Aurora Crossing: A Novel of the Nez Perces — Karl H. Schlesier

n ancient creation tales of Indian tribes of the American Northwest, nasawaylu, Old Man Coyote, was the spirit who finished the world started by the Supreme Being. A master of animals, holy person, and trickster, nasawaylu sometimes bestowed special gifts on an Indian youth seeking a guardian spirit. But in the 1870s young Nez Perce John Seton struggles to determine whether Coyote's message is a gift or a trick. Reared first in an Anglo township in north central Idaho, then on the reservation, and finally on the Salmon River with the free-roving Lamtama band, Seton has always followed the fortunes of his mother. After her death he chooses to stay in the camp of old Hemene, a respected Lamtama leader. Still a novice in all three of the sharply contrasting worlds he has known, Seton is drawn irresistibly and irreversibly into the Nez Perce War of 1877. His quest to find a place in the clash of cultures is a magical saga, a search for meaning in the fabled Trickster's message. The events to which Seton is an eyewitness -- such as the Nez Perce march of 1877 -- are recorded in history, masterfully woven here by Karl Schlesier into a fabric of compelling fiction and human drama.