A decade has passed since Sam Morgan of Pennsylvania ran away from disappointments at home and joined the rough-and-tumble life of a mountain man in the Far West. In those ten years, Sam has made his mark as a trapper, fighter, and survivor. He has also made friends with such historical notables as Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, and Tom “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick. Sam has also endured tragedy: An explorative venture into California, five years past, ended when his Crow Indian wife, Meadowlark, died in childbirth. And now his lover, the widow Paloma Luna, owner of a wealthy rancho in Taos, is dying of cancer and setting out for Mexico City to pray at the shrine of the Virgin de Guadalupe. Distraught, Sam finds a mission for himself when he determines to find and rescue two Mexican girls, Lupe and Rosalita, who have been kidnapped from their village by Navajo raiders and spirited off into the New Mexico wilderness. The search for the captive girls takes him deep into Navajo, Ute, and Blackfeet Indian territory, to Bent's Fort in Colorado, near death at the hands of a companion, and finally to a surprise at the end of the trail involving the missing girls and a trapper called Pegleg Smith. Publishers Weekly Blevins' novel begins in 1828 as Sam and his trapper friends are whooping it up at a Mexican double wedding in Santa Fe. Shortly after the ceremony, the two brides are kidnapped by Navajo raiders, which enrages Sam because the women are his adopted daughters. Accompanied by his hotheaded adopted son, Tomás, and trapper Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, Sam sets out in pursuit, though his heart is heavy because his lover, Paloma Luna de Otero, is dying of breast cancer. The rescue mission is hampered, threatened and deceived by a corrupt Mexican governor, manipulative Indian chiefs, devious white men and murderous raiders. By the time Sam catches up with the two captive girls, he is faced with a surprise that confounds him and leads to murder. Blevins is a master of mountain man lore, and he certainly knows the beaver and buffalo hide business, as well as the politics of the region and era. Loaded with action, drama, vivid descriptions and colorful historical characters, this is a whopper of a western yarn. "The glory years of frontier life, fresh and rich." —Kirkus Reviews "Win Blevins has long since won his place among the West's very best." —Tony Hillerman "Blevins possesses a rare skill in masterfully telling a story-to-paper. He is a true storyteller in the tradition of Native people." — Lee Francis, Associate Professor of Native American Studies, University of New Mexico "One of the finest novels to come out of the American West in a long time...an amazing book, grandly conceived, beautifully written." — Dallas Morning News on Stone Song “No one writes about the westering experience better than Win Blevins. He has a poet’s way with words, and imagery to match the wilderness reality. In So Wild a Dream Blevins has re-created that long-ago world where the imporbable was commonplace, and where courage and audacity made anything possible.” — Lucia St. Clair Robson, author of Ghost Warrior.