying to steal his girl.
October 28, 2020
Although this is a fictional story, it is an interesting look into the expansion westward by the Americans into Indian territory. The caravans referred to in this story are primarily freight hauling wagons bring supplies to western trading posts and forts during the 1850s and 1860s. For safety in numbers reasons, a few migrants aiming to settle in the west latch onto these caravans. Once the caravans have delivered their supplies to the New Mexico area, they acquire furs from trappers and Indians to haul back to Missouri. It starts as a commerce arrangement that benefits both sides. However, as the caravans grow in size and more and more migrants move west, many Indians become disenchanted with this western expansion. The danger from hostile Indian attacks increase, yet the teamsters who haul the freight see it as a opportunity for their own economic benefit. It is a well written story that features plenty of violence, tension and suspense as well as a love story between a man who hauls freight and a woman migrant. The vast distances that come between them leads communication delays, loneliness and misunderstanding, all of which complicate their relationship. Their story plays out with the westward expansion as the backdrop.
December 31, 2024
Caravanas de héroes
Pues otra del oeste para finalizar el año.
El que crea que todas las del oeste son iguales está muy equivocado si se trata de Zane Grey.
Este hombre elegía un tema diferente para cada novela. Es este caso toca el tema de los conductores de caravanas, un oficio que a mediados del siglo diecinueve tenía mucho trabajo ya sea transportando mercancías o personas. Y un oficio tremendamente peligroso en la época de las guerras indias y también por los ladrones que acechaban las caravanas.
Como siempre en este tipo de novelas nos podemos encontrar con algunas incoherencias en el devenir de la trama y ciertas conversaciones un tanto sorprendentes cuando no ridículas. Pero bueno, se le deja pasar porque nos hace pasar un buen rato esta lectura ligera.
Pues otra del oeste para finalizar el año.
El que crea que todas las del oeste son iguales está muy equivocado si se trata de Zane Grey.
Este hombre elegía un tema diferente para cada novela. Es este caso toca el tema de los conductores de caravanas, un oficio que a mediados del siglo diecinueve tenía mucho trabajo ya sea transportando mercancías o personas. Y un oficio tremendamente peligroso en la época de las guerras indias y también por los ladrones que acechaban las caravanas.
Como siempre en este tipo de novelas nos podemos encontrar con algunas incoherencias en el devenir de la trama y ciertas conversaciones un tanto sorprendentes cuando no ridículas. Pero bueno, se le deja pasar porque nos hace pasar un buen rato esta lectura ligera.
July 30, 2020
An exciting prairie adventure, the old untamed West and a friendship
Turned into a love story, with many brushes with cruel Indians and vagabonds fleeing the war. In the end boy finds girl though many narrow and exciting escapades.
Turned into a love story, with many brushes with cruel Indians and vagabonds fleeing the war. In the end boy finds girl though many narrow and exciting escapades.
September 16, 2020
As someone who last read a Zane Grey book some 75 years ago, it's was a sheer pleasure to relive some of the trials and tribulations of the early settlers of our great nation. His descriptive words put you in the moment and let's you experience the events as they happen.
September 14, 2020
I loved it
Spectacular narrative. I feel myself there in the frontier together with the brave male and female that has the courage Togo to the unknown.
Spectacular narrative. I feel myself there in the frontier together with the brave male and female that has the courage Togo to the unknown.
September 20, 2020
Riveting
As only Zane Gray can write. His ability to describe the environment of his novels is superb and enthralling.
Thank you
As only Zane Gray can write. His ability to describe the environment of his novels is superb and enthralling.
Thank you
August 5, 2023
Zane Grey rocks
I have read many of his books. This one is equal to any of them. I have read ones from my childhood more than once.
I have read many of his books. This one is equal to any of them. I have read ones from my childhood more than once.
February 12, 2026
A little too much romance for me but the overall story was good and the fighting was great
September 26, 2020
Audible Audiobook
February 27, 2016
A marvelous book, that I enjoyed very much. My first Zane Grey. My dad read mostly westerns, and he had the Zane Grey library published by Walter J. Black in the mid 50's, which I inherited and just recently started dipping into.
Zane Grey is an early western writer, and a popular one, so many tropes that originated with him have become cliche, which becomes a disservice to his work if one doesn't read it with a sense of context as well. His characters are also very much a product of his time, the 20's and 30's versus the late 1800's in which the stories are taking place for the most part. His writing is simple and direct, very rarely poetic, in contrast to writes like Max Brand. But that Zane Grey cares about his subject matter is evident, and I found that this book in particular drew me in and became for me one of the most enjoyable books I have read over the last year or so. The last book I read of any genre that I enjoyed as much as this was Little Big Man, which has some surface similarity with this book, though a much different tone.
