White Bear's Son: A Family's Courage Beyond the Frontier

Sent from his Cheyenne family, the ten-year-old is forced onto an "iron horse," his sacred braids cut, and a new name pressed upon him-Gabriel. He does not fear the white man himself, but he fears the soldiers who brought sorrow to his people... the men who killed his father and grandfather.

Now he is sent to a mother he barely remembers and a towering stepfather he secretly calls White Bear.

This new world is its own kind of battlefield.

Gabriel must learn a foreign language, wear confining clothes, and follow rules that ask him to forget who he is. Though his new family offers quiet acceptance, the world beyond their home pushes him to become someone else entirely.

But Gabriel is a warrior.

When a moment of cruelty forces him to act, he responds in the only way he knows-with a sacred act of resistance his people call counting coup. In doing so, he claims a strength deeper than fear... yet quickly learns that what his people call courage, others see as defiance.

Caught between two worlds, Gabriel must decide:

Can he live within this new family and still hold onto the spirit of who he has always been?