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Prior to writing this, I’d had no personal contact with Crow Indians, but I’d worked with Indians of other tribes in logging camps, the merchant marine, and the Forest Service. And I had read anthropologist Rodney Frey’s enlightening The World of the Crow Indians (1987, University of Oklahoma Press). By telephone, I talked about the Native American experience with Lewis Walks-Over-Ice, of Little Bighorn Community College on the Crow Reservation. Later, Lewis read and commented on a preliminary draft of the chapter set on the reservation. Still later, Principal John Small (half Crow, half Cheyenne, ancient antagonists) showed me through the Crow Reservation’s Lodge Grass High School, including its fine basketball facility. Another Native American, personal friend Cindy SiJohn, read and commented on part of the manuscript.
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The Millennium therapies, which play a role in this novel, were inspired by Dr. Frank “Sarge” Gerbode, M.D., and his system of Traumatic Incident Reduction that has proven so helpful to victims of post-traumatic stress disorders—notably rape victims, and combat veterans of the war in southeast Asia.
THE END