Faraway Blue - by Max Evans (Paperback)

About the Book

Sergeant Moses Williams is a black horseback fighter in a white man's campaign to eradicate the Indian. While Williams is pursuing an old Apache chief who leads strikes on mining camps, he rescues a mulatto woman from a brothel and falls in love. His lover takes a desperate chance during his final meeting with the enemy.

Book Synopsis

"Evans paints marvelous word pictures of a land and people he knows extremely well."--Booklist

"As always with Evans, written with a good sense of the times and place."--Kirkus

First published in 1999, Faraway Blue is based on the real-life exploits of Sergeant Moses Williams, former slave, Civil War veteran, and Buffalo Soldier in the Ninth Cavalry Regiment. Included in Moses's story are four women and two men representing the ethnic groups and economic levels found in the late 1800s American Southwest.

At the story's opening, Williams's cavalry unit has one assignment: kill Apaches in the "faraway blue" mountains of southwestern New Mexico Territory, also known as the Black Range. As a fighter in the white man's campaign to obliterate the Indians and take over their lands, Williams finds a nemesis in Nana, an old Warm Springs Apache warrior who is a tactical genius. Nana leads his small band of followers to repeatedly strike area mining camps and settlements. Both men know they must meet before the end of the war and a maddening cat-and-mouse pursuit ensues.

Williams is sustained by his love for Sheela Jones, a mulatto whom he wants to marry when the army will allow it. But Sheela's love for Moses guides her to take an immense risk just as Moses and Nana ride out to settle their score.

From the Back Cover

Faraway Blue is based on the real-life exploits of Sergeant Moses Williams, former slave, Civil War veteran, and Buffalo Soldier.

Review Quotes

"[Evans] creates a world in which family fealty, youthful passion, aged wisdom and the bonds of community feel real, creating along the way very strong women characters who help to bust out of any mere genre classification and into the larger realm of literature."

""Faraway Blue" is a welcome reminder of just how good a storyteller Max Evans is."

"ÝEvans¨ creates a world in which family fealty, youthful passion, aged wisdom and the bonds of community feel real, creating along the way very strong women characters who help to bust out of any mere genre classification and into the larger realm of literature."

"Evans has a gift with storytelling. His descriptions are intense and colorful. There is beauty in the starkenss of the 'faraway blue'."

"Evans tells a crackling, fast-paced story that is not afraid to take time for thought and tenderness."