Based on a true story, 1844-1853, before and during the California Gold Rush -- real people and historical events brought to life, names unchanged. Californio Pedro Valdez, Miwok "Indian Mary" and Elitha Donner from the tragically snowed-in wagon train, people of three cultures entwined in a drama of power and paradise lost. This update of West's best-seller includes details unavailable when originally researched in the early 1990s. Expanded endnotes tell the reader where fiction fills the gaps of history and where the characters are buried. For centuries, Indian Mary's people have lived peacefully on the land by the Cosumnes River. Pedro loves her and desires the land for his own rancho, but Perry McCoon stakes his claim and brings his 14-year-old Donner bride. Then the stampede for gold sweeps all before it.

The fates of Miwok?Indian Mary,? Elitha Donner of the Donner Party, and proud Californio Pedro Valdez entwine in a drama of passion and power on the ranch now owned by the author. 1844-1853.

This is a story about my life. I am hoping that it will inspire you to follow your dreams as I have done so.

Reproduction of the original: The Red River Half-Breed by Gustave Aimard

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

In The Red River in Southwestern History, Carl Newton Tyson traces the river’s history from the time of early Spanish and French explorers to the present day, leading his readers to a new appreciation of the river and the region. From the Staked Plains of the Texas Panhandle the river flows down to buffalo and prairie dog country and through the Cross Timbers. It continues eastward to the Great Bend and through the cypresses of Louisiana’s bayou country, joining the Mississippi River south of Natchez. Whereas the Red River was a source of water to the Spaniards as they searched for gold, at Natchitoches, French trader Louis Juchereau de St. Denis traded with the Caddo Indians. Conflicts soon developed between French traders and Spaniards in Texas as they competed for land along the Red. Years later, the Red River featured again as part of the settlement in the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty, negotiated by Spanish minister Luis de Onís y Gonzales and U.S. secretary of state John Quincy Adams, which finally brought to an end the western boundary disputes between Spain and the United States lingering since the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. In 1852 Randolph Marcy discovered the source of the Red River—a mountain rivulet cutting a deep canyon through the Staked Plains. Marcy’s testimony in the Greer County border dispute between Oklahoma and Texas was key to the U.S. Supreme Court decision favoring Oklahoma. In the decades between 1930 and 1970, dams were built along the Red by the U.S. Corps of Engineers to control floods, generate electricity, and create lakes for recreation along the Oklahoma-Texas border.

In the 1988 Winter Olympics, the Soviet bloc athletes won 56 medals, while the United States won six. Written by the former sports psychologist for the Soviet Olympic team, this book reveals Russian and East German techniques for peak performance training.