Titus Bass Series by Terry C. Johnston
Titus Bass #1
Dance on the Wind tb-1
Terry C. Johnston
The sequel to Dance on the Wind continues the saga of the adventures of Titus ""Scratch"" Bass, a nineteenth-century Kentucky farm boy who becomes a frontiersman along the Ohio River. Reprint.
From Publishers Weekly Fourth in Johnston's series of historicals about mountain man Titus Bass (after One-Eyed Dream), this entry goes back to Titus's youth, in the early 1800s. The opening pages, covering the future legend's years as a Kentucky farmboy, move slowly as Titus debates whether to run away from home. The story picks up speed, plot and action when, restless and hungry for adventure at age 16, he finally does, joining the jolly crew of a flatboat carrying cargo from Cincinnati to New Orleans, a dangerous 1000-mile trip down the majestic Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Handy with a long rifle, pistol and knife, Titus survives Indian attacks, barroom brawls and highway robbery, leaving few opponents upright. When not slugging, shooting and stabbing, he expends his remaining teenage energy as a randy-and not too particular-backwoods Lothario. After his successful trip downriver, Titus still dreams of going west to see the far mountains, plains and buffalo. Then, abruptly, Johnston puts the brake on the pace and rhythm of his story by having his hero languish in St. Louis as a blacksmith until he is 30. The novel's final hundred pages are as dull as the first hundred, as Titus makes horseshoes, gets drunk and listens to others tell tales of the mysterious West. Still, the historical and geographic descriptions are vivid, as are the many hearty and colorful characters. Hopefully, the next Titus Bass book will find both the mountain man and his creator busy with the action that each handles so well.
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Titus Bass #2
Buffalo Palace tb-2
Terry C. Johnston
In Buffalo Palace , the young Titus Bass sights, and then sets out into, the vast Rocky Mountain country, where he has his initial experiences with trapping beaver, surviving the freezing winter, fighting fierce Indians and even fiercer fellow mountain men, and celebrating at the hard-earned summer rendezvous. Most memorably, we walk with Titus as he first sees the immense herd which originally fueled his wanderlust, and now feeds, clothes and houses the frontier's pioneers, when he reaches the country lovingly called the "Buffalo Palace."
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Titus Bass #3
Crack in the Sky tb-3
Terry C. Johnston
Crack in the Sky continues the development of the young Titus Bass as he gradually learns the lore of the mountain man. From a raucous rendezvous of trappers to a searing fight with Comanche, from a frigid winter's chill to the angry heat of a chase with horse thieves, Titus Bass's West comes alive in the pages of this remarkable novel--and in its final scene, Titus Bass will meet young Josiah Paddock and form the deep friendship explored in the pagers of Carry the Wind.
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Titus Bass #7
Ride the Moon Down tb-7
Terry C. Johnston
The time of the mountain man is coming to an end...but some--like Titus Bass will not exit gently. A brilliantly exciting and thoroughly researched novel of the end of the dream that was the unmapped and virgin wilderness in the American West starring the king of the mountain men, Titus Bass.
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Titus Bass #8
Death Rattle tb-8
Terry C. Johnston
With the end of the beaver trade at hand, free trappers like Titus Bass must somehow make their way on a changing frontier. Drawn by the promise of adventure and wealth, Bass joins an expedition to Spanish California, where the ranchos have horses and mules in abundance. Their plan is to steal the livestock and drive it back east across the great Mojave Desert to sell to fur traders for top dollar. But pursuit by formidable Mexican soldiers and an attack by fierce Digger Indians take their toll on Bass and his fellow raiders.
Arriving back in the Rockies, the mountain man discovers that even the famous Jim Bridger has abandoned trapping and settled down to trade with overland immigrants plying the Oregon Trail. Wondering where his own trail will lead him, Bass journeys south for a reunion with an old friend in Taos-only to be caught up in the "Taos Rebellion." And in its tragic aftermath, Titus finds himself once again an outsider in a world he no longer recognizes.
From Publishers Weekly This latest installment in the apparently never-ending adventures of intrepid mountain man Titus Bass aka "Scratch" carries Johnston's fearless hero far from the Rockies on a horse raid in pre-Mexican War California. Joining up with a band of two dozen similarly ragtag refugees from the failing beaver trade, Bass trails across the deadly desert lands of the Southwest, fighting thirst, hunger and, of course, frequent battles with fierce adversaries. Along the way, he's shot several times, pierced by a number of arrows and always saved from certain death by the arrival of some friend or other left dangling in a previous novel. Upon their return, and after slaughtering a number of evil Mexicans, the rustlers discover only a small market for their four-legged booty. Bass and his bigoted buddies end up rescuing settlers caught in the Taos Rebellion, an uprising of Pueblo Indians. There's little of value in this picaresque tall tale. Bass is the only character who is developed beyond one dimension, and his heroics strain belief. The plot is episodic and quirky, with pitched battles against the odds occurring frequently, linked by Bass's ruminations on his adventures in previous Johnston novels, complete with footnotes to direct the reader to the proper title. The story is pockmarked with meticulous lessons in woodcraft and even, at one point, wall plastering. Other footnotes clarify geographic and linguistic references for the uninitiated. Brief outbursts of realism and description indicate that Johnston has done his homework, but the novel is further marred by careless overwriting, including hokey, inconsistent and often anachronistic dialect.
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Titus Bass #9
Wind Walker tb-9
Terry C. Johnston
The wild and free world of the mountain man is quickly fading into the past. For Titus Bass, leading his family north to winter with the Crow people, the journey is a sad one. He must save an old friend from death and rescue his daughter Magpie from cutthroat traders. He will try to free a wagon train of innocents from its unscrupulous leader, and he will try to come to terms with his long-lost daughter Amanda, bound for a new home in a faraway land Bass himself will never see.
But when he arrives in the land of the Crow, he finds old friends–and old ways–dying out. Determined to live out his final years in peace, Bass comes to realize that on the changing frontier, survival is never a certain thing. Soon he will face his greatest lesson and hardest challenge of all–one that might cost the last of the legendary mountain men his life.
From Publishers Weekly In this 30th book (after Lay the Mountains Low), award-winning western novelist Johnston puts the final arrow into his remarkable mountain man hero, the resilient and ever-resourceful Titus Bass. Johnston's beautifully crafted Titus Bass series chronicles more than 30 years of trapping, hunting and Indian fighting in the great Rocky Mountains and on the plains of the early American West. This last installment covers six years (1847- 1853) and sees the scarred, aging, one-eyed mountain man struggling to find peace and sanctuary in a changing world. The fur trade is finished, free mountain men are few and white immigrants are flooding the pristine and untamed wilderness. Bass knows his independent way of life is over, so he takes his Indian family north, hoping to settle with his wife's Crow relatives. Bass's final journey, however, will not be easy. Accompanied by Bass's old saddle pal, Shadrach Sweete, the clan must rescue Bass's Indian daughter from rape-minded Frenchmen, defeat a cowardly gang of wagon-train cutthroats, fight a losing battle against Brigham Young's Mormons and battle blizzards, snakebite and wolf attacks. Titus Bass is a believable, enduring character, a solitary man who lives by his wits, believes in mountain justice and is willing to use rifle or tomahawk to settle a score when he knows right is on his side. This bloody tale of a man who values his family's safety above all else is one of the most evocative and powerful books in the series. Bass fans will be energized by the novel, but sad to see the last of the old mountain man.
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