Joshua Barlow has a well-deserved reputation as an Apache hunter who targets the Netdahe in the Sierra Nevada,. When the government needs help to quell a local uprising, they turn to their most dangerous frontier specialist.
Kiannatah -- a Netdahe warrior and Barlow's enemy -- has fallen in love with a half-breed woman and attempted to settle into the uneasy peace of his mountain hideout. But the encroachment of white settlements on the forced borders of Apache lands is fanning already simmering hostilities. A breakaway band led by Geronimo begins raiding settlements and army camps and will not until their way of life is secure.
Given free rein to control the Apache problem, General Nelson Miles pursues Geronimo's war party into Mexico, bringing Barlow along as his campaign guide.
But when Kiannatah's love is murdered by the bluecoats, the Apache embarks on his own campaign of vengeance -- a blood feud that will result in a final reckoning between the army's best Apache hunter and the fiercest Netdahe warrior of them all.
2006 by Jason Manning Signet Books (New York) 278 pp ISBN: 0-451-21714-4
I was very pleased with the result in this the final novel in the Apache Wars trilogy (including Apache Storm and Apache Shadow). I often tried to inject a good bit of history into my stories, and this one was no exception; the difference was that in this case I felt like story and historical background was well-blended. The character Kiannatah represented everything I admired about the Apache, while Charles Summerhayes allowed me to sermonize a bit regarding the unfair way the Apaches were treated as otherwise I made a conscious effort to tell an unsentimental narrative.