Desert Hawk Books

 

The Lost Band
A Novel

Don Coldsmith

 

272 pages
5.5" x 8.5"
Hardcover

Quantity:  $21.95 & S/H   

 

A continuation of Don Coldsmith's Spanish Bit series, The Lost Band traces the sage of the People, a fictional nation of American Plains Indians in the late eighteenth century. Annually the People celebrate the Sun Dance, and each year the Council circle leaves an empty place of honor for the Lost Band, whose members disappeared and are presumed killed in a genocidal raid in the Great Plains two hundred years earlier. This group is the Lost Band, their fate an ongoing mystery in the history of the People.
     In The Lost Band, Story Keeper, chief of the Forest Band, unravels the puzzle when he makes a sudden and dramatic appearance. To claim the empty place at the Council table, Story Keeper must recount the fate of the Lost Band. The story begins as White Moon and her adopted child are gradually embraced by a childless couple whose people have abducted the last of the Band. At the same time, White Moon's friend Turkey Hen becomes the Second Wife of her captor. Turkey Hen enjoys her status and is willing to sacrifice her heritage for security. White Moon, however, is determined to return the Lost Band to their seat in the Council circle. She secretly struggles to keep the traditions of the Forest Band alive.

"The Lost Band is a mystery novel, a moving depiction of an essential human drive, and a sensitive picture of everyday Native American life, Somehow Coldsmith managed to avoid the real pitfall of such novels-namely the sentimentalization of Native Americans."-David Leeming, coauthor of The Mythology of Native North America 

Don Coldsmith is an award-winning author of twenty-eight books in the Spanish Bit series, including Medicine Hat.