The coming of age story about Fred, a boy who is sent into the desert with very few resources to help build his family's homestead. Many colorful characters come into his life, among them ranchers, prostitutes, miners and other unlikely mentors. Over eleven hard years as a homesteader, hard-rock miner and buckaroo, he learns to live in solitude and keep his emotions in check. Oh, he also learns to dig a ditch.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK "A WISE, SPIRITED NOVEL . . . IN WHICH] SMILEY PLUMBS THE WONDROUSLY STRANGE WORLD OF HORSE RACING." --People "ONE OF THE PREMIER NOVELISTS OF HER GENERATION, possessed of a mastery of craft and an uncompromising vision that grow more powerful with each book . . . Racing's eclectic mix of classes and personalities provides Smiley with fertile soil . . . Expertly juggling storylines, she investigates the sexual, social, psychological, and spiritual problems of wealthy owners, working-class bettors, trainers on the edge of financial ruin, and, in a typically bold move, horses." --The Washington Post "A NOVEL OF PASSION IN EVERY SENSE . . . SHE DOES] IT ALL WITH APLOMB . . . WITH A DEMON NARRATIVE INTELLIGENCE." --The Boston Sunday Globe "WITTY, ENERGETIC . . . It's deeply satisfying to read a work of fiction so informed about its subject and so alive to every nuance and detail . . . Smiley's] final chapters have a wonderful restorative quality." --The New York Times Book Review "RICHLY DETAILED, INGENIOUSLY CONSTRUCTED . . . YOU WILL REVEL IN JANE SMILEY'S HORSE HEAVEN." --San Diego Union-Tribune Chosen by the Los Angeles Times as One of the Best Books of the Year "From the Trade Paperback edition."

An epic saga based on true events of the American West —with the trailblazing fur trappers and the mountain men who lived it. This is an unforgettable journey into the untamed American frontier. Where nature is cruel, violence lurks behind every tree, and where only the strongest of the strong survive. This is a story of America. TO THE RIVER’S END Luke Ransom was just eighteen years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed one-hundred enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River—the longest in North America—all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job—and one of the few to survive . . . Five years later, Luke is a seasoned trapper and hunter, a master of his trade. The year is 1833, and the American Fur Company is sending him to the now-famous Rendezvous at Green River. For Luke, it may be his last job for the company. After facing death countless times, he is ready to strike out on his own. But when he encounters a fellow trapper under attack by Indians, his life takes an unexpected turn. A new friendship is forged in blood. And a dangerous new journey begins…

Is time travel possible?...There are scientists who believe that it will be in a few years. But who knows for sure what nature can do, or forces higher than we? I sure don’t,...and neither did Cory and Jessica Vance,...until it happened! One minute, they were asleep in their own bed, in 2007, and the next morning, they woke up in someone else’s house, in the year 1876! Sound bizarre?...To say the least! Why did it happen to them,...and for what reason? That was only two of a few dozen questions they pondered on for the next sixteen days,...and became an adventure they would never forget! They were doing things only imagined before. They were suffering fear of the unknown, fear of losing their humanity or, who they were,...all without knowing why it had happened? There were dozens of theories, maybes and what ifs, but the bottom line was that they were thought to be someone they were not and because of that, were forced to carry out an event that had already happened once,...but now, it would happen again, with them as the new cast in an ongoing serial. They were about to face dying at the hands of a ruthless killer if the madman’s plot succeeded,...and it would succeed unless Cory was able to change the outcome of what had already happened! But if he did, they also knew that it could change the future and that, blended with the dreaded fear of dying was what worried them the most. The thought of leaving their family, and they not knowing what had happened to them was devastating. But they had no choice, they had been sent to the past, obviously to right a wrong that happened there. But why,...to fix a wrong that happened in 2007?...One that was about to happen,...what? They may never know! This is a time odyssey, a glimpse of what could be possible,...and no one knows for certain that it is not,...and who knows, science may discover the secret, but if it does, it’ll be because a greater force allowed it, a force that already has the formula.

Favorite horse stories from one of the West's favorite writers.