THE FIRE ARROW by Richard S. Wheeler

Richard Wheeler is one of my favorite writer’s of western historical fiction, and his latest Barnaby Skye novel, The Fire Arrow is just out in paperback. This is the first title in the Skye series I have read--there are fourteen books in the series, with the fifteenth scheduled to be published in May.

The Fire Arrow is a meandering novel. It begins in early autumn—Skye is on a buffalo hunt with his wife and a small group of Crow, when they are raided by band of Blackfeet who take their horses and give Skye’s wife, Victoria, a near fatal wound. This event sets the novel in motion. Skye battles the environment, more than one unscrupulous Indian trader, and his own desire for fire water, to save Victoria, his outfit, his honor, and his place among the Crow.

The Fire Arrow is an uneven novel. The prose is simple and powerful. Wheeler weaves words into the tapestry of this novel like an expert. His descriptions of wide-open country, and the lonely existence of frontier life are especially poignant and powerful. A few weaknesses of the novel are the roundabout patterns of the plot—Skye makes the same mistake twice, and each time the novel is set in a new direction. The opening question is never fully answered, and the ending is somewhat unsatisfying.

Blemishes and all, The Fire Arrow was an enjoyable read. It is a western that captures frontier life much like it probably was. Barnaby Skye is a contemptuous, complicated and somehow endearing protagonist who is at his best—as a character—in the wild country with nothing but his wife, and a few ponies.

Richard Wheeler is one of the modern masters of the western story, and while The Fire Arrow isn’t his best work, it is pretty damn good. The only problem is, now I need to find a few of the previous Skye novels. Oy! Series characters. I both love and hate them in equal portions.