The High Country

JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. IF YOUR HORSE DOESN’T WANT TO GO THERE, NEITHER DO YOU.

William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone, authors of the acclaimed To the River’s End, celebrate the guts, glory, and often deadly exploits of the pioneering fur trappers who tracked and tamed the wild and lawless American frontier.

Luke Ransom and Jug Sartain are free trappers who have made a formidable team when they partnered up in the grueling winter wilderness of Blackfoot country. No hostile raids by man, no brutal obstacles of nature could stop them from snaring what they came for. The nicest surprise was that Luke came home with a wife—Willow Blowing in the Wind, a lovely young Crow woman. Now, one year later, in this new trapping season of 1834, it’s Luke, Jug, and Willow who become the hunted …

They’re heading farther to the northwest in the mountain valleys of the Beaverhead Mountains. And the Big Hole Valley. It’s a known risk. The fearsome Blackfoot claim exclusive rights to the territory—even the hardcase Hudson’s Bay Company trappers think twice about crossing that line. But it’s an unknown risk that’s putting the lives of Luke, Jug, and Willow in danger. A kill-crazy, vengeance-seeking hound named Reese Yarborough is following their every move. He aims to make a big killing in the High Country—and take Willow alive for his own feral needs. A cold and bloody day in hell is storming on the horizon.