Puha (Paperback)

Many Wolves, a 12-year-old boy adopted by Lipan Apaches, is haunted by memories of mounted men with painted faces killing his white-skinned parents. When Laughing Crow, the powerful leader of the Nokoni Comanche band responsible for the killings, discovers his Lipan village and asks for the white-skinned boy in exchange for peace, Many Wolves flees. In the harsh desert wilderness, nourished by the salty waters of the Pecos River, he learns to survive alone with his trained wolf hawks. Five years later, the Nokoni leader's son is killed by a Lipan arrow, which sets Laughing Crow on a trail of blood and vengeance. Many Wolves, now hardened by nature and empowered with a gift to walk with the spirits of his animals, is forced out of seclusion to confront his nightmare and protect his Lipan village. Puha, the Comanche word for "spiritual power," is an unconventional western story set in the late 1700s, before Texas was settled with Colt revolvers and Winchester rifles: a time when vast herds of buffalo roamed the Southern Plains, grizzly bears and wolves thrived, and the Comanche rode unchallenged on painted ponies. Puha submerses the reader in a forgotten time of American History when indigenous people lived free and in harmony with nature.