Beecher Island — Tim Champlin

Matt Talbot was a scout with Sharp Grover and Bill Comstock at a parley with the Cheyenne chief Bull Bear along the Solomon River in western Kansas. The year was 1868. The Army was concerned about all the young braves coming to join Bull Bear's band, and Grover believed that he could learn if there was danger of Indian raids or an uprising in what was happening. He was so confident in his ability to find out what he wanted to know from Bull Bear that the trio had not been accompanied by a military escort. What all three men did learn was that they would be safe only as long as they were guests of Bull Bear. The chief was aware of the menace they faced. While he could, or would, tell them nothing, he did grant them safe conduct out of the camp. But that safe conduct did not last very long. Their Cheyenne sentinels turned back and were presently replaced by a defiant band of Cheyenne braves who attacked the trio, killing Bill Comstock and leaving Sharp Grover for dead, and taking their horses. Matt Talbot fortunately was able to elude capture or death in the attack. He found that Grover was still alive, and the two began the trek back to where there was a railroad track. For Matt Talbot this was the beginning of what he regarded as an adventure. He would scout for the military mission that would seek out and subdue the Cheyenne hostiles. Only this would turn out to be an adventure with menacing consequences, since the number of hostile Cheyennes now under the war chief Roman Nose had grown to vastly outnumber the peacekeeping mission. Tim Champlin was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He began his career as an author of the Western story with Summer of the Sioux in 1982.