Andrew Garcia

This is an amazing work, edited together from the memoirs of a 19th Century Montana mountain man and trader, Andrew Garcia aka The Squaw Kid. The bulk of the book is an extraordinary tale of young and naive Garcia throwing in his lot with drunkard tapper Beaver Tom and ending up alone and living by his wits in the remote wilderness. Coming into his own, a second act finds him struggling to balance the demands of enemy Blackfeet and Pend d'Oreilles tribal bands in the area. In the show more particularly fascinating middle act, Andrew's "Injun" wife In-who-lise tells her story or following Chief Joseph as one of the Nez Perce and being wounded and abandoned in the end of that tragedy a mere two-day's ride from sanctuary in Canada with Sitting Bull. Following this, Andrew takes his wife back two the two-year-old battlegrounds to find her mother's gave. While failing in that, they do find the grave's of Nez Perce chief's Red Eagle and Gray Wolf. This is about 1879 and the disinterred chief's where disturbed to be scalped for bounty and the sad pair re-bury them including setting aside an Indian war lance head. Andrew tells how in 1930 returning once again as a widower to find the land a government-maintained park steals away in the night that artifact as a memento. This would be an excellent end to the memoir, but editor Stein decided to tack on a few more chapters, most of which cover the murder of a miner Hay and a revenge attempted by his brother which almost cost Garcia his own life. show less

This is a tough one to rate. I enjoyed it but given the clear editorial liberties taken by the written in filling in the gaps of the narrative it’s hard to know what is part of the real life story and what is fiction. Still, it’s an incredible tale of a Mexican man living in and around the Pend Orville, Blackfeet and Nez Perce Indians towards the end of those tribes existence as roaming people.

I had this fairly obscure library book on my shelf for months and just kept renewing it but never got around to reading it. Then somebody else placed a hold on it, so I got it down and cracked the covers to have a look before I had to return it.
What I found was massively entertaining! (to my tastes, anyway.) The writer's voice is surprisingly contemporary sounding to me. It has humor and passion and none of the rather circuitous and ornate frippery that I, rightly or wrongly, have come to show more associate with literature of this period.
It is a sort of adventure story where a quite young man goes off on a trapping venture. Originally in the company of a more experienced trapper who is also unfortunately a derelict alcoholic, their ways part eventually and he continues on on his own, eventually marries in the relative wilderness, etc.. show less

I was introduced to this book by my late beloved Uncle Floyd Rittenhouse, himself a lover of Montana history. Tough Trip is some of the most authentic Montana frontier literature. Besides, its a great read.