Give Your Heart to the Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men
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For over thirty years, from the time of Lewis and Clark into the 1840s, the mountain men explored the Great American West. As trappers in a hostile, trackless land, their exploits opened the gates of the mountains for the wagon trains of pioneers who followed them. In Give Your Heart to the Hawks, Win Blevins presents a poetic tribute to these dauntless "first Westerners" and their incredible adventures. Here, among many, are the stories of:* John Colter, who, in 1808, naked and without weapons or food, escaped captivity by the Blackfeet and ran and walked 250 miles to Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Yellowstone River;* Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a grizzly in 1823, left for dead by his trapper companions, and crawled 300 miles to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri; * Kit Carson, who ran away from home at age 17, became a legendary mountain man in his 20s and served as scout and guide for John C. Fremont's westward explorations of the 1840s;* Jedediah Smith, a tall, gaunt, Bible-reading New Yorker whose trapping expeditions ranged from the Rockies to California and who was killed by Comanches on the Cimarron in 1831. Los Angeles Times "The drama and suspense of a novel...A lyrically written celebration of the lifestyle and the still astonishing deeds of the Mountain Men."
Acknowledgments9Introduction13Preface17IThe First Mountain Man21Interlude 1The Great American Desert35IIMountain Skill, Mountain Luck38Interlude 2The Trapper and Trapping59IIIFalstaff's Battalion63Interlude 3Yarning90IVQuest for Buenaventura110Interlude 4Rendezvous135VStarvin'Times139Interlude 5The Buffalo-Cuisine Premiere160VIRescue in Californy165Interlude 6Mountain Craft187VIIA Choice of Allegiance191Interlude 7Mountain Mating213VIIIWar in the Mountains218Interlude 8Exploration of the West251IXInvasion255Interlude 9Trappers and Indians289XAlpenglow294Appendix AChronology of the Fur Trade305Appendix BGlossary311Notes317Bibliography325Index329
