The Revenant
Michael Punke, 2002
Picador
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250072689
Summary
Punke's novel opens in 1823, two decades after the trailblazing expedition of Lewis and Clark, when thirty-six-year-old Hugh Glass joins the Rocky Mountain Fur Co. on a venture into perilous, unexplored territory.
A seasoned frontiersman, Glass is scouting ahead of the main troop when he is attacked and savagely mauled by a grizzly bear. His wounds are grievous—scalp nearly torn off, back deeply lacerated, throat clawed open—and he is unconscious when his fellow trappers find him.
Though they wait for Glass's death, he is still drawing breath three days later.
Facing hostile territory and the press of winter, the expeditions captain pays two volunteers—John Fitzgerald, a ruthless mercenary, and young Jim Bridger, the future "King of the Moutain Men"—to stay behind and bury Glass when his time comes. But the fidelity of these volunteers proves short-lived.
When Indians approach their camp, Fitzgerald and Bridger abandon Glass. Worse yet, they rob the wounded man of his rifle and knife, even his flint and steel—the very things that might have given him a chance on his own. Deserted, defenseless, and furious, Glass vows his survival. And his revenge. (From the publisher.)