The year is 1838. A young Scotsman forced from his homeland arrives at
Hudson's Bay. Angus McDonald is contracted to British masters to trade
for fur. But the world he discovers is beyond even a Highlander's
wildest imaginings: raging rivers, buffalo hunts, and the powerful
daughter of an ancient and magnificent people. In Catherine Baptiste,
kin to Nez Perce chiefs, Angus recognizes a kindred spirit. The Rocky
Mountain West in which they meet will soon be torn apart by competing
claims: between British fur traders, American settlers, and the Native
peoples who have lived for millennia in the valleys and plateaus of the
Shining Mountains' western slopes.
In this epic family saga, the real history of the American West is
revealed in all its terror, beauty, and complexity. The Shining
Mountains brilliantly limns a world now long forgotten: of blended
cultures seeking allies, trading furs for guns and steel, and a way of
life in collision with westward colonial expansion.