The Last Ghost Dancer, by Tony Bender, $24.99
“The Last Ghost Dancer” is one of those stories that grab the reader by the heart and never let go.
Opening his story in Pale Butte, S.D., during the summer of 1977, author Bender introduces Bones, a grease monkey at the small town’s only gas station.
But Bones is also a man of insight who knows that as peaceful as his home town seems, appearances can be deceiving. The mere thought of spending his future “dribbling Edsels off the concrete has little appeal.”
Even falling in love fails to spark his interest.
Sixty years pass, and a favorite pet dies. By now Bones has learned that “there are many parts of truth” in the world. The battle of Wounded Knee was one.
Yet, ultimately, it is a turn of events that some in town claim to be a miracle that gives Tony Bender’s “The Last Ghost Dancer” the edge. It’s a first-rate story.
Stolen Horses, by Dan O’Brien, $19.95
Dan O’Brien’s latest is the timeless tale of the clash between the old and new, of those born on the land and those with only city air in their lungs, of the power of loneliness.
Central to the story is Eleanor Stiener. Having survived a divorce five years ago, Eleanor now serves as director of the McDermot Area Arts Council in Nebraska’s Pawnee River valley, lives a quiet, routine life alone in a large red sandstone house known as the Butler place.
And she has no interest in change.
But when a local journalist uncovers a medical scandal and Carl Lindquist walks into her life, Eleanor knows she must try to save the town.
Though tending to excessive detail that occasionally overwhelms the plot, the central characters and the theme of “Stolen Horses” could well bring the author a second Western Heritage Award.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist who writes regularly about new regional fiction.
