Lozen

The river is running high, the cavalry is closing in, and the women and children on the bank are frozen with fear.

Then one rider lifts her rifle above her head and drives her horse into the torrent.

Would you have followed her?

Her name was Lozen. The Apache remembered her as a warrior, a prophet, and a healer, and her brother Victorio depended on her as he did on his most trusted elder. She was born beside a warm spring in New Mexico, and her people spent years fighting to return to it.

Few people know that when Mexican troops surrounded her brother's camp at Tres Castillos, Lozen was not there. She was crossing the desert on foot with a young mother and a newborn, stealing horses from the soldiers who patrolled the border.

What you are about to discover will change how you see the Apache Wars.

Follow her from Ojo Caliente through Victorio's war, the canyons of the Sierra Madre, and Geronimo's last campaign, to captivity in Alabama. See how a woman who was never expected to fight earned a place among warriors and a seat at the council.

Her story belongs beside the better-known names of the Apache Wars, yet it is rarely told. It is also a story of loyalty, grief, and a woman who rode back into the flood to stand with the warriors holding off the cavalry.

One photograph of her survives. Her story was carried on by the people who knew her, told aloud from one generation to the next. This book draws on the historical record and on Apache memory.

Perfect for readers of Native American history, the American West, and women's history, and a fitting read for Native American Heritage Month, Women's History Month, or any night you want a true story that stays with you.

Meet the woman her people remember as a shield.