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Buffalo Dreamers
Synopsis for a new novel

By JOHN NEWMAN

Lakota Chief Arvol Looking Horse at buffalo blessing ceremony, Gardiner, MT


2201 Mulberry Terrace
San Rafael, CA 94903
415.336-3435
johnsnewman@aol.com
represented by Nancy Ellis Literary Agency

Buffalo Dreamers is a contemporary adventure-thriller – arising from a deadly conflict between Native American spirituality and the inherently violent values of the American west – about a herd of enchanted Yellowstone Buffalo rescued from a government extermination program in Montana. The rescuers are a rag-tag band of Native warrior-dreamers who wage a wilderness battle across five western states against the combined forces of the police, military, and the cattle industry – which believes the buffalo carry a strain of disease deadly to cattle – leading to a showdown in the snow-covered mountains of California.

The story is told from the perspective of a troubled young Iraq war vet, Sam Comstock, who experiences a profound personal healing as a result of his role in the rescue. He has come to the northern boundary of Yellowstone Park in Montana along with a tough but empathetic, older Nevada game warden, BJ (a Vietnam vet), and a bloodthirsty contract hunter, Oxnard. Sam’s need for healing is at the heart of the story. The post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) that he suffers as a result of his Iraq war experience, where he served as a Marine Corps sniper, has left him close to suicide. This is made apparent by a necklace he wears that has a bullet and two dog tags as a reminder of the war: the tags are his own, and that of a fallen buddy; the bullet is live. He tells himself and others that the bullet is simply a bit of military decoration. But deep down he knows that it is there for a reason: to take his own life if his relationship with the world, and himself, doesn’t get sorted out. The Native Americans, buffalo, and conflicts he encounters on his Montana trip combine to bring him to the very edge of survival, and ultimately provide the necessary transformative inspiration to resolve his inner demons.

At the outset, he risks everything to save a pale white buffalo calf imbued with deep spiritual significance, largely to impress a conflicted wildlife biologist, Kate. She struggles with her Lakota-Sioux Indian identity, even as she tries to prove that the herd is no threat to the cattle industry. When Sam is taken hostage by Medicine Dog, a Crow tribe member of the rescuers, his relationship with Kate is made much more complicated by the triangular involvement of a charismatic young tribal leader, Crazy Wolf.

Also a vet, Crazy Wolf is a northern-Cheyenne, capable of predicting the future through the intermediary power of the buffalo. In addition to his mystical sensibility, he has a pragmatic grasp of how the world works. He came to Yellowstone to propose that the Natives enter into an agreement with a national waste management (garbage) firm to lease out a bit of their considerable land holdings in exchange for a level of resources that will allow them to become more independent. This proposal puts him at odds with some of the Natives, especially with Medicine Dog. But when Crazy Wolf fails to sign the contract due to his immediate concern for the buffalo, he also puts himself in harm’s way with the diabolical garbage representative, Tino Gugliardi.

For Sam, who strategically uses his professional knowledge of terrain and natural predators to gain his release as a hostage – but then chooses to remain with the group in order to stay close to Kate – the fasting, dreaming, and close contact with the buffalo he experiences along the way destabilizes his conventional view of the world, leading to a whole new understanding of personal power. Meanwhile, the tensions within the small band threaten to spill over into widespread bloodshed. The tension is exacerbated by the romantic conflict between Sam, Kate, and Crazy Wolf. She and Sam have an explosive sexual magnetism, but as the journey continues, she realizes that despite her rational-scientific views, she is much more attracted to the mythic qualities of Crazy Wolf, and to her own identity as a Native American.

