As I've mentioned many times before I acquired a random assortment of Whitman books when piecing together a Donna Parker series when I was a young teenager. This is one of the few I ended up reading, the others all sat around for a few years before I read them. I did read this one because I got really curious what a "medicine wheel" was. I re-read it a couple times, I specifically remember re-reading it during the summer when I was 16. The last time I re-read it was a couple years ago and I remember finding it lackluster.
After purchasing an expensive prom dress and being careless with her finances overall, Uncle Archie has decided to send Annette to Wyoming for the summer to work on a ranch belonging to her second cousins, Sophie and Martha Lowery.
Part of her punishment involves her having to leave her car at home so she is on a rickety bus traveling out into the country with the only other passenger being an "Indian" boy who gives her mean looks.
While at a filling station the bus is hijacked by a raggedy looking and severely sunburned "youth" who threatens Annette and the boy with a large wrench. He drives out into the wilds then marches them out of the bus and up a ravine. There the boy pounces on him and he falls, hits his head on a rock, and goes unconscious. The two run up to Medicine Wheel, a rock setup on the circular top of a mountain. The boy prays and insists that they will be safe now.
He starts walking and Annette follows him. He's headed back to the filling station but it's a long and rough journey. He moves fast and doesn't care whether Annette can keep up or not. The only times he looks at her are to either glare at her or laugh in amusement at her torn clothes and shoes.
After walking for hours they make a campfire in a ravine for the night then walk for another 6 hours the next day. The boy is fine but Annette gets in really rough shape. Her dainty shoes have holes in them and her feet have become swollen, bruised, and raw along with her stockings becoming nothing but shreds. When they finally get to the filling station Annette passes out.
She awakes to find that there has been a search for them and everyone has assumed that the Indian boy, John Running, had stolen the bus and kidnapped her. Annette defends him and is told by the police that John had been in trouble with the law before and that he hates all white people with the exception of his employers; Sophie and Martha Lowery.
Sophie soon arrives and takes the two to the Ranch where Annette eats, bathes, and sleeps until late the next morning. The next day Annette is shown around and shown the work she'll be doing which is helping with meals, tending the garden, collecting the mail, and mainly doing odd jobs.
Annette rides upland with Sophie to take supplies to Sam, one of their ranch hands who is staying in a little cabin to keep an eye on the cows that have been placed there for the summer. When they arrive they find Sam had been attacked the previous night by someone giving him a head injury and stealing all his food, his shotgun, and a shirt. Both women suspect that it's the same person who hijacked the bus, Tom Nally.
Tom Nally is a 20-something-year-old boy who's family lives on the next ranch over, if you can even call it a ranch as it's small and rundown. He recently escaped prison where he was serving a sentence for his second store robbery. Sophie has Sam come back with them and precautions are put in place; Annette has to stay within open clearings and not journey anywhere someone could be hiding, the doors are to be locked at night, and Sophie starts keeping a loaded shotgun with her at night. Sophie has to use the shotgun twice when they hear chickens being stolen in the middle of the night, the first time appears to be a man and the second a coyote.
While out one day Annette sees a girl her age and is eager to make acquaintances but the girl flees. Annette finds out she is Mary Nally and she tends to stay away from people. After her brother, Tom, was arrested she and her family began being tormented by the townsfolk, including an incident where a group of boys ran their horses around the house at night, breaking windows, and taunting the family. This scary incident weakened Mr. Nally's health when he was already sick in bed with severe heart problems, and he passed away two weeks later. Mary has since dropped out of school and now she spends all her time taking care of her ill mother, working on her ranch, taking any outside work she can find, and being alone with her dog and horse.
After Annette is informed that there will be three paying guest arriving at the ranch, a professor and his 16 and 8 year old sons, Annette is determined to befriend Mary so she can help her entertain the boys. She finally does and her and Mary become good friends. The guest show up and Kevin, the 16-year-old, turns out to be a cocky jerk. He doesn't want to do anything while Ronnie, his little brother, wants to do everything. Annette finally gets Kevin to join in on a horse ride and they go to Mary's house where Kevin appears to instantly get a crush on her.
He soon causes some serious problems when he hears about the chickens going missing and decides to take care of the problem himself. He sneaks Sophie's shotgun and takes watch outside of the chicken coup. Everyone wakes up when they hear him shooting. He shoots and kills the coyote but also shoots and kills all twelve of the chickens in the process.
The next trouble Kevin causes is when he decides to help with the hay field and starts a fire with a cigarette match. The fire gets extinguished before doing too much damage but everyone is very sick of him by that point.
Soon Mary shows up asking for help because her mothers illness has gotten much worse and after a doctors check it's discovered she has tuberculosis and needs to go to a sanitarium. Although invited to stay with the Lowery's she insists on staying at her ranch alone. However two nights later she shows up at night, having ridden over on a bare horse and saying she was scared and wanted to stay. Even though she doesn't mention it everyone assumes Tom had showed up and scared her.
Kevin asks for a pack trip into the mountains before summer is over so the group soon heads up to Medicine Mountain. It's a several day trip to their camp where they stay for several more days. Annette, John, Mary, Kevin, and Ronnie go to look at medicine wheel and Kevin begins throwing the formation rocks over the edge causing almost a third physical fight between him and John. While there Mary also comes clean about Tom having been in the area and causing trouble for her. She says he had been hiding out around medicine wheel but she believed he's gone now.
After Kevin disappears for a day he shows back up with a shotgun, Sam's stolen shotgun, saying he had found it at an abandoned camp. He says that it's his now since he's the one to find it and becomes almost violently angry when Sam takes it from him.
That night the camp wakes up to the sound of Kevin having shot off the gun which causes the horses to bolt. The next day the campers go out to find the horses and Annette finds herself being confronted by Tom Nally who has stolen the gun back from the camp. Mary soon stumbles upon them and Tom orders Annette to go fetch him food and clothes from their camp while he holds Mary hostage.
John stumbles upon Annette stealing the items and she breaks down crying and tells the story as Kevin shows up. The boys tell her to continue with her orders but try and bide time. After bringing the items Tom matches the girls up the mountain and is going to kill them when John and Kevin pounce on him. Tom takes off running and Kevin gets a chance to show off his gunmanship by skillfully shooting Tom in the leg. They tie him up and bring him back to camp where the whole group begins the 15 hour trek back.
The visitors are leaving in two days but push it back an extra day to be there to celebrate Mary's birthday. For her present Annette spends all the money she made working that summer on a bus ticket for Mary to come home with her and go back to school.
- The book opens with action which is what makes it better than any of the other Annette books. It captures your interest very fast with the bus being hijacked.
- At one point Annette uses a bridle on a horse that suffocated the horse to get it to do what you want and I think that's really horrifying and disgusting.
- Although it turns out John is 14, which is a year or two younger than Annette I still wish there had been a romance between them. I feel like it would have fit in wonderfully.
Overall this book is alright. Kevin got pretty annoying and I feel like there could have been more time spent on building up the mystery, it feels more like it bookends the story only.
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