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Skye's West #17
North Star
There is a season for all things. . .
For Barnaby Skye, legendary guide and man of the borders, it is time to start a new life. For Skye's younger wife, the beautiful Shoshone woman he calls Mary, it is time to find the beloved son she has not seen in seven years. For Skye's half-blood son, North Star, it is time to discover who he is. And for Skye's older Crow wife, Victoria, the whole world is spinning out of control.
In this sweeping novel of the early West, Skye and his wives and son cope with radical change as the wilderness vanishes, the buffalo are slaughtered, and the government puts the tribes on reservation lands. How can people born and bred to tribal life learn to live another way?
Their struggle takes the Skyes from the Crazy Mountains in Montana to St. Louis and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, wrestling with the tide of settlers and the new settlements that dot the western plains and mountains - a tide that leaves no good place for a veteran borders man with two Indian wives and a mixed-blood son.
- GenresWesterns
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
About the author
Richard S. Wheeler
124 books66 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
There are other authors with this name. One writes Marine Corps history. Another, Civil War history. Another writes in the political sciences.
Richard S. (Shaw) Wheeler was born in Milwaukee in 1935 and grew up in nearby Wauwatosa.
There are other authors with this name. One writes Marine Corps history. Another, Civil War history. Another writes in the political sciences.
Richard S. (Shaw) Wheeler was born in Milwaukee in 1935 and grew up in nearby Wauwatosa.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 30, 2020
This book resonated with me more than it might have had I read it at some other time and place in life. I’m fascinated by how important timing is when we read things. A masterpiece read at the wrong time in life can fall flat, while a run-of-the-mill book can really stand out, and timing is a key factor.
As this book opens, Barnaby Skye, the former Brit turned mountain man, is exquisitely feeling his mortality. Places hurt that didn’t used to hurt. Where once he would have thought nothing of sleeping on the ground endlessly throughout a winter, now he mourns the pain of his situation and realizes that he needs a white man’s house—something that keeps the beds off the ground—something that provides warmth. I’ve come to understand those changes in recent years. I hear stories from colleagues where I work in which they express rage at students who refuse to mask up outdoors. And while I respect their concern, I wonder whether we might extend at least a hand of understanding to these young people. Being somewhere between 18 and 24 offers a six-year window of immortality and invincibility that none of us escaped entirely. We all did the equivalent of forgetting to mask up, and we lived, and we gained cherished memories from that six-year window of invincibility. Quite truthfully, I envy those young people inside that six-year window in some ways. They never have to worry about typing a paragraph or two only to stop to flex arthritic hands that selfishly scream for attention. During my time in the window, I once thought nothing of pouring 120 volts into a nine-volt circuit to see how spectacularly it would melt or blow up. I tossed cans of hair spray into campfires then ran like hell, but never so far away that I couldn’t hear the spectacular sound of the can reacting to that heat. I could go on and on, but you get the point. You perhaps will misinterpret the above as me condoning stupid or risky behavior. I don’t. But I remember when I thought nothing of engaging in my version of it, and I at least have some empathy for that person in that six-year window of invincibility. And eventually, all that dramatically changes.
Today, I look at the 13 stair steps between my lower and upper floors in my house, and I wonder whether I can manufacture multiple reasons to climb those stairs, since one reason hardly seems enough. I would have taken them two at a time on the run during my years inside the invincibility window. All this personal gunk to point out that Barnaby Skye resonated with me hard-core. There comes a time when the laws of physics converge with the laws of mortality to create life changes within us all, and there comes a time when we arrive at that fateful intersection of the laws of physics and the laws of mortality, and we individually determine how we will cross that intersection. We will clearly not move through it unscathed, but we can move through it with independence and dignity intact most of the time.
Skye determines he will leave his two Indian wives in search of a piece of land on which he can build a white man’s house. But a wild ox takes umbrage at Skye’s presence near it, and it attacks him, breaking his leg, adding to his arthritic stiffness and age-related pain. He is only 65, but mountain life off the grid and without today’s conveniences ages one quickly. Some teamsters rescue him, and someone badly sets his leg—a leg that will never again work right. His Indian wives determine to look for him, but the younger one suffers from what we would know today as clinical depression. The older of the two wives, Victoria, a fowl-mouthed but charming Crow woman, insists that Mary, the younger Shoshone wife, take her leave from the other two and return to her home and people. But Mary has other ideas. She seeks reunion with the son Skye sent away eight years earlier. When the boy was eight, Skye determined that he needed a white man’s education. So, when the opportunity availed itself, Skye sent the boy to St. Louis to learn from the Jesuits who owned a school for full- and half-breed Indian kids. Mary realizes that the aging triumvirate needs assistance from the young man who went east to learn the white man’s way.
This, then, is the story of how Skye and his two wives alternatively deal with aging and the limitations it imposed on them. Not unlike our day, the world of mountain men and their Indian wives was rapidly changing in the 1870s, largely due to circumstances bigger than the participants.
