Rosalyn Eves - Beyond the Mapped Stars

Blood Rose Rebellion

Lost Crow Conspiracy

Winter War Awakening

this is a borzoi book published by alfred a. knopf

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2021 by Rosalyn Eves

Cover photographs copyright 2021 by Trevillion Images

Title page art by Shutterstock.com/sripfoto

Cast of characters page art by Shutterstock.com/suns07butterfly

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Childrens Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN9781984849557 (trade) ISBN9781984849564 (lib. bdg.) ebook ISBN9781984849571

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To Dan, for believing in me even when I doubt

And to the skeptical believers and believing skeptics: there is room for us too

Per aspera ad astra

m. Olena Nilsson (1876)

Elizabeth! Mamas voice floats up the valley toward my seat near the mouth of our narrow canyon, light as the cottonwood seeds drifting in piles beside the creek.

Her call jars me from my book, and I blink at the long gold light of the summer evening lingering in the valley like a cup of honeyed tea. As the sound of my name settles, I close my eyes, blotting out the ink on the open pages before me, the faint stars beginning to emerge in the sky above. I wish it were so easy to block out my mothers voice.

Im not supposed to be here, perched on a rocky outcropping overlooking the Little Green Valley like some fledgling about to launch from its nest.

I should be home, helping prepare the little ones for bed, bathing four-year-old Rachel and seven-year-old Henry, who gave themselves mud baths near the creek earlier.

But Im not ready to leave. Not ready to abandon my perch or my view of the emerging stars. Not ready to face home, where I am surrounded by people I love but who are sometimes too much, their voices and bodies too big for the frame house Far built. Not ready to abandon my book, a gloriously ridiculous dime novel about a man named Texas Jack, army scout turned frontier hero.

Most everything about the book is unfamiliar, the pages full of blood-curdling deeds and high adventure, of betrayal and true love, and people who dont at all resemble the westerners I know. In Texas Jacks world, desperate thieves stage daring robberies. Tyrannical trail bosses misuse their cowboy employees. Fragile women faint at an oath, and cunning Indians plot against whites while mangling English. Worst of all are the Mormons, who are invariably dastardly or foolish dupes. Ive never met an outlaw or known a woman to faint so easily. The Paiutes who live in our valley are mostly peaceful; Brother Timican, who attends our church meetings in a suit and collared shirt, speaks better English than many of the Danish and Swedish immigrants. And the Mormonsmy sister Emily and I save the best passages to share, to laugh at how wrong these eastern writers get us.