Winter Rain

Praise for the novels of Terry C. Johnston

CRY OF THE HAWK

“This novel has the epic sweep of the frontier built into it.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Will stain the reader with grease, blood, and smoke.”

—Kirkus Reviews

THE SON OF THE PLAINS TRILOGY

“Terry Johnston is the genuine article when it comes to storytelling, but you can also depend on his having done his historical homework. His Custer trilogy is proving this significant point, just as his Indian wars and mountain man books prove it. I admire his power and invention as a writer, but I admire his love and faith in history just as much.”

—Will Henry, author of From Where the Sun Now Stands

“[Johnston] has so immersed himself in the history of the Plains Indians and in Custer’s history that, were novels not his forte, he could very well write a book on Custer and his final battle to match that of … Evan Connell.”

—Dale L. Walker, Rocky Mountain News

CARRY THE WIND, BORDERLORDS, AND

ONE-EYED DREAM

“Johnston’s books are action-packed … a remarkably fine blend of arduous historical research and proficient use of language … lively, lusty, fascinating.”

—Gazette-Telegraph, Colorado Springs

“Rich and fascinating … There is a genuine flavor of the period and of the men who made it what it was.”

—The Washington Post Book World

“Slick with survival-and-gore heroics and thick with Northwest-wilderness period detail (1820-40), this gutsy adventure-entertainment is also larded with just the right amounts of frontier sentiment.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Johnston offers memorable characters, a great deal of history and lore about the Indians and pioneers of the period, and a deep insight into human nature, Indian or white.”

—Booklist

BOOKS BY TERRY C. JOHNSTON

Cry of the Hawk

Winter Rain

Dream Catcher

Carry the Wind

Borderlords

One-Eyed Dream

Dance on the Wind

Buffalo Palace

Crack in the Sky

Ride the Moon Down

Death Rattle

Wind Walker

SONS OF THE PLAINS NOVELS

Long Winter Gone

Seize the Sky

Whisper of the Wolf

THE PLAINSMEN NOVELS

Sioux Dawn

Red Cloud’s Revenge

The Stalkers

Black Sun

Devil’s Backbone

Shadow Riders

Dying Thunder

Blood Song

Reap the Whirlwind

Trumpet on the Land

A Cold Day in Hell

Wolf Mountain Moon

Ashes of Heaven

Cries from the Earth

Lay the Mountains Low

for Jim Bourne

who helped point the way years ago,

with more gratitude than you

will ever know

How solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary—but always whiskey! … Westward the Jug of Empire takes its way!

—Mark Twain

The Texas Rangers … had an off and on existence ever since 1823, when Stephen F. Austin formed a band of ten Rangers to protect the first American settlements from Indians…. From that time on—throughout all their ups and downs, disappearances and reappearances—the Rangers were irregulars. They were irregular as hell, in everything except getting the job done.

—Oliver Knight

The more Indians we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war.

—General William Tecumseh Sherman

Destiny is nothing more than the unforeseen coincidence of events, the emergence into action of hidden forces which, in a complex and disordered society … no contemporary can be expected to discern.

—Guglielmo Ferrero

CAST OF CHARACTERS

^*Jonah Hook

^*Hattie Hook

^*Ezekiel Hook (Antelope)

^*Prairie Night (Antelope’s Comanche wife)

^*Gritta Hook

^*Jeremiah Hook (Tall One)

^*Shadrach Sweete

^*Pipe Woman

^*Toote Sweete / Shell Woman

^*High-Backed Bull

Danites

^*Colonel Jubilee Usher

^*Heber Welch

^*Frank Bolls

^*Charlie Smythe

^*Joseph Simes

^*Oran Strickler

^*George

^*Orem Slade

^*George Hines

^*Harry Hampton

Cheyenne

Roman Nose

^*Hair Rope

Little Hawk

Tall Bull

^*Wolf Friend

^*Plenty of Bull Meat

^*Tall Sioux

^*Bullet Proof

^*Red Cherries

^*Four Bulls Moon

Porcupine

^*Wrinkled Wolf

Starving Elk

White Horse

^*Bad Heart

^*Yellow Nose

^*White Man’s Ladder

^*Feathered Bear

^*Heavy Furred Wolf

Lakota

Pawnee Killer

^* Bad Tongue

Kwahadi Comanche

Quanah Parker

^*Wolf Walking Alone

^*Snake Brother

^*Coal Bear

^*Bums Red

^*Standing

^*Rain Woman

^*Bridge

^*Big Mule

^*Dives Backward

^*Old Owl Man

^*Tortoise Shell