Dance on the Wind - Hardcover

Johnston, Terry C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553090712 ISBN 13: 9780553090710

Publisher: Bantam, 1995

Synopsis

Dreaming of adventure, sixteen-year-old Titus Bass, hero of Carry the Wind, leaves his home to brave the perils of the western frontier, from the rough-and-tumble life along the Mississippi River to the vast, unexplored reaches of the Great Plain.

About this title

About the Author

Terry C. Johnston is recognized as a master of the American historical novel. His grand adventures of the American West combine the grace and beauty of a natural storyteller with complete dedication to historical accuracy and authenticity. Johnston was born on the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas, and lived all his life in the American West. His first novel, Carry the Wind, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. After writing more than thirty novels, he died in March 2001 in Millings, Montana.

From Publishers Weekly

Fourth in Johnston's series of historicals about mountain man Titus Bass (after One-Eyed Dream), this entry goes back to Titus's youth, in the early 1800s. The opening pages, covering the future legend's years as a Kentucky farmboy, move slowly as Titus debates whether to run away from home. The story picks up speed, plot and action when, restless and hungry for adventure at age 16, he finally does, joining the jolly crew of a flatboat carrying cargo from Cincinnati to New Orleans, a dangerous 1000-mile trip down the majestic Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Handy with a long rifle, pistol and knife, Titus survives Indian attacks, barroom brawls and highway robbery, leaving few opponents upright. When not slugging, shooting and stabbing, he expends his remaining teenage energy as a randy-and not too particular-backwoods Lothario. After his successful trip downriver, Titus still dreams of going west to see the far mountains, plains and buffalo. Then, abruptly, Johnston puts the brake on the pace and rhythm of his story by having his hero languish in St. Louis as a blacksmith until he is 30. The novel's final hundred pages are as dull as the first hundred, as Titus makes horseshoes, gets drunk and listens to others tell tales of the mysterious West. Still, the historical and geographic descriptions are vivid, as are the many hearty and colorful characters. Hopefully, the next Titus Bass book will find both the mountain man and his creator busy with the action that each handles so well.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0553090712
• ISBN 13: 9780553090710
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 517