"Four Scalps" Ofer Tal, Mountain Man

Terry Grosz returns to the unexplored American West in the ninth of his series of Mountain Man novels, “Four Scalps” Ofer Tal, Mountain Man.

In 1806, the return to St. Louis of Lewis and Clark from their epic journey across the unexplored American West with their tales of untold abundance of valuable furbearers excited the populace.  Manuel Lisa, St. Louis businessman and trader with local Indian tribes, responded to such tales by forming an expedition that boated up the Missouri and down the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Bighorn River to establish a fort and trading post.  There he initiated trade with the Indians, the principal harvesters of animal furs in America, and sent out his company trappers.

Thus begins Ofer’s adventures when his father Yossef released Ofer and his four brothers from their lives as ranchers, to go forth into the American West as fur trappers to satisfy their desires for adventure as foretold by Lewis and Clark.  Shortly thereafter, Ofer and his brothers ventured upstream on the Missouri and down the Yellowstone with Lisa, helped construct his fort and then with a mentor named Jan “Bear Trap” Driessen, continued their journey as fur trappers.  In the years following, Ofer and his brothers trapped beaver in the lands of the white man-hating Blackfeet and Gros Ventre Indians, battled Indians agitated by competing British fur interests, fought grizzly bears, endured extremes of weather, killed horse thieves and joined the brotherhood of adventurous explorers and fur trappers known today as “Mountain Men”.

“Four Scalps” Ofer Tal, Mountain Man, is an epic story of a ‘wilderness man’ whose love for the unexplored American West burrowed into his soul and rested there forever, as did he…

Terry Grosz began his 32-year career in wildlife law enforcement in 1966 as a Fish and Game Warden with the California Department of Fish and Game, and later as a Special Agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protecting ‘those’ in the world of wildlife ‘who have little or no voice’…  In 1998 he retired from the Service and began a second career as a writer.