Blood Brothers

Blood Brothers: This novel, based on an old Indian story, was told to me many years ago. It is about a drop of blood from a very small cut on two boys wrists; One Blackfoot, one white, bonding them forever as blood brothers. Bear Chief: Great chief of the Blackfoot Nation pushed by Union Army stationed at Fort Shaw to a reservation near the "backbone" today known as Glacier Park. Flower Woman: Wife of Bear Chief. Her still-born baby is secretly replaced by a newborn white man's child. The infant found barely alive had been shielded by his dead mother. Indian boys, passing by, find the dead woman; take the baby to Bear Chief. Little Bear: Grows up in the Blackfoot tradition; at age fifteen he stumbles upon a piece of calico cloth and discovers his true identity. He is united with his biological father. Retired Commander of Ft. Shaw: Indians call him Old Man Who Lives in a Cave. Blackrobes at St. Peter's Mission: Priests educate Little Bear; aka Thomas Jerome. He graduates from Carlisle Indian School; moves to Washington; now a lawyer; he works on Original Government Peace Treaties with the Native Americans. Eagle Feather: Speaks white man's tongue learned from Mountain Men; reads and writes the white man scratches on paper; his past also has a secret. A fine thread weaves smoothly through the pages, revealing ceremonial Vision Quests and traditional Native American ways.