Two Blankets
A Novel of the West
Trapped in the deadly conflict between two cultures, a young native girl struggles to survive.
In 1850, on the great Columbia River, a ten-year-old Nez Perce girl’s life is changed forever. Stolen and made a mistshimus—a slave—to the Chinook, Little Mouse struggles to escape only to be caught and beaten. Tracked and returned a third time, the chief of the local band, Tyee Running Blade, says he will kill her on her next attempt. She knows defeat at last and becomes Girl-With-No-Name, for as a mistshimus, she has no right to any property—not even a name.
When she becomes a woman, her favors are sold to the Tyee’s son, Standing Bear. Unfortunately, they develop an affection for each other, something forbidden to a mistshimus and noble-born. She is cut from shoulder to wrist as punishment and sold to a white man, Marshall Johnston, to be his wife. So begin her struggles with a white man who does not care for her and a tribe for respect, earning a place in the history of the Chinook and her own name—Two Blankets.
Two Blankets is a true heroine you can believe in. With only the weapons she possesses, her cleverness, integrity, and honesty, can she hope to prevail against a tribe which owns her, a husband who abuses her, and the oncoming flood of settlers to whom she is only an obstacle.
R.L. Adare
