Durano

Bekah is a Ute Indian who was just a little girl when her cousin, Durano, left the tribe to live in Santa Fe to learn the language of the new people and the ways of the Americans and Spanish. Now he is an eighteen-year-old who is seemingly ready to accept his destiny, even though there is much about him that members of his tribe, including Bekah’s brother, both envy and hate. It is 1849 when seventeen-year-old Russian Jew, Benjamin Perlov, arrives in San Francisco, hoping to begin anew. As Durano steps into his role as Ute Indian chief, his life eventually intersects with that of Perlov who quickly becomes a friend of the Utes. As Perlov negotiates with the government so the Utes can remain on their ancestral lands instead of on new reservations created to ensure gold miners can stake their claims in Indian territory, fate leads him to Bekah’s arms and what he hopes is a future filled with love, hope, and new beginnings.