When Darkness Reigns

In When Darkness Reigns, Schmidt returns to his cherished Sierra Nevada Mountains - the scene of his earlier novel Out of Bodie. However, Darkness is considerably bleaker: its narrator, Joey, then Joseph Sparrow, and his Indian blood brother, Running Deer, grow to manhood in the troubled times of the Sierra Nevada. It was a time when the Piute Indians were facing their greatest challenge: the onslaught of white settlers along the stretches of roadway from Lone Pine to Bridgeport. The two brothers grow in stature as their reputations are increasingly held in high repute by both communities, first as sheriffs in the gold mining communities of Bodie and Aurora and then as arbitrators in the disputes between Piute and white man. There is, however, a faction of both Piute and white settler who remain angrily hostile to any attempts of the part of either Joseph Sparrow or Running Deer to broker peace. And it is these two deadly factions that bring the novel to a close.