A Long and Winding Road (The Rendezvous Series) (Volume 5)

Sam Morgan?s search for captive girls takes him deep into Navajo, Ute, and Blackfeet Indian territory, on to Bent?s Fort in Colorado, near death at the hands of a companion, and finally to a surprise that involves the missing girls and a trapper called Pegleg Smith.

A decade has passed since Sam Morgan of Pennsylvania ran away from disappointments at home and joined the rough-and-tumble life of a mountain man in the Far West. In those ten years, Sam has made his mark as a trapper, fighter, and survivor.

Sam has also endured tragedy: An explorative venture into California, five years past, ended when his Crow Indian wife, Meadowlark, died in childbirth. And now his lover, the widow Paloma Luna, owner of a wealthy rancho in Taos, is dying of cancer and setting out for Mexico City to pray at the shrine of the Virgin de Guadalupe.

Distraught, Sam finds a mission for himself when he determines to find and rescue two Mexican girls, Lupe and Rosalita, who have been kidnapped from their village by Navajo raiders and spirited off into the New Mexico wilderness.

?Blevins possesses a rare skill in masterfully telling a story-to-paper. He is a true storyteller in the tradition of Native people.??Lee Francis, Prof. of Native American Studies, University of New Mexico.

Blevins?s fifth in the Rendezvous series to feature mountain man Sam Morgan, picks up in 1828 as Sam and his trapper friends are whooping it up at a Mexican double wedding in Santa Fe. Shortly after the ceremony, the two brides are kidnapped by Navajo raiders, which enrages Sam because the women are his adopted daughters. A whopper of a yarn, and Blevins knows his material!??Publisher?s Weekly

?What a ride! This book will be a revelation for many readers. First, it takes place in a world of Indian-Mexican slavery in the Southwestern states before it was American. Fascinating adventures through many cultures not usually covered in books about the west.? ? Tony Hillerman