Ramona’s Reviews > The Canyon of Bones > Status Update

The ending was not what I expected. A surprise. I will look for other books from this series.

The small band comprising of two Native American women, Skye's wives, Mercer, and his two men survive the prairie fire, losing everything but their horses, who are badly burned. No food, water, shelter, clothing, or weapons to protect themselves against other Indians, etc. they must decide which way to go, in order to survive. They find an area unburned, with water and Skye takes down a bull and calf for food.

Mercer ignores the Native American death and Totem superstitions. He takes a young warriors' Turtle Totem, finding him and 3 others, slain by a rival tribe. A devastating prairie fire ensues, running them down, leaving them barely alive, in a river, with no food, water, shelter, or weapons. How will Skye get them safely to the fossil bed and back to safety?

The main characters are Barnaby Skye, a deserter from the Royal Navy, and a legendary mountain man who marries Many Quill Woman, a Crow Native American woman. In this book from the series, "Skye's West", Skye guides a wealthy Englishman, Grave Duplessis Mercer, (and his two companions) a "sensationalist" journalist, sending his stories back to Europe. The story takes place around the Missouri River and Yellowstone.

I found this in a box of my paperbacks, in storage for 7 years. Bought at The Rowan Public Library book sale around 2012. I don't know the author or the series. The cover intrigued me, a picture of a huge dinosaur skeleton in rock, with two men studying it. I didn't know it was a western. So, looking for something different to read I started it. Thankfully, it is not really awful, but not my usual read.