Review written for ClubReading.com by Barbara
While flying over Russia, Joe Mack, a Sioux Indian and major in the U.S. Air Force, makes a forced landing, ending up in a prison camp from which he manages to escape. There is only one avenue home: across Siberia to the Bering Strait. Dredging up the ancient skills of his forebears, Mack must survive both this harsh world and also Alekhin, a Yakut tracker who knows every detail of the land and who understands the skill of the Sioux. L’Amour, long associated with westerns and with writing what might be thought of as men’s novels, created in Last of the Breed a story that appeals to both sexes. It’s easy to identify with Mack; actually it’s impossible not to, and once hooked in this manner, the reader is pulled into what turns out to be a non-stop adventure.
EXCERPT FROM Last of the Breed:
He had never been but superficially a civilized man. He knew that, and he knew he could, or thought he could, return to it. Now he did not know. He was a man of the wilderness, living as he had dreamed of living. His life was wild, hard, cold, and dangerous, yet he was ready for it.
“I may be the last Indian,” he told himself aloud, “who will live in the old way, think the old thoughts.”
He had not chosen his enemies. They had chosen him. They had ripped him away from the life he had been living, to be used, drained, and cast aside. They would have left the pitiful rags of a man, what remained after torture, after repeated, demeaning questionings. This was better. He was not afraid to die. All his life had been a preparation for dying, but dying as a warrior would die. Yet now he would not die, for dying would give them victory. He would live, he would escape, he would flaunt it in their faces. He would show them what a man could do.
They were out there now, seeking him. Very well, let them find him, and find death.
A few had died, he knew that. The pursuit of him had not gone easily for them. How many his traps had killed he did not know, but he knew of three who had died with the helicopter, and there had been others. All right, if they wished to pay the price, he would give them what they wished.
No longer would he simply flee to escape them. Now he would fight back.