win and starts on the big time rodeo circuit. Soon he is a rodeo legend. He is Tom Black, known as Killer Tom or Devil Tom. It is rumored that he has killed 10 horses. He makes good money but does not win the championship because he rides more to punish the horse than to earn points. He lives only for the arena, for the battles. He lives this way for close to 10 years.
In one contest, Tom is seriously hurt. When he leaves the hospital, he is drawn back to Colorado. While in the mountains, he encounters a bear, reminding him of the bear he knew as a child. He hunts the bear, believing he needs to kill the bear to be free of his past. When the opportunity arises to shoot the bear, he cannot. He realizes that he is trying to kill his boyhood. He has spent his life since the reservation school trying to forget his memories, his identity. What he really needs to do is to find himself. He needs to recover his memories, his past, so he can find his own identity. He builds a lodge and settles into the mountains to live in the old way--not forever, just for long enough to make peace with his past and find his identity.
The book provides significant insights into the subculture of an Indian reservation school. One insight shows clearly that the reservation school was intended to eradicate the Indian culture. The youths were required to dress in the clothes the white culture preferred, to cut their hair in the fashion of the white c
...