Stonecroft Saga

It started as a brother defending the honor of his only sister, but it led to a bloody duel and a young man of a prominent family lying dead in the dirt.... Gabriel Stonecroft, along with his lifelong friend Ezra, the son of the pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal church, at his side, begins the journey to the far wilderness of the West. One man from prominent social standing, the other with a life of practical experience, are soon joined in life-building adventures.  

Two friends committed to one another and their destiny of exploring the wilderness known as French Louisiana. A land that would soon become the Louisiana Purchase and a part of the growing nation of the United Colonies. But another man, wealthy, influential, and vindictive, is determined to see Gabriel Stonecroft pay the ultimate price for the death of his son, a ne'er-do-well troublemaker who surrendered his life in a duel with Stonecroft. After a perilous journey down the Ohio River aboard a flatboat, the two friends now set out to explore the West.  

The Osage, Kansa, and Otoe were all tribes west of the Mississippi and dwelt directly in the path of the two friends determined to escape the bounty hunters from Philadelphia and to explore the uncharted wilderness of the West. But when they encounter former French Voyageurs turned slave traders who take Pawnee women captive, their purposes take a turn. But slave-traders are nothing compared to the Omaha and Ponca tribes that have the market cornered on all trade from the Missouri and North Platte Rivers. 

Louisiana Territory had been the exclusive domain of Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, seeking to fill their larders with the riches of the uncharted wilderness. But into that territory came two friends, determined to explore and learn about this vast land, land that had seldom if ever had the footprint of a White man. With their journey already taking them through the lands of the Shawnee, Osage, Pawnee, Omaha, and more, they have finally come within sight of the Rocky Mountains, but their way is blocked by the Plains tribes of Arapaho, Ute, Shoshoni, Crow, and others.

By any measure, they would be considered old-timers in the mountains of the uncharted territory. The two old-timers were young men that had spent the last two years in that uncharted territory and had taken women from the Shoshone people as their brides. But when renegade coureurs des bois of the Hudson’s Bay Company and trappers of the Northwest company decide to abandon the fur companies and seek their fortune by raiding the native villages, the two young friends and their women stand in their way.

Their dream and goal had always been to explore and discover land unknown by white men, the land that lay within the territory known as New Spain or Spanish Louisiana, land that had been known as French Louisiana and that had only known the presence of Spanish Conquistadors and a few French voyageurs or coureurs des bois. Now, with their new wives, Gabe and Ezra set out to discover and explore the mountains and wild country to the North, land that was full of mystery and tales of the natives that told of indescribable wonders.

After spending most of five years in the Rocky Mountains, Gabriel Stonecroft finds it necessary to return to civilization to settle some long-past accounts. He sets out from the headwaters of the Missouri River, with his only companion a wolf, navigating the wild river through the lands of the Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, and more. But an attack by a renegade French voyageur and his rebel Blackfoot companions is just one of the obstacles in his way.

What started as a joyous reunion of friends, soon became one of the most challenging periods of their lives. Chosen as scouts for the Kuccuntikka village of the Shoshone for their trek to the grand encampment of the Shoshone, their encounter with the scouts from the Tukkutikka band would set them on a different course altogether.

It was supposed to be a cozy winter in their new cabin, but it started with a cantankerous grizzly wreaking havoc on everything. After a trading foray to visit the Salish, everything seemed to get turned upside down. They found themselves in contested territory with a band of young bucks from the Siksika band that sought to gain scalps and captives from their sworn enemies, the Salish. And that wasn’t enough to upset their peaceful plans, but when Gabe found out the Blackfoot had stolen the mares bred by his stallion and were carrying foals that belonged to him, it became personal.

They had rescued a young Nez Percé warrior from the warring Blackfoot and were bound on a journey to take him home to his people. The vast land of the Bitterroot Mountains, and the badlands that lay at their feet, held more obstacles than they expected. It was to prove to be a treacherous journey, fraught with natural disasters and conflicts with familiar foes. But when confronted with evil of another sort, an evil that sought to destroy their very own, it became kill or be killed, and blood would soon paint the mountains and the plains of the wilderness.

When the Salish war leader Spotted Eagle appeared in the clearing before their cabin, lifelong friends Gabe and Ezra weren’t sure what to think. This man had shown himself to be their friend, and now he invited them to join him and the village on a buffalo hunt. With winter just around the corner, it seemed the likely thing to do, but had they known what the journey would bring, they might have had second thoughts. Gabe and Ezra’s discovery of the massacre of the Paiute village and the three survivors was just the beginning of the fight against the warring Waiilatpus.

The bloody waters at the lake’s edge told of the destruction of the Kutenai village. Dead bodies were strewn about, smoke curled from burning lodges, and the war cries of screaming Blackfoot warriors followed the war party from the scene of death and destruction. It started as a rivalry between two war leaders of the Piikani Blackfoot. Friends since their youth, they both wanted the same woman and were on a quest for honors and loot. Together with his battle-hardened friend, Black Buffalo, these two were determined to become the personification of vengeance.

After a friendly encounter with the Yapudttka Ute, their journey would take them into the middle of a fight between the Mouache Ute and an expedition of gold-hungry Spaniards. The prospectors traveled across the southern tier of the land known as New Spain in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola—the same cities of gold once sought by Coronado—now thought to be in the headwaters of a river in the Sawatch mountains of the Rockies. When the leader of the Spaniards tries to enslave the band of Utes to dig for gold, it starts a bloody battle.