HORSES THEY RODE

FOR RELEASE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1, 2006

Contact: Chris Cauble, phone 1-866-787-2363

HORSES THEY RODE

A novel by Sid Gustafson

Description

Horses They Rode is a dramatic story of love, family, and changing cultures. It takes place along the rugged Rocky Mountain Front in Montana, where ranchers and Native Americans uneasily share the vast landscape with each other, wild animals, and fast horses.

Bruised from a divorce, Wendel Ingraham abandons his hardscrabble life as a racehorse trainer and returns to the mountain foothill ranch where he was raised. There he confronts his past and tries to build a future with his young daughter. The novel lyrically weaves his journey through women, children, horses, and Indian spirituality, culminating in a dramatic horse race.

Gustafson’s beautifully crafted writing limns the intense and complex interactions between men and women, fathers and daughters, Native Americans and whites, and animals and nature. His storytelling and language is full of rhythm and surprise.

Title: HORSES THEY RODE

Category: Fiction (a contemporary novel)

Author: Sid Gustafson

Release Date: October 1, 2006

Format: Hardcover, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 288 pages

Price: $24.95

ISBN 10: 1-931832-74-9; ISBN 13: 978-1-931832-74-8

Publisher: Riverbend Publishing, Helena, Montana

Press releases and related documents may be copied electronically at www.riverbendpublishing.com. Click to the book description and click on “Press releases.” Or email ccauble@riverbendpublishing.com to have the documents sent via email.

FOR RELEASE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1, 2006

Contact: Chris Cauble, phone 1-866-787-2363

Email ccauble@riverbendpublishing.com

HORSES THEY RODE

A novel by Sid Gustafson

Story synopsis

Wendel Ingraham departs the devious workings of the Playfair Racecourse in Spokane, Washington, on the eastbound passenger train, Empire Builder. A forlorn man, he leaves behind a broken marriage and a small daughter he dearly loves. Although ticketed to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation east of Glacier National Park, he disembarks in the small resort town of Whitefish, Montana, where he was a good downhill ski racer in his youth. He looks for a drink and runs into Nancy, a former teammate. They spend the night reminiscing and making love.

The encounter confuses Wendel. By sunrise he finds himself in an empty boxcar headed over the Continental Divide. He barely survives the trip, encountering a grizzly bear on the way, and wakes up in a desolate railroad yard with his old mentor, Bubbles Ground Owl, a part-time Blackfeet Medicine Man.

Continued on reverse

After too much hard drinking, the pair head to a cattle ranch owned by a pretentious white rancher, Rip Ripley. It is the ranch where Wendel grew up, mostly without his parents. After a week of sobering up, Wendel and Bubbles fall into the ranch life they both once knew well.

The two become a team, reunited after a lost decade. They ride the range and tend to the horses and cattle. They help each other cope. Bubbles immerses Wendel in a native spirituality rooted in the depths of an ancient animal connectedness. Both learn to live in a more positive fashion.

Then the ranch owner’s half-blood Indian daughter, Gretchen, shows up with a 12-year-old son and announces that Wendel is the boy’s father. The son Wendel never knew he had is the only heir to the largest ranch on the reservation.

As autumn approaches, Wendel must reconcile two fatherhoods and an array of complex relationships with women. The story culminates in several exciting events—vision quests, divorce and marriage, death and inheritance, and a thrilling cross-country horse race along the rugged Rocky Mountain Front. The conclusion rings with native resonance as Wendel finally understands his life and the lives of his children.

FOR RELEASE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1, 2006

Contact: Chris Cauble, phone 1-866-787-2363

Email ccauble@riverbendpublishing.com

HORSES THEY RODE

A novel by Sid Gustafson

About the Author

Sid Gustafson lives in Bozeman, Montana, with his children Connor and Nina where he writes and practices his natural approach to veterinary medicine. He is the author of the novels Prisoners of Flight (The Permanent Press, 2003) and Horses They Rode, as well as the guidebook First Aid for the Active Dog (Alpine Publications). He was born in Montana, as were his parents and children.

Praise for Sid Gustafson’s Prisoners of Flight

“This is a haunting book. It is refreshing to come across a literary account of The Real Thing—so graphic, so poetically rendered.”

The Independent

“Gustafson manages both an economy of words and a compelling lyricism. There is much that is satisfying about Prisoners of Flight.”

Washington State Magazine

“The book’s imagery and sparse, elegant language pulls you through. Linguistic gems pepper almost every page.”

Bozeman Daily Chronicle