Virgin River
A Barnaby Skye Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This is the sixteenth novel in Richard S. Wheeler's long-running series about Barnaby Skye, the British seaman who carves out an amazing life for himself in the North American Wilderness, along with his wives and his ugly, cantankerous horse, Jawbone.
In Virgin River, the famed mountain man and his two wives, Victoria of the Crows and Mary of the Shoshones, take a party of tubercular young people to the southwestern desert where they hope to be healed. Their destination is the Virgin River, where the mild, dry climate offers a cure. This time, Skye and his wives must cope with rival guides and cross Utah at the time of heightened tensions between the federal government and the Latter-Day Saints.
Skye soon discovers that other wagon companies on the trail fear the sick and blame them for every ill that overtakes their own companies. Taking a party of sick people along the California trail requires every bit of skill and courage that Skye and his wives can muster. And hovering over the trip is the looming catastrophe of war.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barnaby Skye returns for his 16th stirring western (after The Canyon of Bones) set primarily in pre Civil War southern Utah. Skye, exiled from England, views himself as an outcast, "an empty-purse man of the wilderness," who makes his living "guiding Yanks in their endless westering." He has two Native American wives, Mary, a Shoshone, and Victoria, an Absaroka Crow. Mary's recently given birth to his son Dirk (whose Indian name is North Star) and Skye's hungry for a job to support them. He agrees to guide Hiram Peacock's New Bedford Infirmary Company wagon train which includes 10 young seriously ill consumptives in hope of a cure to a desert place. With wives and son in tow, Skye guides Peacock's charges, overcoming obstacles from other immigrant trains who fear the "plague party" as they follow the California Trail and pass through unknown territory. Unfortunately, they must deal with Paiute Indians and militias drawn from angry Mormon settlements in conflict with the government over polygamy. Wheeler's lucid prose and excellent eye for detail make history come alive once again.