Back to the Sioux in 1876 America!

By Richard Sloane

Join Billy Brighteyes, a modern Sioux native-American boy, on an astonishing adventure as he is whirled back on a magic merry-go-round to South Dakota in 1876. There he has a crash course in Sioux culture, getting his own spirit symbol and being blooded before playing a crucial role in Custers Last Stand. When he is, finally, spun back to the present, he finds he has brought something back with him!
This book is ideal for children aged about nine to fourteen and adults too who may be interested in native-American culture and history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491880890

Book preview

Prologue

I t was the beginning of the long summer student holidays and I was mooning around my flat in London, bored but thinking about the important project I still had to complete to finally become a fully-fledged librarian. It was hot and I didn’t feel I had the energy to do anything much. Then my boredom was blown away by a letter that came for me. This is what it said:

Dear June and Augie, I am a history teacher on an Indian reservation in North Dakota, USA and I think I had an adventure which closely resembles yours in ‘Back to the Dark Ages’ and ‘Back to Medieval Times’. Yes, I read your books and Sophie’s as well, ‘Back to Joan of Arc’, and have even used them to get my students interested in history. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, I recently took a group of them to a Western art exhibition near here and there I saw something which sparked off the memory. It is incredibly real to me but I had no idea who to share it with until I thought of you two. If either of you are in the USA, I would love to meet up with you to talk about it. Yours, William Cooper. PS You can contact me either on my cell phone or at the address given above.

It was neatly written, had an American stamp on the envelope and was post-marked ‘Jamestown, North Dakota’, although the address he had written in the letter was somewhere completely different.

I wondered excitedly if there could have been another magic merry-go-round in North America! I confess that my geography of the USA is rather hazy and I had to look up on the computer to see where North Dakota actually was. It was way up near the Canadian border to the west of the Great Lakes. It looked remarkably empty on the map but I did manage to find Jamestown without a problem. I thought the obvious thing to do was to call the number of the mobile I had been given so I did that. After a long pause for the connection to be made, a mellow, educated, man’s voice answered in much the same kind of accent that Augie now had but with a slight overlay of something I didn’t recognise.

‘Hello,’ the voice said.

‘Could I speak to William Cooper, please?’

‘This is he. Who are you if I may ask?’

‘My name’s June. I just received a letter from you about an adventure you think you had.’

‘Oh, hello! Sorry if I sounded suspicious. I’m not used to being rung up so early by young ladies with a British accent. Yes, of course I remember writing to your publisher but had almost given up hope of hearing from you.’

I smiled at his words and said, ‘I think it’s my turn to apologise but the wheels of publishing tend to grind incredibly slowly. I’m afraid I won’t be able to talk for long. My bank balance won’t permit me to phone America for long periods.’

Now it was his turn to laugh and he said, ‘Do you have a computer by any chance?’

‘Indeed I do,’ I said. ‘If you are going to suggest Skyping me, I think that’s an excellent idea.’

‘Exactly what I was going to suggest. You must be telepathic, June.’

I liked the sound of this guy and knew instinctively that I could trust him. ‘Do you want to exchange Skype names?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been dying to talk to somebody about this for what seems like ages.’

So we exchanged our Skype names and made a time for a couple of hours later when he would be near his computer and could talk. As soon as we had hung up, I called Augie, who was still studying in Canada, and told him the news.

He was as excited by it as I was and said, ‘North Dakota, eh? That’s only a few hours drive from here. If it seems to be real, I could easily pop down there and visit him. Keep in touch.’

I promised I would and hung up, impatient for the two hours to be up. I realised that I hadn’t even thought of the time difference when I’d phoned. What time would it be over there now? I wondered. Probably about six hours before us which would make it 7 0’colock in the morning. At least I hadn’t rung in the middle of the night, I thought, relieved.

I pottered around doing a few household chores and even put on some make-up and combed my hair as I thought that William would almost certainly be better dressed than I was and I didn’t want to appear my usual scruffy self in front of him. But the time seemed to crawl. Finally, when the two hours were up, I was sitting at my computer, waiting for ‘William Cooper’ to contact me. I wondered what he looked like. A White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant? But, if so, what was that strange overlay in his accent? And also, if so, what on earth was he doing teaching on an Indian reservation?

I knew a certain amount about the history of the Native Americans, especially how they had been exploited by the white men and had been driven almost to extinction by them, dying in their thousands of their unknown diseases, not to mention their guns. I also knew, or thought I knew, that, although a few of the remaining ones lived in the cities, many were confined to reservations where they were almost certainly not free to follow their ancient nomadic life style.

My musings were interrupted by the ping of the computer. Somebody was trying to contact me. I clicked on ‘Answer with video’ and was confronted with a young man’s face looking at me with dark, twinkly eyes. He had jet-black hair parted in the middle and seemed to be very tanned. It was a handsome, lived-in kind of face and I was glad I had put on make-up and combed my hair.

‘William Cooper, I presume?’ I said.

‘Am I like you imagined me?’ William Cooper asked me with a smile.

‘To be honest, I had no idea what to expect,’ I said. ‘Your accent confused me.’

‘Did it now?’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should tell you a little about myself.’

‘Please do,’ I said eagerly, perhaps too eagerly for he smiled again.

‘OK. Well, I was born on the Indian reservation where I now teach and my Indian name was Billy Brighteyes. Everybody calls me Billy and I hope you will do the same.’

‘Yes, of course, Billy,’ I said. And then I added unthinkingly, ‘So you’re a Red Indian!’

That made him laugh out loud. ‘Oh, you Brits! Don’t you know that we are all native-Americans these days?’

I could see his dark eyes twinkling as he teased me but I still said, ‘I’m sorry. It just came out!’

‘Oh, I don’t mind but, if you come over here one day, just be careful. Everybody’s into political correctness these days.’

I was chastened by his words but he broke my embarrassment by saying, ‘You noticed my accent. It’s Sioux. That was my birth language.’

‘How fascinating! I’ve never met a real, live Sioux before!’

‘Well, now you have. Anyway, I was going to tell you more about my background, wasn’t I?’ I nodded at the screen and he continued. ‘I was an only child and the apple of my parents’ eyes. They moved to the city when I was a toddler to give me a chance at a decent education and actually did quite well for themselves. My father owns his own auto-shop and my mother is the manageress at a local beauty salon. They managed to send me to a good school where I showed academic ability and I went on to graduate from a decent university quite young. I studied history like you, I believe, but had no idea what I wanted to do afterwards. It’s not exactly the most useful subject ever,’ and