RUSSIAN RIVER-THE BEGINNING

About the Book

"I need a job," said Jetty, looking Fitch straight in the eye.

Fitch looked at his hands, worn and dirty but not shaking.

"You a trapper?"

"I was."

"Blackfoot scare you off?"

"It was my boat. It turned over crossing the Colorado."

Fitch looked at his moccasins, made of deer elk. He'd stuffed pieces of sheepskin inside, and walked two hundred miles from the Colorado River to San Diego. He still stood tall, without limping.

"You trap alone?" Fitch asked.

"I had two partners. One got killed by the Indians. The other got shot in the leg at the Rendezvous. I cut it off for him. He went back east."

Fitch nodded. "I buy Sea Otter skins, three dollars each."

Jetty knew nothing about Sea Otters. He smiled. "I'm your man," he said.

Thus began Jetty's journey, in the 1840's that took him to Northern California where the Indians were losing their battle to save their land.

About the Author

Richard Taylor spends summers in Healdsburg, Ca., home of the Pomo Indians, who play a major role in this book. He is intensely interested in how the Pomo?s, who once owned this unusually beautiful land, lost it; except of course, for the Casinos. Mr. Taylor lives with his wife, Billie, in Holtville, CA.