First Line: Crazy Horse struggled to sort among the flood of sensations, to push away the confusion and the fear, to keep his focus on what he and the other decoys must do.
The clash of cultures in the Powder River Valley of Wyoming was inevitable, but one side would never have believed the outcome. With the American Civil War barely over, Colonel Henry Carrington and his troops are sent right into the heart of sacred Lakota hunting grounds to build a fort that will defend a new road for settlers and gold miners. They are watched closely by Red Cloud, one of the most respected Lakota chiefs, and by visionary warrior Crazy Horse. The two men know both the implications of this invasion and how high the stakes are. Their homes, their culture, and their very lives hang in the balance.
As autumn slowly turns to winter, Crazy Horse and his band of warriors constantly harass the soldiers building the fort while Red Cloud works to form the alliances between tribes that he knows are crucial for ultimate success. Meanwhile, Colonel Carrington has problems of his own. His officers don't think much of his command strategy while the rank-and-file soldiers are still divided by North and South, Yankee and Rebel... and are tempted by the lure of the goldfields in Montana.
Disaster is waiting for them all, just over that ridgeline.
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I really enjoy well-written non-fiction and historical fiction about the American West, and in Ridgeline, Michael Punke has created a tale based on real people and events that held me in its grasp from beginning to end.
Any well-told tale has to have a first-rate cast of characters, and there certainly is one here. The arrogant ignorance of so many in Carrington's band of soldiers makes you shake your head. Carrington himself had no battle experience, and as they journey to their destination in the Powder River Valley, he is reminded of the African safaris undertaken by British nobles. After all, officers' wives and other women are traveling with them as well as the band he insisted upon so they could have music in the evenings around the campfires. Oh, how very civilized.
Others also make contributions to Ridgeline. Frances Grummond, the wife of the most arrogantly ignorant of Carrington's officers, writes of her experiences in two different journals: one for public consumption and one private, for-her-eyes-only. Jim Bridger, hired as a scout, helps show just how ignorant the soldiers are, and I loved his reply to one of the officers in one of their many meetings: "Don't ask me if you don't wanna know." How many times have so-called intelligent people refused to listen to the experts they hired?
But it was watching Red Cloud and Crazy Horse that kept me focused the most. Watching them work with other Lakota and then other tribes, convincing warriors that they needed a new way to fight the soldiers in order to win, forming their strategy that was so brilliant that it would ultimately be taught in military academies around the world. Watching events unfold knowing it was ultimately for nothing.
Although I knew how Ridgeline was going to end, I still got caught up in Punke's story. I still got caught up with the characters. That's some powerful storytelling, and I look forward to his next book.
Ridgeline by Michael Punke
ISBN: 9781250310460
Henry Holt & Company © 2021
Hardcover, 384 pages
Standalone Historical Fiction
Rating: A
Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.
