M D St ClareWhen I began writing the first draft of this book, it was in the middle of the 2004 General Election. And the middle of the Bush II administration, which seemed to call for so much scrutiny, on so many issues. It also happened that I was in Colorado or several months when the campaigning began in 2003 for the following year's election, and then into the beginning of that year, 2004, with its primaries in focus. For me, the proximity to the Native American culture, while living in that part of the country, enhanced the sense of connection with it that I have had practically since childhood. So that the two, politics and that Native tradition, seemed to meld themselves into the rendering of the story that emerged in this novel. In the ensuing years, many movements have sprung up, and issues that were at the edge of society's consciousness at the time of that campaign later came to the fore. And yet, curiously, it has not outdated the content of the story presented here. The same issues woven into this story seem to have circled around and re-emerged, or grown into full-blown movements, as relevant to the present political and national scene as before: abortion, and the Latino vote, to name two examples. The polarization of the two major parties has drastically worsened, but still raises the question of tactics deployed by the one party against its political opponents that go beyond the realm of verbal attack or spinning the other candidate's record. We are also still besieged with the vital issue of what takes place in the arena of citizens casting their votes: voting rights, the security of the vote, tampering with voter rolls, and all the variations possible that amount to distorting the outcome of crucial elections at every level. And most recently and of greater concern, the meddling of an adversarial foreign power in the election process coupled with a defiance of the law or other legislative traditions in Congress and within the executive branch that is unprecedented. None of the elements of plot or dialogue in this work have been altered to reflect political events and situations occurring after the first draft of this story. Edits have been made to clarify plot and sharpen dialogue; otherwise, the ideas and even the words of the characters are what they were from the outset of writing. The fact that they happen to resonate with any current events is coincidental, if unsettling. Read More Read Less