Signal Butte by Captain Charles King

No writer is better than Charles King—at the point when this novel was published a captain, but eventually a general—at bringing the reader more vividly and realistically into the life of a U. S. Army soldier during the wars with the plains Indians of the American West. Because of his personal experience of those wars, he not only gets the historical details correct, but also the settings, moods, and day-to-day life, including the personal, romantic, and family life of the soldiers living on those far-flung military posts along the western frontier.

When Signal Butte was originally published Arizona was still a territory, statehood seventeen years in the future, and this story takes place in the 1870s, before trains and telegraph lines had connected the area. The Apache tribes were fierce enemies of the encroaching United States, and to protect settlers and miners the U. S. had small, isolated forts scattered across the territory. This novella-sized work of fiction—shorter than Captain King’s usual work—tells a story about one of those forts, Fort Retribution (presumed fictional), and features as two of the primary heroes a couple of young boys.