Heaven Is a Long Way Off — Win Blevins

FOLLOWING THE DEATH IN CHILDBIRTH of his Crow Indian wife, Meadowlark, Sam Morgan flees Mexican-controlled California. But Sam, a young Pennsylvanian who is rising from teenage runaway to redoubtable mountain man, is haunted by Meadowlark's death and must return to find and rescue his baby daughter, Esperanza.

Along the way his trapper brigade suffers hunger and thirst and is harried by a hand of Mojave Indians. In San Diego, Sam and his partners buy a herd of horses and drive them to Santa Fe, New Mexico, then to the 1828 trapper's rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains.

In the end, it is Sam's duty to report the melancholy details of Meadow lark's death to the elders of her village. He leaves his baby daughter with a trusted Crow woman and with two companions, rides out toward the Yellowstone country and another, less joyous, trapping season.