Tailored after the actual "Crow Killer" John Johnson, Sam Minard is a mountain man who seeks the freedom that the Rocky Mountains offers trappers. After his beloved Indian wife is murdered, Sam Minard becomes obsessed with vengeance, and his fortunes become intertwined with those of Kate Bowden, a widow who faces madness. This remarkable frontier fiction captures that brief season when the romantic myth of the far West became a fact. "Vardis Fisher has concocted a Bunyanesque superhero . . . who traps beaver and otter in the Rockies during the late 1840s and revels in danger and freedom . . . . Fisher is a persuasive storyteller with a flair for period atmosphere."—New York Times Book Review "A vivid novel of the mountain men. . . . Fisher’s narrative sense and his feel for country are sharp."—Larry McMurtry, Saturday Review "The courage, hardness, and wild freedom of the mountain men who trapped, fish, and fought Indians in the Rockies over a century ago are brilliantly, beautifully, and brutally conveyed by the writer."—Booklist "Superb backgrounds, fascinating detail, and consistency of tone elevate this beyond the adventure story; as a picture of a mountain man, his love of nature and struggle to survive, it is a stirring piece of Americana."—Library Journal