The Dansing Star
 |
 |
The People:
Morton Dansing - Will he live long enough to bring vengeance and find peace at last?
Hannah Rourke - Lost and hopeless in a world of hard men, she seeks any road to freedom.
Horse Hate - His hatred for Dansing drives him to throw his people into the jaws of hell.
Sam Pierce - The oldest four violent brothers; can his strength save them all?
Hank Pierce - He hides a secret and flaunts a promise: to kill Mort Dansing.
Ellis McGaba - His lust led him to kill, and now he faces the most horrible death of all.
The Story:
Morton Dansing, deputy sheriff in Tucson, Arizona, is torn between two worlds. Until nine years old, he was raised James Morton, a white boy in Missouri. Then he was taken captive by Indians as his family traveled westward, and he was sold to the Chiricahna Apache band who raised him as Dancing Star. When an unknown traitor from the Apache camp led white and Mexican marauders to the stronghold, wiping out his entire family, Dancing Star returned to the white man's world. There he merged his white and Apache names to become Morton Dansing, expert on Apache warfare.
Now Dansing lives with the haunting drive to find the man who brought his village down. He also leads another life, that of lawman. The sheriff of Pima County, an avid Apache hater, employs Dansing only because of his skills and Apache expertise. When Dansing loses the trail of a gang of bank robbers who disappeared into the desert, he is scorned by the Apache haters of the town. Then, when his dearest friend is murdered in cold blood, he must return to his homeland, to find the killer and to redeem his name.
Before this can be accomplished, Dansing finds himself trapped in a cabin surrounded hy bloodthirsty Apaches. The leader of the Apaches is Dansing's childhood tormentor, known to the white man as Horse Hate. And to make matters worse, Dansing's only allies are four hard men, a mysterious woman, and the hated killer of his friend. Where will danger come first, from outside the cabin, or within? And will Mort Dansing return to Tucson to faunt victory in the sheriff's face? Or will he lie dead with the others?
Prologue Odio de los Caballos was angry. Nda, the white man, had come, taken his land, and now they said the Apache must live their way or die. But Odio didn't scare. 0dio didn't care if they killed him, as long as he was free, The Nakai-yes-the Mexicans-had lied to him. The Nda had lied to him. It had come to the point that he couldn't trust any word from anyone but Tinneah-the Apache-and even then only one of his own close-knit group. The whites promised land "till the end of time," then took it away shortly there after to punish the wrong of some other Indian-or because of no wrong at all. They promised food, blankets, medicine for the People; none ever arrived, or just barely enough to keep the People alive. Then they used other Apache bands to hunt him down when he went in search of food to keep his family from starving to death. Nda kept taking, more and more. They meant to take everything he had, so he would give them everything he had.
Everything he had left was a relentless desire to kill.
When Victorio fled the reservation, Odio followed his lead, and the People who remained behind said his intention was to destroy every white man or Mexican he came upon and all property in which he saw no value or couldn't carry with him. The army spilled its forts onto the trail of the marauders, setting out into the desert wilderness with inadequate tactical knowledge of how to fight a war against the greatest guerrilla fighters ever born. The bril-liant tactician, Victorio was even then conducting the worst spree of Apache depredation ever known, with the help of his wise henchman, Nana. And Geronimo, Juh, Ponee, and Nolgee, along with many others, were living in the Cima-Silq-the Sierra Madre-in Mexico, and raiding frequently across the border
In the autumn of 1879, there was no rest in sight for the U.S. Army. Its forts had heaved their supplies of soldiers out over the hostile land. Verde. McDowell. Whipple. Apache. Thomas. Grant. Bowie. Huachuca. Lowell. The list seemed daunting, but all of them combined couldn't conquer a few hundred Apaches.
And Odio de los Caballos, known to the whites as Horse Hate, would make sure his name was never forgotten.
Here are some reviews of Kirby's books by other well known authors:
"Kirby Jonas tells a gritty story of search, action, and revenge in Old Arizona when it was still a hunting ground for hostile Apaches and white outlaws, when hatreds ran deep, and vengeance was not the Lord's."
-Elmer Kelton, author of The Good Old Boys and The Day the Cowboys Quit
"Kirby Jonas is one of the best of the young writers who breathe a new freshness into the traditional Western."
- Don Goldsmith, author of Tallgrass and the Spanish Bit Saga
"Finally, a voice as real and honest as thunder rumbles from the canyons and tinderbox towns of the Wild Old West. The voice belongs to Kirby Jonas. Every shining detail of The Dansing Star carries the stamp of authenticity and drums like the hoofbeat of a sure-footed horse at full gallop."
-Mike Blakely, author of Shortgrass Song and Too Long at the Dance
|
back to the Books page