Fighting Caravans follows the life of Clint "Buff" Belmet from boy to man, the majority of his life taking place with the social milieu of the freight caravans which moved goods and people across the dangerous plains of the western frontier. Clint loses his mother to a native attack on his first caravan, and his growth and outlook is shaped by that traumatic event, and though it hardens him and forms his early outlook, Clint grows through the course of the novel and ends with a much more balanced outlook. The novel is picaresque and episodic, with the main backbone of plot consisting of a romance with a girl that starts when they are children, and progresses more or less how one would expect in a story like this, but I found the book to be more of a reflection on the growth of Clint, and the changes in the nation as a whole seen through Clint's eyes. In that respect it is very much like Little Big Man, though that book has a much more comedic outlook than this one. We meet many historical characters important on the western frontier, and see them through Clint's eyes. Men like Kit Carson, Custer, etc.
Overall, I found this book very enjoyable. Zane Grey definitely deserves his place in the history of the western novel, and I will be reading more of his work.
Zane Grey is an early western writer, and a popular one, so many tropes that originated with him have become cliche, which becomes a disservice to his work if one doesn't read it with a sense of context as well. His characters are also very much a product of his time, the 20's and 30's versus the late 1800's in which the stories are taking place for the most part. His writing is simple and direct, very rarely poetic, in contrast to writes like Max Brand. But that Zane Grey cares about his subject matter is evident, and I found that this book in particular drew me in and became for me one of the most enjoyable books I have read over the last year or so. The last book I read of any genre that I enjoyed as much as this was Little Big Man, which has some surface similarity with this book, though a much different tone.
Fighting Caravans follows the life of Clint "Buff" Belmet from boy to man, the majority of his life taking place with the social milieu of the freight caravans which moved goods and people across the dangerous plains of the western frontier. Clint loses his mother to a native attack on his first caravan, and his growth and outlook is shaped by that traumatic event, and though it hardens him and forms his early outlook, Clint grows through the course of the novel and ends with a much more balanced outlook. The novel is picaresque and episodic, with the main backbone of plot consisting of a romance with a girl that starts when they are children, and progresses more or less how one would expect in a story like this, but I found the book to be more of a reflection on the growth of Clint, and the changes in the nation as a whole seen through Clint's eyes. In that respect it is very much like Little Big Man, though that book has a much more comedic outlook than this one. We meet many historical characters important on the western frontier, and see them through Clint's eyes. Men like Kit Carson, Custer, etc.
Overall, I found this book very enjoyable. Zane Grey definitely deserves his place in the history of the western novel, and I will be reading more of his work.
February 14, 2010
I love westerns. I love the cliche stories of strong men and women fighting for their lives in the West. From childhood I have adored Louis L'Amour and I once read a Zane Grey that I really disliked. I decided to give him one last chance and remembered why I didn't like his writing. His women are all weak and fawn over the men. The men are too stereotypical. Even though some of the fight scenes were ok, I just didn't get the feeling of the Old West that I love to read about in other, better, western writers.
December 9, 2016
I think Zane Grey is my favorite author of westerns. He has a large body of excellent writing and mostly involve cowboys of the old west, while also inserting a bit of romance. This story tells of the large caravans that carried goods of all kinds from one place to another and the hardships involved, including fighting off indians and outlaws. It is also the story of two very young people (10 & 12) who traveled by caravan with their parents. Their parents were killed, they were separated, and grew up looking for each other on the trails. It has a happy ending.
September 24, 2022
The description was very well done. It slowed down the narrative at the right time when the reader needed a break from the actual storyline. It had plenty of action scenes. The conversation was believable. There were moments that tugged at your heart strings. Lots of action. Examples of trustworthy people and scoundrels alike. All in a setting of the west before, during and after the civil war.
March 30, 2016
How many years since I read a western? Wow! It's a love story that barely surfaces above all the bloody adventures of massive caravans crossing the prairies in the mid 1800's, fighting Sioux, Comanches, Kiowa and Paiute tribes. The civil war rages but the caravans keep moving.
March 24, 2016
Great book
Great book, seems historically accurate. One of the best old west books I have ever read it gets to be just a little of a love story at one point though. Otherwise great book.
Great book, seems historically accurate. One of the best old west books I have ever read it gets to be just a little of a love story at one point though. Otherwise great book.
July 23, 2009
There was a lot of 'fighting' in this book, well what did I expect with the title eh? Kind of over the top I thought. The west made people crazy! Maybe that is why I love the whiskey.
May 13, 2018
2 ½ - 3 stars
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October 30, 2009Southwest
August 8, 2011
Any Zane grey is worth reading twice!
December 1, 2011
Until I read Louis L'Amour, Zane Grey was my favorite western author. This book was good, but not one of his best.
February 16, 2016
Quite a yarn. Grey had a real talent for story telling. Took a long time to cover all the history involved but well worth the time it needed.
April 30, 2016
Great story, I have always loved Zane Gray
I have read westerns by Zane Gray since my father introduced me them as a young boy. I find them all good.
I have read westerns by Zane Gray since my father introduced me them as a young boy. I find them all good.
May 17, 2013
never disappointed with zane grey, this was not great but very good.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews