Ghost Warrior, Lozen of the Apaches by Lucia St. Clair RobsonLucia St. Clair Robson, historical author header graphic

   Ghost Warrior, Lozen of the Apaches graphic

The Chiricahua Apaches revered Lozen while she lived and they revere her still.  One Apache described her as their patron saint.  She is one of history’s most remarkable individuals.  The human story is richer because it includes her life and her spirit.

Here are reviews from The Baltimore Sun and from Kirkus Reviews,  plus the author's note & other comments on this book.   Buy Ghost Warrior today.

Ghost Warrior talking points for your book club.  


Lozen of the Apaches in Geronimo's company after being captured
 Geronimo's band after their final surrender.  Geronimo is third
from right in first row.  Lozen may be third from right in third row.
  

The Chiricahua Apache chief, Victorio, called his sister Lozen his wise counselor and his right hand.  He said  she had the strength of a man and was a shield to her people.  Even in a society possessing extraordinary courage, endurance and skill, she was unique.  The Apaches believe that when she was young, the spirits  blessed her with horse magic, the gift of healing and the power to see enemies at a distance.  In the Apaches’ thirty-year struggle to defend their homeland, they came to rely on her strength, wisdom, and supernatural abilities. 

     Because of her gift of far-sight, she was the only unmarried woman allowed to ride with the warriors and fight alongside them.  After her beloved brother Victorio's death, she joined Geronimo's band of insurgents.  With Geronimo and fifteen other warriors, she resisted the combined forces of the United States and Mexican armies, and the heavily armed civilian populations of New Mexico and Arizona Territories.  She and the sixteen warriors, and seventeen women and children held out against a total of about nine thousand men.

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Author's Note: "Far Sight"

"I've been researching historical people and events for twenty-seven years now, and a thought just occurred to me as I started writing this message about Lozen, the Apache woman who inspired Ghost Warrior. It's a thought that gives comfort in troubled times... and let's face it, all times are troubled, thanks to our species' capacity for mischief and mayhem. The thought is that even in the worst of times, individuals with extraordinary strength of character appear and leave a legacy that persists. How fortunate we are that other people made note of them and left a record for the rest of us. 

"The Apache Wars certainly qualified as the worst of times. Many of the names of the leaders who waged those battles are household words, but one who isn't well known was as exceptional as any of them. Lozen was the sister of the Warm Springs Apache chief Victorio. Besides the power to heal she was believed to possess the gift of Far Sight, the ability to sense the presence of enemies before they came into view. She was also reputed to have horse magic that made her an excellent horse thief. 

"Reading about what Lozen and her people endured puts my petty, everyday problems into stark perspective. And it strikes me as amazing that the spirit of individuals who died 120 years ago can influence what we think and feel now. "

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Excerpt from

Ghost Warrior: Lozen of the Apaches

     White clouds swirled in the azure sky as Lozen walked to the edge of the precipice.  She stood with the toes of her moccasins hanging over the edge of the world.  She looked down at a land so far below that she thought if she dived forward she would fall until the sun set.
     Lush green forests covered the broad valley.  Mist as white as the clouds floated over the silver ribbon of a river that snaked along the valley floor.  Long Neck's people called the Sierra Madre the Blue Mountains.  Lozen could see why.  In the distance the deep green of the forest cover shifted to aqua, then to a dark blue against the sky that rose from behind them.  The size, the beauty, the grandeur, the richness of it stunned her.  She felt as small as the ant crawling up her moccasin.
     Victoria said this wasn't the Underworld, the Happy Country, but maybe he was wrong.  Maybe she was standing at the opening where the dead went.  All the spirits who had gone on their last journeys since Old Man Coyote let Death out of the sack could live comfortably in this valley and the thousands of other leading out from it.  She imagined the ghosts hunting and gambling, making love, feasting, dancing, laughing, and telling stories.  She imagined her mother, her father, and her baby brother there, never cold, hungry, frightened, sad, or in pain.
     She walked along the cliff until she came to a narrow canyon branching off from it.  She followed the eastern rim of it until long past time for the midday meal back at the encampment.  The twists and turns, the wind-sculpted rocks drew her on.  She had almost reached the place where the canyon narrowed to a cleft when night's shadows began to pool among the rocks and trees below.  She unrolled her blanket and sat cross-legged on it at the edge.  She could throw a rock and hit the entrance to a cave just below the rim on the other side.
     She watched the sun slip behind the mountains.  She watched the sky take fire and the clouds turn the brilliant hues of desert flowers after a spring freshet.  She watched the color flow down the sides of the canyon and into the stream below, until the water glowed deep pink.
     Bit by bit night stole the canyon away from the day.  The shadows met and blended until she could no longer make out the forms of the rocks.  She sat all night listening to the rustle of animals going about their business and the calls of cougars and wolves and coyotes, the night songs of the birds.
     The next day and the following night she left the blanket only to relieve herself.  She was aware of hunger thirst, weariness, and the icy night wind, but they didn't seem important.  She didn't think about Victorio, either, or the council that he and Cheis, Red Sleeves, Loco, Broken Foot, Long Neck, and others were holding.  Victorio was used to her wandering off in search of advise from the spirits.
     The third night she began hearing voices.  She saw movements at the periphery of her sight.  Coyote came.  With his head cocked and his tongue lolling, he watched her for a long time.  He told her the story of the time he shit on a rock, and it chased him until he apologized and cleaned it off.  His story made her laugh, but she kept a wary eye on him.  One could never tell what Coyote might do.
     Later that night the stones, sculpted by the elements into grotesque shapes, moved in the moonlight and whispered to her.  Her own spirit helpers visited her, too.  The last one swirled like a mist between the two rims of the canyon.  Its message vibrated in the bones of her skull.
     "To know the strength of your enemies, watch the cave.  To know where they will come from, watch the cave."  Three more times the spirit repeated its advice.
     On the fourth morning, as soon as Lozen could see the darker splotch of the cave opening against the pale face of the cliff, she stared at it.  The sun hadn't risen over the top of the cliff yet when she heard the beat of drums like those of the Bluecoat soldiers.
Lozen of the Apaches      Gusts riffled the wisps of hair that had pulled loose from her braid and curled around her face.  A rumbling grew louder and then became the rhythmic tromp of the clumsy boots the Bluecoats wore.  She saw the first rank of them, six across, appear in the cave entrance.  Their shouldered rifles rose like spikes above them.  Another line followed them, then a third, a fourth, and a fifth.  The apparitions wore identical blue jackets and trousers.  Under the stubby brims of the tall black hats, their faces were pale disks, without eyes, noses, mouths, anything that would distinguish them one from the other.  They marched into the air in front of the cave and vanished, but more followed, rank and rank of them.  The walking soldiers were interspersed with companies on horseback.

Lucia in apache country

Doing research at Chiricahua
National Monument

   
  Lozen watched them until the sun started its journey down the slope of the sky.  Finally the last of them vanished into the same nothingness that had swallowed the others.  The drums stopped.  The sound of hooves and boots ceased.  Silence rang in her ears like a gun barrel struck against the big metal cylinders the miner abandoned in the journeys through The People's country.
     She stood up slowly, but sparks exploded in front of her eyes, anyway, and dizziness caused her to sway.  She wrapped her blanket around her waist and started off at a trot.  Night arrived at the encampment before she did. ...

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For Ghost Warrior talking points for your book club, see the book club page.

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Die Schwester des Apachen -- Lozen

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left arrow The German edition, Die Schwester des Apachen published by Piper in Feb.'04.

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