Beasts in the West: A Fragment of the Reedy Papers

By JOHN HARDIN STARK

In an alternate Early America, epidemics have swept the continent, killing a third of the European colonists and changing the outcome of the American Revolution. Refugees from the British Provinces have crossed the Appalachians and have established small independent states. Some years after the failed Revolution, young Allan Reedy and his older cousin Joseph Dufford Reedy travel from the Republic of Transylvania to Saint Louis Landing on a trade mission Their allies from the Lenape Nation, including the war captain Man Standing and the indomitable Josiah He Cuts, accompany them. Their visit becomes complicated by drink and bad behavior, and the Spanish Governor declares that they will make restitution by assisting certain Missouri River settlers against the wild animals that are damaging crops and killing livestock. In this vermin control they are assisted-or guarded-by a squad of local militia, Their voyage on the river is more than they bargained for: they encounter dangerous people and monstrous beasts and their return to Saint Louis places them in peril from agents of the Spanish Inquisition.Allan Reedy tells the tale. He is a very young man, with the prejudices of youth, but he is often clever enough to recognize the worth of those around him. On his journey he gains some understanding of the strategies that keep the Republic of Transylvania from being absorbed by the Empires. Good and bad men die, and Allan goes through his own trial by fire.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1520566689
• ISBN13: 9781520566689
• Release Date: May 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"