You’ll read with interest about Mary’s lonely and dangerous trek from Montana to St. Louis and her reunion with her son. You’ll read about Skye’s first wife, Victoria, and her determination to find him and reunite with him even if under less-than optimal conditions. And you’ll read about Skye and the changes he experiences. You’ll see how fluid lines become that were once immovable. You’ll ponder the impact of aging and wonder what your reaction would be to the circumstances in which Barnaby Skye finds himself.
I’ve always enjoyed Wheeler’s writing. He rarely portrays cardboard cutout characters. They and the society they inhabit are complex people with much to learn and think through. And because he thoughtfully creates them, you will thoughtfully read these books and be better for the experience.
As this book opens, Barnaby Skye, the former Brit turned mountain man, is exquisitely feeling his mortality. Places hurt that didn’t used to hurt. Where once he would have thought nothing of sleeping on the ground endlessly throughout a winter, now he mourns the pain of his situation and realizes that he needs a white man’s house—something that keeps the beds off the ground—something that provides warmth. I’ve come to understand those changes in recent years. I hear stories from colleagues where I work in which they express rage at students who refuse to mask up outdoors. And while I respect their concern, I wonder whether we might extend at least a hand of understanding to these young people. Being somewhere between 18 and 24 offers a six-year window of immortality and invincibility that none of us escaped entirely. We all did the equivalent of forgetting to mask up, and we lived, and we gained cherished memories from that six-year window of invincibility. Quite truthfully, I envy those young people inside that six-year window in some ways. They never have to worry about typing a paragraph or two only to stop to flex arthritic hands that selfishly scream for attention. During my time in the window, I once thought nothing of pouring 120 volts into a nine-volt circuit to see how spectacularly it would melt or blow up. I tossed cans of hair spray into campfires then ran like hell, but never so far away that I couldn’t hear the spectacular sound of the can reacting to that heat. I could go on and on, but you get the point. You perhaps will misinterpret the above as me condoning stupid or risky behavior. I don’t. But I remember when I thought nothing of engaging in my version of it, and I at least have some empathy for that person in that six-year window of invincibility. And eventually, all that dramatically changes.
Today, I look at the 13 stair steps between my lower and upper floors in my house, and I wonder whether I can manufacture multiple reasons to climb those stairs, since one reason hardly seems enough. I would have taken them two at a time on the run during my years inside the invincibility window. All this personal gunk to point out that Barnaby Skye resonated with me hard-core. There comes a time when the laws of physics converge with the laws of mortality to create life changes within us all, and there comes a time when we arrive at that fateful intersection of the laws of physics and the laws of mortality, and we individually determine how we will cross that intersection. We will clearly not move through it unscathed, but we can move through it with independence and dignity intact most of the time.
Skye determines he will leave his two Indian wives in search of a piece of land on which he can build a white man’s house. But a wild ox takes umbrage at Skye’s presence near it, and it attacks him, breaking his leg, adding to his arthritic stiffness and age-related pain. He is only 65, but mountain life off the grid and without today’s conveniences ages one quickly. Some teamsters rescue him, and someone badly sets his leg—a leg that will never again work right. His Indian wives determine to look for him, but the younger one suffers from what we would know today as clinical depression. The older of the two wives, Victoria, a fowl-mouthed but charming Crow woman, insists that Mary, the younger Shoshone wife, take her leave from the other two and return to her home and people. But Mary has other ideas. She seeks reunion with the son Skye sent away eight years earlier. When the boy was eight, Skye determined that he needed a white man’s education. So, when the opportunity availed itself, Skye sent the boy to St. Louis to learn from the Jesuits who owned a school for full- and half-breed Indian kids. Mary realizes that the aging triumvirate needs assistance from the young man who went east to learn the white man’s way.
This, then, is the story of how Skye and his two wives alternatively deal with aging and the limitations it imposed on them. Not unlike our day, the world of mountain men and their Indian wives was rapidly changing in the 1870s, largely due to circumstances bigger than the participants.
You’ll read with interest about Mary’s lonely and dangerous trek from Montana to St. Louis and her reunion with her son. You’ll read about Skye’s first wife, Victoria, and her determination to find him and reunite with him even if under less-than optimal conditions. And you’ll read about Skye and the changes he experiences. You’ll see how fluid lines become that were once immovable. You’ll ponder the impact of aging and wonder what your reaction would be to the circumstances in which Barnaby Skye finds himself.
I’ve always enjoyed Wheeler’s writing. He rarely portrays cardboard cutout characters. They and the society they inhabit are complex people with much to learn and think through. And because he thoughtfully creates them, you will thoughtfully read these books and be better for the experience.
August 28, 2017
Excellent
November 13, 2018
One of the best westerns I've read in a while. Yeah, came with a bit of history.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews