Scout

The Scout" continues the magnificent story that began the highly acclaimed novel "Brules." In his stunning new novel, Harry Combs recreates a time whenthe West was the white man's greatest challenge and the red man's lastbattleground... a towering tale of dreams unfettered, of mustangs running free, and of young men riding hell-bent-for-leather into Indian country for no otherreason than they were young, brave and wild.

By 1900 the Old West was vanishing, but the man many called its fastest gun wasstill alive. By then Car Brules had shut himself and his secrets away in acabin on Colorado's Lone Cone Peak. Only one person knew his real story, a boyof eleven who became his friend and heard his extraordinary tales in 1909. TheScout is that unforgettable story, just as young Steven Cartwright heard it, just as Brules told it: hard and gritty, wry with a cowboy's humor, and true tothe spirits of all those who loved the west--and died for it--from Custer toCrazy Horse.

Many hard, hurting things had driven Cat Brules to become the man he was. Thedeath of his beloved Shoshone bride, Wild Rose, was one of them. Months afterBrules lost her--brutally and far too soon--Wild Rose still came to him in hisdreams. With a void in his heart and a reckless spirit, Brules signed on as aScout for General George Crook, whose cavalry was headed into the Badlands.Then, the U.S. Army still didn't know that there were fifteen thousand Siouxand Cheyenne in those Wyoming foothills, and under chiefs Sitting Bull andCrazy Horse, every one of them was willing to fight to the death to livefree.

Brules's account of the violence that ensued, told with eyewitness immediacyand chilling authenticity, is one ofcourage and shame as he rides the trailtoward the Little Big Horn and the battles that followed. Seeing for himselfthe dying of a way of life, Brules tells a searing truth about America'shistory: the betrayal of Custer to the Sioux, the hunting of Geronimo, and theU.S. Army's cruel pursuit of Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce. And here too arethe women who loved Brules: White Antelope, the gentle Indian maiden who wantedwhat Brules felt he could never give again--and Melisande, the saucy Mormongirl who might be too much for even Cat Brules to handle.

Debunking the myths of the Old West and the romanticism of movies, renownedWestern writer Harry Combs creates a vision at once more complex, magnificentand genuine--from the make of the rifle to the caliber of the bullet that cutCuster down. A novel unmatched in excitement and adventure, The Scout lets yousmell the cordite, feel a man's hard need for a woman, and discover that thereal flesh and blood inhabitants of those legendary days were tougher, bolderand more fascinating than we ever dared to imagine.