WESTERN NOVELS
DAKOTA TERRITORY
ROBERT STEELMAN
Recent
Harvard graduate David Crego comes to Deadwood in the Dakota Territory to visit
his brother. He is enthralled by the wild town and its denizens. He finds it all
very different and exciting, but the murder of his brother and subsequent
charges of cowardice against him quickly change his perspective. He steels
himself to find his brother’s killer, outfits himself, and sets out boldly in
pursuit—only to be immediately captured by Indians. Our hero needs a little
help, and a little mentoring, which he gets from a rough old Mountain
Man.
There’s a lot
to like in this western. Author Robert Steelman’s descriptions of the towns and
landscapes are fantastic, the story is engaging, and the secondary characters
more than hold their own. Crego is a great protagonist, he undergoes a big
transformation while struggling to stay true to himself.
Despite the
charges of cowardice leveled against him in the beginning of the story, Crego no
scaredy-cat—he was simply out of his element and over his head. As he changes
from pink cheeked, wide-eyed innocent, to a tough as nails frontiersman, you’ll
be pulling for him all the way.
Dakota Territory was published in 1974, and is one of
my longtime favorite Westerns. I reread whenever the mood strikes me, and highly
recommend it to all fans of the Western genre, especially those who enjoy a great
mountain man tale.
CONTRIBUTOR ~ KURT MIDDLEMAN
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