Publisher's Synopsis
The Qua Nie Saga: Tracking Jedediah Smith Qua Nie became a teenager shortly after the Trail of Tears. He learned to be a warrior in the skirmishes among the warring Cherokee factions. He learned to be a trader at his grandfather's three trading posts in Tahlequah, Fort Smith and Fort Gibson. In his late teens he traveled to Georgia where he was trained as a medicine man by one of the secret medicine man clans that had evaded the Removal by hiding in the wilderness near the Tennessee and North Carolina borders. Qua Nie is a mixture of Cherokee, Scots and English and is almost six feet tall and muscular. He is skilled in shooting rifles, pistols and the bow and arrow. As a warrior he had become adept at spotting ambushes and designing counter-attacks. He learns languages easily. Qua Nie: From Talking Rock to Tucson The time is the last months of the Mexican-American War and the resulting change from the Mexican state of Californio to the American state of California. It is a bloody time full of greedy men even before gold was discovered. He knows Jedediah Smith's travel legends and the Fremont and Benson attempts to create a state in Californio. He determines to spend a couple of years exploring the West, his own spiritual beliefs and his mixed heritage. He is joined by cousins, a Cherokee medicine man and a former mountain man. In spite of attempts to move unobtrusively they find themselves having to kill men who are attacking them. Kit Carson gives him sound advise and support while they are in Taos. This book ends just before they get to Californio. Qua Nie: The Gold Fields The time is the first months of the California Gold Rush. Qua Nie and his cousins arrive in San Diego four days after the Sutter's Mill discovery was announced. He decides to use the skills he learned running trading posts to create a business empire and then go to Oregon before the hordes arrive. There are greedy men who attack them and two beautiful women to spice up the adventure. He continues to pass for White at times and to claim his Cherokee heritage at others. He creates an enclave of his family and friends near Calistoga before setting off for Oregon. He also meets a huge Samoan who joins him on his spiritual questing and becomes a life-long friend. Qua Nie: Oregon and the Snake River The time is the summer of 1849 just as the California Gold Rush is beginning. Qua Nie and his Samoan friend Uriah are traveling the Jedediah Smith trail from Fort Umpqua on the Oregon coast to meet with his cousin Albert and the Cherokee medicine man Adoni at the Willamette River. They travel with men from the Maidu and Nez Perce trip to the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers for a week of rituals and dances. Members of the Cree, Wampanum and several other tribes believe that the mystic Kuk-Kia can drive the white man from their lands. Ghost Shirt dances is what this kind of ceremony was called in later years. The dances conclude with an erotic, fertility dance related to the Cherokee Green Corn dance. Along the way there are ambushes and gun fights with greedy men, both European and Indian. Qua Nie: Mount Shasta to Calistoga Qua NIe, Uriah, Adoni and Albert participate in the Maidu ceremonies at Mount Shasta as part of their spiritual search. One Maidu clan leads them to a secret gold vein that becomes Cherokee, California. Qua Nie returns to Calistoga to find many changes have happened. He has a son by Jedediah Smith's daughter. In building both his businesses and the new town of Cherokee, he continues to shift from his Scots trader role to his Cherokee warrior and mystic role. This novel ends with Qua Nie and Uriah resuming the re-tracing of the Jedediah Smith Trail and they leave for Coulter's Hell, now known as Yellowstone Park.
