Downloading Two Spirits

This "Western genre" novel, based in historical fact, tells a tale of adventure of a young man from rural Virginia, assigned to be the Government Indian Agent on the Bosque Redondo Reservation in the desolate New Mexico desert after the Civil War. In the 1860s, the Navajo Indians were held as virtual prisoners of war in an "experiment in Indian management" under the command of an unscrupulous Indian War general who was later removed because he had been swindling money sent by Washington for the Indians' food and lodging, making himself rich at the Indians' expense and suffering. This story recounts how the fictional Indian Agent develops a romantic relationship with a Two-Spirit medicine man among the Navajos, and so comes to appreciate personally the plight of the Indians on the reservation. The Two-Spirit Person is modelled on the revered character in certain Native American cultures who blends masculine and feminine genders into a kind of loving exemplar of the culture's spiritual values. Through a series of adventures, shot through with Navajo mysticism, the two lovers expose the general's chicanery and bring about the Indians' return to their ancestral homeland in eastern Arizona. In the process, the young Virginian learns Native American spirituality and discovers a positive context for his own emotional and sexual development. His marriage to his Two-Spirit partner demonstrates historical precedent for same-sex marriage on American soil.