THE BRIGHT FEATHERS

John Culp writes Western Americana with a difference- a superior difference (The Restless Land; Born of the Sun; etc.) and this is certainly true of this new book in which the past is speeded up, not as in Chaplin but as in life. Its story tracks three teenage trail drivers on their vacation ride through the last great nations of Kansas Indians. Scrape Dawkins, the leader, is as good or bad as his name and in his last fracas lost an ear to a cow. With his friends Ham and Scut, naive galoots all, he takes his first train ride, his first steamboat ride, and meets his first civilized Indians. The currency of intelligence in those days, 1871, was geographical sense, and the currency of this tale is the face of the land. Railroad camps and river towns gleam like nicked lead, and our boys combobulate like living Brady tintypes. Among other things the author has set out to show the tragedy of the Indians as they were civilized, wearing bowlers and ascot ties...A likable narrative which should find its audience among the readers of McPheeters and makes a strong appeal all its own.