The Laughing Trees

About the Book

In 1835, near the headwaters of the Arkansas River, Cara Rojo, a Ute war chief finds an eight year old white girl who had witnessed her family being swept away in a flash flood the day before. The girl has blocked out the horror of the flood and can not speak, yet seems to fear nothing. The Ute Indians take her to their village and name her Tavimois, the Spirit of the Sunrise. The girl is Hannah Headly, and her brother, Daniel, has survived the flood, but believes his sister was killed with his younger brother and parents. Daniel is nursed back to health by Big Butt, the Crow wife of negro Mountain man Bull Thompson. Needing money to return to the East, Daniel hires on as Bull Thompson’s helper and heads deeper into the wilderness to trade with the plains tribes to the West and North. Bull takes Daniel to meet the, Frenchman, Phillip Rondel, who has a beautiful half Indian daughter he wants to marry off to a white man. Daniel is soon smitten by Monique Rondel’s beauty. After a winter of trading with the Indians, Bull Thompson brings Daniel back to the Frenchman’s camp and Daniel asks Monique to Marry him. Monique will only marry a Sundancer, and Daniel agrees to Sundance. Bull Thompson gives Daniel opium to dull the pain of the bone needles the Indians thrust through his chest muscles to start the sundance. Hanging by leather cords tied to the bone needles in his chest, Daniel has a sun dream, a vision of his sister running happily through a forest of laughing aspens.

About the Author

I was born in Leadville Colorado in 1942 and my childhood was spent in Breckenridge , Colorado where I followed the hunting paths and trails of the Ute tribes, finding arrow heads and skinning knifes in the hills and sage brush flats of the Valley of the Blue . In school we learned the history of Colorado as written by the miners, ranchers, and farmers. From the library I learned of the mountain men like James Beckswourth, Jim Bridger, Roubidoux, and Peg Leg Smith, these and the Utes became my heroes. I started the novel The Laughing Trees twenty five years ago as a hobby and learning experience. It became a study of Colorado history, changing and evolving as I learned more about the Utes and the early settlers of Colorado, before it was Colorado. I still live in Colorado and still research the lives of the early mountain men and fur traders.