Follow the Free Wind

A novelised version of the life of James Beckwourth, an half-breed that got into more adventures than you could imagine. Born just before the start of the 19th century, he got to live through the expansion west and more up into the 1860s. A trailblazer with a general, a mountain man, after helping out the general's money man, a beaver trapper, a Crow warchief, running shops and trading posts, and an army scout. Not to mention a horse thief, warrior and more. In fact, you would have been hard pressed to completely make all this up. Towards the ends of the novel a journalist comes looking for him, wanting to recount his story, as other famous adventurers such as Kit Carson had books that sold well. Looking it up, this book came out of these discussions:The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth: Mountaineer, Scout, Pioneer and Chief of the Crow Nation by Thomas Bonner. 3.5 out of 5

Beckwith was known far and wide as a runaway slave, a renegade, a horse thief, and a fearsome warrior who had taken over a hundred scalps, among other things. But the real James Beckwith was even bigger than his mythic persona. Beckwith was as wild and untamed as the land he loved and conquered. Fiercely proud and bitterly stubborn, he seemed to enjoy making enemies with his displays of harsh courage.