Now a Major Motion Picture
National Book Award Finalist--Fiction
In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees
to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this
exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical
fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of
family, responsibility, honor, and trust.
In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels
through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying
audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived
through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his
rootless, solitary existence.
In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young
orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of
Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little
girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S.
army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home
she knows.
Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving
terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten
the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away
her shoes, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the
two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a
bond that marks the difference between life and death in this
treacherous land.
Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The
captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not
remember--strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable
man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to
her fate or become--in the eyes of the law--a kidnapper himself.
