A sequel to the award-winning Buffalo Dance, Frank X Walker's When
Winter Come: The Ascension of York is a dramatic reimagining of Lewis
and Clark's legendary exploration of the American West. By focusing on
the humanity and struggles of York, Clark's slave, When Winter Come
challenges conventional views of the journey's heroes and exposes the
deeds, both great and ghastly, of the men behind the myth. Grounded in
the history of the famous trip, Walker's vibrant account allows York --
little more than a forgotten footnote in traditional narratives -- to
embody the full range of human ability, knowledge, emotion, and
experience. He is a skillful hunter who kills his prey with both grace
and reverence, and he thinks deeply about the proper place of humans in
the natural world. York knows the seasons "like a book," and he "can
read moss, sunsets, the moon, and a mare's foaling time with a touch."
The Native peoples understand and honor York's innate bond with the
earth. Though his expertise is integral to the journey's success, York's
masters do not reward him; they know only the way of the lash. The
alternately heartbreaking and uplifting poems in When Winter Come are
told from multiple perspectives and rendered in vivid detail. On the
journey, York forges a spiritual connection and shares sensual delights
with a Nez Perce woman, and he aches when he is forced to leave her and
their unborn son. Walker's poems capture the profound feelings of love
and loss on each side of this ill-fated meeting of souls. When the trek
ends and York is sent back to his former home, his wife and stepmother
air their joys and grievances. As the perspectives of Lewis, Clark,
Sacagawea, and others in the party emerge, Walker also gives voice to
York's knife, his hunting shirt, and the river waters that have borne
the labors and travels of thousands before and after the Lewis and Clark
expedition. Despite fleeting hints that escape is possible, slavery
continues to bind York and quell the joyful noise in his spirit until
his death. Walker's poems, however, give York his voice after centuries
of silence. When Winter Come exalts the historical persona of a slave
and lifts the soul of a man. York ascends out of his chains, out of
oblivion, and into flight.
