The Big Sky (novel)

The Big Sky

First edition cover
Author	A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
Cover artist	Alan Haemer
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Western
Publisher	William Sloane Associates
Publication date	1947
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Preceded by	Murders at Moon Dance
Followed by	The Way West

The Big Sky is a 1947 Western novel by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.. For Wallace Stegner it is "the best" of the six novels in Guthrie's sequence dealing with the Oregon Trail and the development of Montana from 1830, the time of the Mountain Men, to "the cattle empire of the 1880s to the near present." The first three books of the six in the chronological sequence (but not in the sequence of publishing) -- The Big Sky, The Way West, and Fair Land, Fair Land—are in themselves a complete trilogy, starting in the 1830 and ending in the 1870s.

In The Big Sky the main characters are:

Although there are many other characters, these are the six most significant.

Boone Caudill is a young man who lives in Kentucky with his family as people are pushing further and further west in the Americas. (Boone is supposedly named after Daniel Boone, who is credited with finding Kentucky.) Boone's father is physically abusive to not only his mother, but also his brother and him. One night, his father begins to beat him after Boone had caused trouble in town, and Boone hits his father over the head with a stick from the wood pile. Knowing that his father is seriously injured, possibly even dead, he goes back to the house and steals his father's prize rifle. As a parting gift, his mother offers him a roast chicken they were going to have for supper. With that, Boone runs away.

After thinking back to his childhood, he remembers his maternal uncle Zeb Calloway. The uncle was a mountain man, frequently thought of as uncivilized by his mother and father. Boone decides this is the life for him and sets off for the West and the mountains. As he walks, he meets a man with a cart and mule named Jim Deakins, who admits to Boone that he has always wanted something more from life and decides that Boone has the right idea. As they arrive into the next city, Jim decides to sell his mule and wagon for some money to travel and join Boone. However, as they get into town, Boone's father has just arrived and is intent on getting his rifle back. Boone jumps in the nearby river to get away, as Jim shouts from the banks of the river for Boone to wait for him.

As Boone sets out again, he meets another traveler, Jonathan Bedwell. Bedwell gets Boone drunk and then steals his rifle, to Boone's horror. He continues to travel, now without the rifle, though intent on getting it back. However, he sees Bedwell outside of another town, and attacks him. The sheriff had been nearby and breaks them up. The sheriff takes them to court, and after a quick trial the more sophisticated Bedwell is given the rights to the rifle, as everyone believes it is his anyway. Boone is sentenced to spend time in the jail, but he refuses to admit that he did anything wrong so the sheriff flogs him in hopes of getting a confession.