Night Panther — Darrel Sparkman

Stoneface is a fundamentalist Shawnee patterned after Black Hoof, a brother of the moderate Tecumseh. Their hatred included whites and Christians, especially any Indian who took up white man ways. In the aftermath of the seven-year Creek war, he and his followers move south toward a land called Oklahoma.Sean MacLeod is returning home to Jones Mill from a two-week journey to find a new place to live. Surviving a sudden attack from two Mohawk renegades, the next day he finds a gruesome massacre. Over the body of a young boy, he vows to find the killers and punish them.His troubles continue when he arrives at Jones Mill. He considers Ellen Mackey his wife. When one of the officers of the army detachment challenges him for her hand, once again he fights for his life. Fighting he can handle, but affairs of the heart? Not so much. All he wants to do is move away and find peace, but the bodies are piling up.Beth Mackey is the daughter of Ellen and considers Sean MacLeod her father. Big and strong for her age and due to their hostile environment, she has been trained by her two heroes. The famed Ghostrider (Sean) trained her in the ways of the English Longbow and fighting knives, and the equally notorious adopted grandfather, Buffalo Shield taught her the ways of the forest. The headstrong young girl reluctantly agreed to be sent to Saint Louis for safety. Beginning that trip, her grandfather is killed by the renegades, and already excepting her own death, she takes revenge.Captured by Stoneface, and then allowed to escape, she punishes the renegades in such a way that the word Mishipeshu is on their lips-the only way they can explain a girl getting the upper hand on them.Night Panther is a story than entwines the cultures of Native American and European settlers on the frontier borderland between Arkansas and Missouri in 1821. Sean MacLeod and Ellen struggle through circumstances beyond their control and come out at the end stronger and united.That would not have happened without their own Mishipeshu, Beth Mackey.