Follow the Free Wind — Leigh Brackett

Beckwith was known far and wide as a runaway slave, a renegade, a horse thief, and a fearsome warrior who had taken over a hundred scalps, among other things. But the real James Beckwith was even bigger than his mythic persona. Beckwith was as wild and untamed as the land he loved and conquered. Fiercely proud and bitterly stubborn, he seemed to enjoy making enemies with his displays of harsh courage.