Titus Bass

Sixteen-year-old Titus Bass fears one fate more than any other: never to experience the great wilderness or the wildness inside himself. So late one night he snatches a squirrel gun and a handful of biscuits, flees into the woods, and doesn't look back. From Louisville past the Chickasaw bluffs and the Natchez Trace all the way to New Orleans, he plunges into the rough-and-tumble life along the banks of the Mississippi: a volatile, violent country of boatmen and river bandits, knife fights and Indian raids, strong liquor and stronger women. Yet beyond the great river stretches the vast, unexplored expanse of the Great Plains. And it is here that young Titus will seek his future, and risk everything to seize it. "[A] prequel about Bass's coming of age in frontier America…Sound, meticulously researched, historically accurate." "The historical and geographic descriptions are vivid, as are the many hearty and colorful characters." "Johnston is a deservedly popular western author whose appeal lies not so much in the adventures he dramatizes as in the depth of his characters. They love, grieve, laugh, and feel guilt, anger, and jealousy. They're real people, not just providers of vicarious thrills."

In Buffalo Palace, the young Titus Bass sights and then sets out into the vast Rocky Mountain country. This is where he has his initial experiences with trapping beaver, surviving the freezing winter, fighting fierce Indians and even fiercer fellow mountain men, and celebrating at the hard-earned summer rendezvous. Most memorably, we walk with Titus as he first sees the immense herd which originally fueled his wanderlust and which now feeds, clothes, and houses the frontier's pioneers, when he reaches the country lovingly called the "Buffalo Palace." "This is a first-rate addition to a solid series, a rousing tale of one man's search for independence in the unspoiled beauty of the old West."

Crack in the Sky continues the development of the young Titus Bass as he gradually learns the lore of the mountain man. From a raucous rendezvous of trappers to a searing fight with Comanche, from a frigid winter's chill to the angry heat of a chase with horse thieves, Titus Bass's West comes alive in the pages of this remarkable novel-and in its final scene, Titus Bass will meet young Josiah Paddock and form the deep friendship explored in the pagers of Carry the Wind. "Mastery of the mountain man culture in all its ramifications, a sure grasp of the historical context, and the imagination of a first–rate novelist combine to make Crack in the Sky a compelling, fast–paced story firmly anchored in sound history."

Carry the Wind is a gripping historical saga set in the Old West during a time when the horizon never ended and a nation was being born. Young Josiah Paddock, on the run from his past in St. Louis in 1831, didn't have much hope of survival. Winter was coming to the Rocky Mountains, and if the cold cutting through his city clothes didn't kill him, grizzlies or Indians would. Then his luck turned. He stumbled across the trail of Ol' Scratch, a solitary mountain man eager enough for company to take the brash youngster under his wing. Pure chance brought Paddock to the old trapper's camp, but it was skill with a gun and a knife that kept them both alive as they rode deep into the majestic land of Blackfeet and Crow Indians, bible-spouting pioneers, and sensual women where only the best and bravest survived-and only the luckiest rode back again. Carry the Wind is a gripping historical saga set in the Old West during a time when the horizon never ended and a nation was being born. "Brutal violence, enduring love, and a passion for the mountains…a book worth reading." "Slick with survival–and–gore heroics and thick with Northwest wilderness period detail (1820-40), this gutsy adventure–entertainment is also larded with just the right amounts of frontier sentiment."

They had settled a bloody score and put the turncoat McAfferty to rest in the snowbound Rockies. Slowly, painfully, the wounded Paddock and Scratch found their way back to the Crow village, where they were welcomed as brother and son. The people of Chief Arapooesh offered rest, healing, and home to the mountain men. Then a misunderstanding over a beautiful Crow woman drove the friends apart, propelling Scratch into the unforgiving wilderness on a lonely, dangerous quest. Paddock, too ill to travel, was at first unable to follow, unable to explain. But they were destined to meet again, and to reaffirm a bond deeper than blood, at the historic 1833 Green River Rendezvous. And together, they would face an enemy greater than either had ever known.