After a series of dramatic confrontations and events, including a resurrection of the Sun Dance, the group makes its final stand in the high Sierras, where an encampment of Christian fundamentalists awaits the Armageddon. As the final storm of winter settles over the mountains, a modern version of the Donner Party unfolds. The end-timers have resorted to cannibalism to sustain themselves and regard the arrival of the Natives as “food from Heaven.” By now, Sam feels a tremendous bond with the buffalo and is committed to seeing them to safety. He and Crazy Wolf orchestrate an escape, but to Sam’s despair, he realizes that he has ultimately lost Kate to Crazy Wolf, and with her, the desire to live. The buffalo lead everyone in a final push through the deepening snows to reservation lowlands near Pyramid Lake in Nevada, where the previously doomed animals will be protected by Native sovereignty. Sam feels that his work is done. But just when he is about to use his last bullet on himself, a lone sniper – Tino Gugliardi, who is outraged at having lost the Native garbage contract – picks off one after another of the buffalo. Crazy Wolf sacrifices himself to save the sacred buffalo calf, forcing Sam to choose between shooting Tino in order to save the calf, or carrying out his suicidal impulse. Inspired by Crazy Wolf and the sacred power of the buffalo, Sam chooses life.

The story ends with Sam and Kate standing witness as flames consume Crazy Wolf’s body on a funeral pyre. Sam feels strengthened by the choice he made and realizes that this one first step can lead him on a path to recovery. When Kate tells him that she must be true to her Lakota roots and go back to the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation, Sam accepts her decision and wishes her well. He sees BJ pull up on a nearby dirt road, and joins him for the drive back to his home in Nevada.

The novel is rich in natural and cultural history with a strong focus on Native American spirituality, wolf-buffalo predator-prey dynamics, and the sweeping landscapes of the Rockies and far West. The threat of infectious disease from the Yellowstone buffalo is a very controversial issue in Montana that has resulted in the slaughter of thousands of wild bison. This, coupled with the PTSD healing theme running through the story, and the powerfully conflicted romance between Sam and Kate, makes for a novel with wide, contemporary appeal.

The authenticity of the novel is rooted in John Newman’s extensive personal experience with Native Americans, Montana ranching, and background research with PTSD veterans and medical professionals.

His close relationship with the Northern Cheyenne was the focus of a recent news article that can be seen at the following link: http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_11557006

 

PEYOTE MOON
Synopsis for a new novel

By JOHN NEWMAN

Cave Rock on the East shore of Lake Tahoe, where the Washo believe that Water Babies (me'tsunge) congregate and which is believed to contain the entrance to a tunnel that allowed them to travel to the adjoining Carson Valley waterways

A haunting sense of magic realism and Native American spirituality permeates the fast driving outdoor adventure and laconic humor of Peyote Moon, an eco-ethnic thriller about the battle for water in the contemporary American west.

The novel focuses on the peyote-infused love affair of a young shamanic Washo woman ('Da-ow), and an earthy Nevada State game warden (Sam Comstock). ‘Da-ow identifies Lake Tahoe as the source of her considerable personal powers, which diminish along with her health as her love affair with Sam intensifies. This becomes much more impactful for both of them when, following some lightening-charged lovemaking in Sam's fire-tower lookout home, they learn she is pregnant.

The promise of a child fills Sam with unexpected joy, motivated in large part by his desire to compensate for a broken family and an unhappy childhood. For ‘Da-ow, who was abandoned as a child, the situation is complicated by her uncertainty whether or not she is Washo, which is an essential component to fulfilling her shamanic powers. Although it eventually turns out that her declining health is due to a life threatening ectopic pregnancy, both she and Sam believe that if the Lake dies, she will die.

It soon becomes apparent that Tahoe is profoundly threatened from a scheme to utilize a legendary underwater passageway to divert water into the adjacent lower lying Carson Basin. When Sam discovers that the perpetrator of the scheme is Benjamin Turnbull, a Washo “captain” or chief, who abused ‘Da-ow as a child, and to whom ‘Da-ow is unwillingly betrothed, his challenge of saving the Lake in order to save ‘Da-ow becomes a deadly earnest game of eco-ethnic warfare.

The culminating confrontation between Sam and Benjamin decides the fate of the Lake, of ‘Da-ow, and of Ben’s epically proportioned egocentrism. Along the way, the story addresses the sustaining powers of Nature, Love, and Family, as well as reviving the Ghost Dance and reintroducing Grizzly Bears into the wilds.