By the 1870s, the novel’s time period, the local tribes have been cornered into reservations, forced to give up their semi-nomadic way of life to make room for the ever-increasing numbers of miners and settlers coming across the Oregon Trail, not to mention the soldiers sent to protect the newcomers. But, the Indians have not been given the provisions and money promised them and many are starving on the reservations. Tensions are reaching a boiling point.
Desert Angels opens with young Eva Beardsley who has left upstate New York to join her cousin in Walla Walla, Washington Territory. Traveling ahead of her family she takes the train as far as she can, planning to finish her journey by stage. The journey is particularly dangerous as Indians, always a wild card for settlers, have been attacking ranchers and miners.
On the stagecoach Eva meets Sergeant Jim Adams and the two fall instantly in love. Inexplicably, Eva abandons the stage to hide in the sergeant’s wagon when he sets off to join his unit. This strange action sets her on a journey to meet with Sarah Winnemucca (an historical figure), the daughter of a Paiute chief, educated by whites, and something of an emissary between the two communities.
Sarah was on a journey of her own, heading east to tell the story of her people’s suffering, which she aborts to help avert the seemingly inevitable fighting. She thinks whites and Indians should learn to get along, but nobody seems to have any clear idea of how that might happen. More immediately, she wants to extricate her immediate family from the war in which they have become embroiled through intrigue and politics on the part of less accommodating tribal leaders. She and Eva become unlikely allies (given that Eva know nothing about the situation or the country).
Meanwhile, the rest of the Beardsley family trudges along the trail, often beside the railroad taking west other settlers who could afford the fare. As they get closer to the territories they hear more and more about the Indian troubles up ahead and their concern for Eva increases—the reasons for sending a teenage girl alone on such a long, arduous journey are never fully explained.
There’s no real suspense here. Despite all the fighting and danger it never seems likely that anyone important will die—like characters in a TV drama who need to show up again next week they have a way of always squeaking through. There’s a lot of period detail, and some vignettes that might well be drawn from the historical record. The story might have been better served by a straightforward non-fiction telling.
A long and sprawling novel with some interesting descriptions of late nineteenth century western settlement. Ultimately, though its plot is too weak to hold it all together.
Reviewed by Brid Nowlan for IndieReader