Return to Beauty

Yahzi, a strong Navajo woman captured in 1820 by the Spanish in Canyon de Chelly in what is now northeastern Arizona when she was a teenager, is determined to escape by whatever means necessary. In a forced marriage with a cruel man for seventeen years and pregnant, she manages to stampede a flock of sheep and flees in the confusion. But she faces even more difficulties in the unknown lands between the Spanish Nuevo Mexico frontier and her home in Canyon de Chelly. Nor will she find her real family anything like the one she has fantasized about for years. Ernest L. Schusky is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Southern Illinois University and was Visiting Professor at New Mexico Highlands University. He now lives in Tucson, Arizona where his interest in American Indians has focused on the Southwest. He is the author of two non-fiction works, "The Right to Be Indian" and "The Forgotten Sioux," along with several novels.