Fighting Caravans: A Western Story

Written by Zane Grey

Narrated by John McLain

Clint Belmet’s parents were killed in a Comanche raid when he was young, but that hasn’t stopped him from taking a job leading freight caravans on the old Santa Fe Trail, from Saint Louis, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico—a route that goes right through Comanche territory. Here is the raw, primitive West of the early pioneers, great caravans of freighters rumbling across the deadly prairies, risking attack by Comanche. In this action-packed adventure from the “greatest novelist of the American West,” twenty-eight wagons loaded with families, supplies, and tough-as-nails Texans are forced to circle up and fight for their lives against relentless assaults by Comanche who have been goaded on and tricked by raiders.

When amid the constant battle Clint falls in love with the beautiful Mary Bell, he makes an enemy even worse than the Comanche. Lee Murdock wants Mary Bell to himself, not to mention the valuable supplies their caravan is carrying. Soon, Clint must face enemies inside the circled wagons as well as outside.

Zane Grey details the amazing, electric, and bloody days that existed on the American Frontier. Fighting Caravans brings us the story of brave men and women who risk everything for a new life and opportunities, or for the adventure of the wild.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jun 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543606287

Zane Grey

The father of the western novel, Zane Grey (1872 - 1939) was born in Zanesville, Ohio. He wrote 58 westerns, including Spirit of the Border, Wildfire,and Riders of the Purple Sage. Over 130 films have been based on his work.

[Harry Cook · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When I started listening to Zane’s books, I was surprised to find that he was such a romantic. Oh I know lots of western writers are romantics, but Zane beats them all. There’s everything one can think of in his books including sweet love, tragedy a many, sorrow, lots of flying bullets, raging Indians, etc.
Even his fishing stories are great and I hate fishing.

I hope to listen to every book that Zane Grey wrote.

[Gabriel Foley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was a good story and had a very good ending

[rayub-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A slow developing story with intermittent action.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have mixed feelings about Fighting Caravans by Zane Grey. On the one hand this was a thrilling adventure story, but on the other, his historical facts were few and far between. This is the story of a young boy, Clint Belmet, who is travelling west with his parents when they are attacked by a group of Comanche. They are able to fight them off, but Clint’s mother takes a bullet and dies. Clint and his father then decide that they don’t have the heart to homestead without her, and so become freight wagon drivers. This is a dangerous job as they pick up goods in Kansas City and transport them to forts along the western trail, often travelling as far as Santa Fe.

There were so many Indian battles in this book that they became a little repetitious and I know for a fact that there wasn’t an unlimited Indian population on the American plains so these battles where up to 60 Indians are killed are definitely the work of Grey’s imagination. Originally published in 1929, there is a great deal of racial stereotyping and a far bit of prejudice as well. I have read other Zane Grey’s where his point of view is very fair to the Indian so I am thinking that these prejudices were included to reflect the feeling of the times not the author’s personal point of view.

Where this book shines is in his description of the American West. He captures on the page the sights, sounds and smells of the open prairie and transports his reader to another place and time. Although the language is dated and there are lines such as the cringe-worthy, “The only good Indian is a dead one”, I feel that Fighting Caravans does accurately portray the attitudes and customs of this particular time in the opening of the American West.