Pelt of the Red Fox: A Novel of the West

Outcast by the Natives who raised her and abused in the world of the Whiteman, Two Blankets struggles to make her own way.

Kidnapped by the Chinook on the great Columbia River in the 1850s, a young Nez Perce girl has finally earned a place in the tribe's society, as well as a name-Two Blankets. After the Chinook are forcibly removed to a reservation, though, Two Blankets faces a new struggle: finding a place for herself in the rough and rowdy, all-white community that has replaced them at Johnton's Landing. Acceptance is relatively simple. Keeping herself in the good graces of her husband, the Landing's headman, Marshall Johnston? That is a different matter entirely.

To help ease her loneliness and solidify her position with her infertile husband, Two Blankets follows her former tribe and becomes pregnant by her one-time lover, the Chinook warrior Standing Bear. She must convince the suspicious and narcissistic Johnston that the child is his, and then maintain that belief at all costs. It's no easy task, but Two Blankets is no ordinary girl. Using her courage and intelligence-and a little help from her spirit animals, Gray Wolf and White Mouse-she becomes a force to be reckoned with, both on the Landing and beyond.

Well-written and exhaustively researched, R.L. Adare's final entry in the Two Blankets Trilogy is a gritty and personal portrayal of life on the Western frontier that will keep you turning pages until the very end.