High in the Rockies lay the Bayou Salade, a lush beaver-rich valley so untouched that the few white men who had seen it called it paradise. But for Scratch Bass, his young partner Josiah Paddock, and the two Indian women they loved, this paradise would open up a hell of violence. Pursued by a vengeful Arapaho raiding party, Scratch will lead his small band through a flurry of arrows all the way to Taos itself. Yet the trail of blood will not end there. For in St. Louis an old enemy waits, and the time is ripe for Scratch to settle a ten-year score. Through the desert known as the Journey of Death to the rough-and-tumble town of St. Louis, Scratch and Josiah will defy the wilderness to bury the past-and a black-hearted killer-once and for all.

The time of the mountain man is coming to an end, but some, like Titus Bass, will not exit gently. A brilliantly exciting and thoroughly researched novel of the end of the dream that was the unmapped and virgin wilderness in the American West, starring the king of the mountain men, Titus Bass. A new dawn was rising over the vast, once uncharted territories west of the Mississippi. And for the original trailblazers like Titus Bass-bold, resourceful men who dine on buffalo meat, trade in beaver pelts, and live among the warrior bands-the world will never be the same. Traveling with his wife and infant daughter, Bass heads north into Crow territory. But what should have been a joyous reunion with his wife's people turns to tragedy when Bass's family is kidnapped by the warring Blackfoot. A deadly outbreak of smallpox, brought west by the white man, threatens both Indian nations with annihilation. And another kind of epidemic-this one of greed-brought by two powerful, profit-hungry trading outfits will determine the fate not only of free trappers like Titus Bass-but also the destiny of the entire nation. "Mountain man/trapper Titus 'Scratch' Bass…watches his fiercely loved Big Sky country fade but hopes to hang onto the old ways…Fans will not be disappointed." "The continuing saga of Titus Bass provides readers with a genuine sense of frontier life and the hardships of the very earliest settlers in the context of an epic adventure. Bass is a near-mythic Davy Crockett–like character, but author Johnston imbues him with Everyman emotions, which makes his despair over the loss of his loved ones genuine."

With the end of the beaver trade at hand, free trappers like Titus Bass must somehow make their way on a changing frontier. Drawn by the promise of adventure and wealth, Bass joins an expedition to Spanish California, where the ranchos have horses and mules in abundance. Their plan is to steal the livestock and drive it back east across the great Mojave Desert to sell to fur traders for top dollar. But pursuit by formidable Mexican soldiers and an attack by fierce Digger Indians take their toll on Bass and his fellow raiders. Arriving back in the Rockies, the mountain man discovers that even the famous Jim Bridger has abandoned trapping and settled down to trade with overland immigrants plying the Oregon Trail. Wondering where his own trail will lead him, Bass journeys south for a reunion with an old friend in Taos-only to be caught up in the "Taos Rebellion." And in its tragic aftermath, Titus finds himself once again an outsider in a world he no longer recognizes. "A now aged, bone–weary Titus Bass, a mountain man and trapper who will hang onto his old ways under the Big Sky where…The death rattle is also for a way of life trampled under the incoming hordes of town-builders and civilizers…Bleak as winter rain, but a wide readership awaits Titus, a character cut from rawhide." "Johnston lays the period details on thick: describing every activity of the characters in minute detail." "One of the great frontier historical novelists of our generation."

In this breathtaking climax, Bass, the hardy survivor of a world now gone, prepares to fight his magnificent final battle. The wild and free world of the mountain man is quickly fading into the past. For Titus Bass, leading his family north to winter with the Crow people, the journey is a sad one. He must save an old friend from death and rescue his daughter Magpie from cutthroat traders. He will try to free a wagon train of innocents from its unscrupulous leader, and he will try to come to terms with his long–lost daughter Amanda, bound for a new home in a faraway land Bass himself will never see. But when he arrives in the land of the Crow, he finds old friends-and old ways-dying out. Determined to live out his final years in peace, Bass comes to realize that, on the changing frontier, survival is never a certain thing. Soon he will face his greatest lesson and hardest challenge of all-one that might cost the last of the legendary mountain men his life. "[A] remarkable mountain man hero…Titus Bass is a believable, enduring character…This bloody tale of a man who values his family's safety above all else is one of the most evocative and powerful books in the series. Bass fans will be energized by the novel but sad to see the last of the old mountain man." "Titus and his family…face dangers from the land, the weather, and, most of all, their fellow man…Johnston's popularity stems from his skill in evoking the feel of the period and the fierce independence of the early explorers. Fans of Titus Bass will be glad that this latest work is out but sorry to see the series end."