Character
Bio of Jessamine Gallagher up to age 20
Coming of age on
a Nebraska farm, red-haired, brown-eyed Jessamine at 17 is slim, taller than
most girls, and disdainful of anything feminine. To prove the point, she favors wearing
britches and boots and trains her red mare to out-race any of the local steeds. She wins top honors in the 1874 Arapaho
graduation class, but her dreams of training horses or continuing her education are shattered after the Grasshopper Plaque of 1874 leaves the
family destitute.
After the tragic
death of her parents, she assumes the role of head of the family and disguised
as a boy, drives her younger sister and brother overland with
muleskinners bound for Ft. Laramie, hoping to join their only living relatives
there. The hazardous journey is completed
only with the help of a half-breed guide who sees through her disguise, and has an agenda of his own.
She finds her own
headstrong judgments and desires begin to change as she is faced with harsh
realities and the hypocrisies of the shrinking frontier and military life.
At age 20, the tomboy has evolved into a woman of thoughtful self-discovery.
Character Bio of Keya Mitchell, up to age 32
Green-eyed Keya
was born in 1843 to a Brule Indian mother and a white soldier. He is raised as an Indian by his mother and grandfather, Spotted Eagle, sharing a happy and carefree childhood
with his cousin, Curly (later to become Crazy Horse.)
At Ash Hollow in Nebraska Territory, his mother is killed in an 1855 massacre by soldiers and he is subsequently sent to an orphanage in St. Louis. As the protégé of a kind nun and the army general who had mercy on him, he is schooled in his father's world until his release at age 18, tall, handsome, and educated as well as any white boy.
At Ash Hollow in Nebraska Territory, his mother is killed in an 1855 massacre by soldiers and he is subsequently sent to an orphanage in St. Louis. As the protégé of a kind nun and the army general who had mercy on him, he is schooled in his father's world until his release at age 18, tall, handsome, and educated as well as any white boy.
He feels he no
longer "belongs" to either race, but cannot deny his allegiance to
his grandfather's Lakota people. He alternates between life in both worlds for
the next 12 years, finally learning his father's identity. As an expert horseman, fluent in
each of his parent's tongues, he is often employed as a wrangler, guide or
messenger.
His life and
choices become more complicated when he meets and matches wits with a sarcastic, strong-willed
Irish girl disguised as a boy. Their romance is plagued with cultural and racial conflicts and misunderstandings. In 1876, he is
finally drawn into the most famous battle of the Indian Wars of the 19th
Century, a battle that changes his world, and that of the free-roaming
Indian…forever.
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ReplyDeleteCould you give a clue as to who Kea's father is or how he came to be Kea's father?
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