Black Sun: The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 (The Plainsmen Series #4) » (Reprint)

Terry C. Johnston was born on the first day of 1947 on the plains of Kansas, and has lived all his life in the American West. His first novel, Carry the Wind, won the Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award from the Western Writers of America, and his subsequent books have appeared on bestseller lists throughout the country. He lives and writes in Big Sky country near Billings, Montana.

No one captures the glory, adventure and drama of the courageous men and women who tamped the American West like award-winning author Terry Johnston. His Plainsmen series brims with colorful characters, fierce battles and compelling historical lore.

Grueling winter gave way to bloody spring as Seamus Donegan and his fellow Army scouts rode west with the Kansas Pacific Railway. Led by the legendary "Buffalo" Bill Cody, they withstood blazing hit-and-run raids by Cheynne Dog Soldiers—while trailed by a skulking enemy from Donegan's past. Then, in midsummer, the fleeing Cheyennes camped. And the 5th Cavalry mounted the brutal surprise attack that would give rise to a fierce new warrior-leader named White Horse: the battle of Summit Springs, 1869.

Publishers Weekly

Armchair cowboys hankering for the excitement of military campaigns may enjoy this tale of the Old West, where white men are brave, red men are savages and women are better off someplace else. Other readers, however, will find their patience tried by the work's limited perspective and its facile reduction of motives to good and evil. This new addition to Johnston's ( The Stalkers ) Plainsmen series continues the story of Seamus Donegan, who is hired as a civilian scout by the U.S. Fifth Cavalry's chief of scouts--none other than ``Buffalo Bill'' Cody; the two promptly become fast friends. The Fifth's mission is to drive the Plains Indians toward Custer's Seventh Cavalry. Although they put in long hours tracking and withstanding attacks by the Cheyenne, Donegan and Cody occasionally have some fun: when ``Wild Bill'' Hickok spends some time with the Fifth, they hijack a beer shipment en route to another army outpost (an event that the author, in his introduction, assures us did take place) and whup some Mexican scouts in a fistfight, even though the three of them are pitted against 15 of those ``blood-eyed greasers.'' (Apr.)