When Chiricahau Apaches attack a stagecoach bound for Fort Hell, Yakima Henry and fellow scout Seth Barksdale rush to defend it – only to discover that one of the fallen Apache is a blond-haired, blue-eyed white boy. This is shocking news to the fort’s commanding officer, Colonel Ephraim Alexander. Years ago, his family was kidnapped during an Apache attack, and his desperate search was cut short by orders to evacuate. If this white Apache warrior is his son, can his wife and daughter still be alive?
The colonel charges Yakima and Seth to lead a search party. Riding as far as the forbidding Shadow Montañas in Mexico, they come up against a ruthless warrior queen – a beautiful blond white woman with cornflower blue eyes. Can this unlikely leader of the fierce Winte Wolf People and a pack of ex-Confederate desperadoes actually be the colonel’s long-lost daughter? As bullets fly and blood paints the desert red, Yakima and Seth grow ever more determined to find the truth.
This book was announced as being the first in a new series that would feature Yakima Henry as a young scout during the Apache Wars. Frank Leslie had already written ten books about Yakima in his later life. As many will know, Frank Leslie is a pseudonym used by Peter Brandvold and the book was republished in 2021 by Wolfpack Publishing under the authors own name.
The story offers everything readers would expect from a western written by Peter Brandvold; an extremely fast-moving tale, tough men, sensuous women who can handle weapons as well as any man, savage action that at times is quite graphic in its description and plenty of surprising twists to the plot.
Yakima Henry isn’t in the book as much as some of the other characters and what great characters they are. People such as Seth Barksdale, Samantha Tunny and her father Gila River Joe. Then there’s Riona the Apache Queen and Luz Ortega, the latter being in one of my favourite scenes of the story that could have come straight-out of a spaghetti western when Yakima and Seth face some Mexican bandits lead by a man known as The Scorpion. The book also features a Gatling Gun which creates carnage a couple of times in spectacular fashion, especially during a raid on Fort Hell.
As I’ve already mentioned, this book was the first in a new series so I’m guessing that Peter Brandvold had plans for the survivors of this tale as some of the forming relationships are left hanging. Sadly, there wasn’t another book but now that Wolfpack is republishing past westerns from the author along with new work, maybe we’ll get another in this series too. Let’s hope so, as this first Apache Wars novel was an excellent read and deserves a sequel.
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