The son of a Virginia plantation owner and an enslaved woman flees west after he is accused of killing his father… but that is only the beginning of his misadventures in Dan Schafer’s western homage, "Sun Walker."

In 1821, Joshua Beck is one of a hundred volunteers for a large trapping party ascending the Missouri River on keelboats to its source. Behind him are the memories of the Virginia plantation where he was a slave — and the son of the white owner. When Beck’s white half-brother, Langford Pennington, falsely accuses him of murdering their father, Beck fled Virginia via horse (and steel horse) to the wilds of Missouri and beyond.

Entering native lands, the expedition is promptly attacked by the Arikara, which scatters the group. Lost and injured, Beck wanders in the wilderness for five days before opening his eyes to a trio of Crow warriors, two male and one female:

“It was hard to take my eyes off the woman. I wanted to take her image with me if I was to die. She was a bronze goddess, sinewy without being muscular, with facial features only Helen of Troy could have challenged.”

Returned to health and his party, Beck can only hope to see the woman, Sun Walker, again.

Meanwhile, Langford runs afoul of both the law and Southern decorum by killing an escort’s husband and flees to Missouri. Thanks to his uncle, Colonel Pennington, Langford enters the Army as a corporal and is tasked with building a fort in “Indian Country” to protect the trapping industry. The narrative reflects on the greedy machinations that are often the drivers of territorial expansion, as Langford cuts a questionable deal with McDonald, an agent for the English Hudson Bay Company, America’s biggest competitor in the lucrative beaver pelt market.

But it is the feverish march north to the safety of a Mandan village that drives this part of the story, as Beck and his small group struggle to stay alive.

Schafer draws wonderfully authentic characters who are a mixed bag of humanity, but there are those who stand out for likability: Mudd, Bark and Moses, to name a few. As a mulatto, Beck has the inevitable moments of racial tension, but in the egalitarian wild west those interactions are far more philosophical — much like Beck himself, who looks for meaningful connections with other people. Even after he barely survives a black panther attack, Beck muses:

“I felt a kindred tie to the black outcast whose mutilated corpse lay behind me. He hid in trees to escape his tawny cousin, the mountain lion. The light-colored cougar was a bully that would chase a dark intruder off his territory, much as I was forced to flee west.”

The trapping party’s luck worsens, and the violent encounters intensify: sensitive readers may blanche at the more graphic battle depictions. The story alternates between first-person voice and third person omniscient, keeping readers on their toes, especially during times of action.

Beck begins to see a future with Sun Walker, who has a habit of rescuing him, but the shrinking worlds of Beck and Langford ensure an explosive reckoning. Through nighttime raids, buffalo stampedes, quicksand pits, malaria and wolf attacks, "Sun Walker" hurdles toward a cliff-hanger ending that presupposes a sequel or series — and a welcome one, at that.