This is the only complete set of ALL SIX books of the Rendezvous Series!
SO WILD A DREAM: In the Ree villages, Sam faces treachery and death. While among the Crows, he falls in love with a woman named Meadowlark. From the Bois Brulés, Snakes, and Pawnees, he learns native crafts, lore, and mysticism. But Sam’s best teacher is hard-won experience. On a grueling seven-hundred-mile trek, alone and on foot, across the Great Plains to Fort Atkinson on the Missouri River, he endures a devastating prairie fire and comes to grips with the price of survival.
BEAUTY FOR ASHES: Rich in historical detail, Beauty for Ashes continues Sam Morgan’s epic quest. Sam yearns for more than wealth—he dreams of Meadowlark, the Crow Indian woman who taught him love. When his companions set a course for the Wind River country and Meadowlark’s village, Sam will have one more chance to win his heart’s desire. First, however, he must survive the arduous journey, from cruel winter storms to debilitating illnesses. Sam learns to hunt buffalo and track beaver, and battles warriors of the Pawnee, Lakota, and Blackfeet tribes. Held captive by the Sioux, he makes a daring escape, and faces his most difficult challenge yet when Meadowlark’s family demands that he perform a great deed to prove himself worthy of her love.
DANCING WITH THE GOLDEN BEAR: Sam faces his harshest test yet. Jedediah Smith puts together a brigade for a trip into uncharted territory—Mexican California. Sam Morgan eagerly joins up, bringing his Crow wife, Meadowlark, along. Smith hopes to find the Buenaventura, a mighty river thought to connect the Great Salt Lake to California. The river proves to be a myth; the expedition becomes a test of sheer will. The starving trappers rely on Indians willing to share their food. When Sam and crew reach the San Gabriel Mission, they are turned away by the Mexican government and flee back into the desert. Meadowlark endures a life-threatening childbirth. Heading for the safety of the Monterey mission, Sam recognizes the truth of what Hannibal McKye said long ago: “Life is like a golden bear. It’s magnificent, it’s beautiful, and it bites.”
“Through clever storytelling, and the seamless insertion of important background information, Blevins has made sure that readers unfamiliar with the series can follow each book on its own.” – Booklist
HEAVEN IS A LONG WAY OFF: Sam Morgan faces the most daunting task of his adventuresome life. It is 1827 and he, with the trapping brigade commanded by Jedediah Smith, has been expelled from Mexican California. Sam must make a trek to the Wind Rivers for the sake of his Crow wife and their infant daughter, Eperanza. Nursing a broken heart, and in need of income, Sam rides to Santa Fe—and there he meets a beautiful widow. Soon after leaving, the herd of horses belonging to Sam and his companions are sold for a healthy profit. He returns to California to reunite with his daughter only to learn she has been taken captive in an Indian raid. Sam’s desperate mission to rescue his daughter, their escape in a frail craft down a rampaging river, and their long trek home, is a harrowing tale told by a master of the historical novel.
“Win Blevins’s novel about venturesome Sam Morgan, and the fur trade and mountain men, is both authentic and entertaining!” —Dallas Morning News.
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A decade has passed since Sam Morgan took up the rough-and-tumble life of a mountain man in the Far West. In those ten years, Sam has made his mark as a trapper, fighter, and survivor. Sam has also endured tragedy. Distraught, Sam finds a mission for himself when he determines to find and rescue two Mexican girls, Lupe and Rosalita. They have been kidnapped from their village by Navajo raiders and spirited off into the New Mexico wilderness. The search for the captive girls takes him deep into Navajo, Ute, and Blackfeet Indian territory, to Bent’s Fort in Colorado, near death at the hands of a companion, and finally to a surprise at the end of the trail, involving the missing girls and a trapper called Pegleg Smith.
“The glory years of frontier life, fresh and rich.” — Kirkus Reviews
DREAMS BENEATH YOUR FEET: Eighteen years have passed since Sam Morgan came West from Pennsylvania and learned the perilous business of trapping in the Rocky Mountain wilderness. Now, in 1840, the world has changed. The fur trade has played out, and he must find other means to make a living. Sam decides to return to California with his daughter Esperanza and start a new life. The great golden land holds a harsh memory, but friends convince him that his destiny, and that of his mixed-race family, lies on the Pacific shore.
Meadowlark’s uncle, Flat Dog, his family, and Hannibal MacKye, the half-Delaware Indian mountain man, join Sam and Esperanza for the journey west, where they hope to trade for a herd of Appaloosa horses to sell at a profit in California. On the Oregon Trail, Morgan encounters a terrified woman, Lei Palua, who has escaped the clutches of a lunatic called Kanaka Boy, whose ruthless gang has been terrifying Indian villages in the Northwest. Sam Morgan and his people take Lei Palua under their wing, unaware that her one-time lover, and now bloodthirsty nemesis, dogs her trail, vowing to kill her and all who stand in his way.
Will Sam ultimately find the solace he and his family yearn for? Live the dream!