Preteen African American twin boys are orphaned in an Indian raid in 1860s Texas. One twin is captured, the other commencing a many year search for him as the early game of baseball binds them throughout.
Eleven-year-old African-American twins Tom and Stefan are coping with frontier life in 1860s Texas when they are suddenly separated by a Comanche Indian raid. FAR STONES tells of Tom’s harsh assimilation into Comanche life, while Stefan, determined to find his brother, encounters the brutal realities of slavery during the Civil War and confronts its legacy afterwards. Throughout the years on their disparate paths, each brother clings in his own way to his spirituality and to the nascent sport of baseball, and in so doing endures to reach adulthood in his respective American culture.
FAR STONES paints a portrait of Comanche life in a pivotal time, as the US government seeks to force the proud nomadic people to give up their way of life and move onto a reservation. Captured brother Tom succeeds in his new life as an Indian and is accepted into the tribal band as a fierce and respected warrior just when Comanche ways are fundamentally threatened. Once a free man, Stefan searches for his brother with the help of Buffalo soldiers, though fearing for Tom’s life, and encountering along the way three cultures in tragic conflict, all the while believing the kinship bond with his brother and their shared love of baseball will endure.
Excerpt
The horse Tom sat astride in front of an Indian rider galloped along, jouncing up the familiar Hill Country. The hills were knobs, some rolling, some more dome shaped, chopped into ravines and gullies, rocky and trickling with water this spring time of year. ... It was the country northwest of San Antonio to which Papa Verdugo had moved them to escape being conscripted, and to avoid any who would kidnap and sell his Negro wife and his adopted honey-brown twin sons.
. . .
Watching the flames, Stefan said, "I be standing right nigh hell." Looking to the fat Comanche moon--as if it had just eaten all he held dear--he let out a long bellowing. "Hell!" He didn't know where God was--or his twin brother--but by that God who wasn't there at the moment, he was determined to keep looking.
Professional Reviews
Far Stones offers a fascinating glimpse into an underexplored aspect of the history of the American West.
A saga rendered in authentic detail, Loren Woodson’s Far Stones is an appealing classic adventure story made exceptional by the way it highlights African American experiences on the western frontier.
Life isn’t easy for Tom and Stefan, African American preteen twins, during the Civil War and immediately following. The boys are caught up in the violence—Tom is captured in a Comanche raid, and Stefan is left to struggle for survival on the Texas frontier.
While he is separated from Tom, Stefan’s life moves among those of more than one real-life western character, including troopers from the African American buffalo soldier regiments and a mysterious New Orleans native named Raoul, whom he meets in Texas.
Tom, meanwhile, is captured and enslaved; later he is adopted and immersed in the life of a Comanche warrior in a tribe led by Blue Turtle. He’s first known as Cloud Quawker, and later as Far Stones, a name related to his ability to throw rocks at enough speed and distance that they become deadly missiles.
Notable for its depth of research, the story nods to the African Americans who were part of the western settlement. The narrative briefly explores the life of the “People,” or Nermernuh, as the Comanche call themselves. They wanted only to roam the great llano stretching from San Antonio out onto high plains of New Mexico and into the great canyon of Palo Duro. The novel deftly illustrates how their way of life collapsed under the pressure of white encroachment.
The setting, with the vastness of the southern plains and its bounty of buffalo, is smartly observed and rendered picturesquely. The dialogue fits the era and is easily parsed. The plot is logical and the story flows smoothly.
The twins’ narrative is easy to follow—a chapter from Tom’s point of view alternates with another from Stefan’s perspective. Following twin protagonists living separate lives can be difficult, but there is sufficient backstory on Tom and Stefan’s early life to make the parallel narratives work.
While the brothers do often think of one another, there is sometimes a lack of intimacy and passion as the story progresses. There are references to their love for the then-new sport of baseball from each boy—meant to emphasize the bond between the two—but that thread seems superfluous.
Readable and well researched, Far Stones offers a fascinating glimpse into an underexplored aspect of the history of the American West.
An impressive debut featuring vivid prose and an unexpected but surprisingly effective sports motif.
Woodson’s debut novel features twin brothers in mid-19th-century Missouri who abruptly get separated only to be
reunited years later.
In 1860 St. Louis, siblings Tom and Stefan Spiess come upon their first game of “base-ball” (as it was then spelled).
Tom is soon hooked, and when the ball gets lost in the bushes, he finds and keeps it. Four years later, their family of free,
mixed-race Creoles becomes fearful of roving Home Guards and other threats, so they make their way to the Hill
Country of Texas. One day, when the boys are 11, Comanches raid their homestead, abduct Tom, and brutalize and kill
their mother. A short while later, Stefan, in hiding, sees his stepfather murdered by a young man named Jason Strachey.
Tom (who still had his baseball) was captured by a man named Blue Turtle, who will eventually adopt him as his
son. Over the next decade, Tom will take two different wives and become a respected warrior and father. Meanwhile,
Stefan is kidnapped and enslaved while trying to get back to San Antonio. After he’s eventually freed, he survives as a
jack-of-all-trades with his prostitute friend, Jeanie Lalande; they live on the seamier side of life, doing what they need to
do to survive. Stefan later gets back to Indian country and finds his brother, now named Far Stones for his deadly
throwing accuracy. Throughout this novel, Woodson writes well, with a keen ear for the right turn of phrase (“…as if the
night had been an unsteady horse that still threatened to lurch him off”). But the most intriguing aspect of the novel is its
subtle baseball motif, which becomes a running theme throughout the text; Far Stones, for example, is known for
keeping balls whenever he find them—including two hairballs, one from his future wife, one from a buffalo; similarly,
Stefan pilfers a perfectly round furniture finial which becomes his own talisman. Even the story’s final reconciliation—a
slow and painfully sensitive dance—is finally effected thanks to baseball.
An impressive debut featuring vivid prose and an unexpected but surprisingly effective sports motif.
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