"Highly emotional read!"

Rachel Brodie has had a hard lifestyle. Her trapper father gave her to the Mescalero Indians when she was a very small child. She was adopted by a couple who named her Silent Wind because she couldn't talk due to her abandonment. Swift Buck was her adopted brother but she always had what she felt were improper feelings for him. Then five years ago her brother Clay, took her to his home in Washington, DC and she embraced the white way of living but not fully.

She's now back in the west trying desperately to help The People (Mescalero Indians) in any way she can. She has lots of money thanks to Clay so she brings food and medicine to who she thinks are her real family. She has no way of knowing that the fort she goes to is where her adopted family has been taken. She sees her adopted mother, Laughing Stream with a small child. Laughing Stream tells Rachel that the child is Swift Buck's. Now Rachel knows she has to help her people in any way she can.

Rachel has no way of knowing that Swift Buck was only captured because his mother and daughter were brought to the fort. Every day they get sicker and sicker because of the conditions at the reservation and the fort. Swift Buck waits and plans and when the time is right, he will not only escape but will take his daughter and his mother along with Silent Wind. He will use her any way he can for his family. What Swift Buck doesn't count on is his long forgotten inappropriate feelings for his adopted sister or are they inappropriate?

This book was powerfully emotional and a page-turner. Ronda Thompson knows how to tell a story without sugar coating it. She tells it like it is. I have enjoyed each and every one of Ronda's stories and eagerly look forward to every one of them. She just can't write them fast enough for me.

Reviewed by Kathy Boswell
Posted July 7, 2003

Summary

Abandoned by her father, Rachel Brodie is adopted by the Mescalero Indians. Silent Wind she is called; and the smoldering eyes of Swift Buck urge her to drop all pretense of being White, to accept her destiny. Unable to let go of the past, Rachel flees.

When she returns, the U.S. government has been mistreating the Mescaleros, and Rachel is prepared to fight. She'd heard Swift Buck had been killed, but here he is. And he wastes no time in using her as a hostage against the Federal soldiers. Yet this abduction is a chance to prove that she will always be one of the People. Now, if Swift Buck asks, she will not only walk into the fire; she will let it consume her.