"When the defeated Cho-ken-en crossed the border and began the long march up the San Simon Valley, Ulzana left the column and went by himself up into the home hountains. Some inner sense, some voice, directed him to his birthplace. In the forty years of his life, the stream had bubbled down the canyon, sweeping over the rocks that never appeared to have notticed. There was peace here, and silence. So much had happend. So many pine needles had been swept down the stream. It was no longer the same. There was a sadness there now. He left, knowing in his heart that he would never return to this place again."

Ulzana has mostly been forgotten although he was a major player during a critical period of Southwestern history. In this novel Ulzana is portrayed as a sympathetic individual, not so the reader will approve or disapprove of his ideas and actions, but so it may be possible to understand what he became in terms of what he experienced.

In ULZANA the author creates an American Indian hero. We follow Ulzana through all the stages of his life from infancy to boyhood, through his warrior training, his ritual life as son, husband and father, and through forty years of war against both the Mexicans and the "White Eyes". We experience his joys and sorrows, his victories and defeats.

In telling Ulzana's story, James Olson has also told the story of the Chiricahua Apaches. Americans today yearn for the vanished beauty of their land and its primeval mystery. One way of discovering it anew is in the lost culture of the American Indian, so close to the Great Spirit of the earth. The story of Ulzana is not only the story of his fierce and proud adventures, it is the story of the sacred mysteries of the Chiricahua Apaches, the life and death of an Indian tribe.

ULZANA is the winner of The Southwestern Border Regional Library Association Book of The Year ; The Evelyn Oppenheimer "Oppie" for outstanding fiction, and The Wisconsin Council of Writers Best Fiction of the Year.

Here is what the critics say!

"Legally fiction, but the research Olson has done has made this one of the most alive and real "biographies" we have read in a long time. We follow Ulzana the Apache through all stages of his life from infancy to boyhood, through training as a warrior and on through 40 years of war against both the Mexicans and the White Eyes. Truly the death of the great Chiricahua Apache tribe, and if we gave triple stars, we'd give it on this one!" - New Mexico Book League.

"ULZANA …is painstakingly researched. It is gripping. It has other virtues too, and no glaring defects. . .More importantly, however, most of the descriptive passages - mountains, sky, desert, crimson clouds, stars, fiery sun - are exceptionally successful. Olson shows early acquisition of a prose style both dignified and detached; also, at least in this instance, it is cadenced and somber, well suited to the subject matter - rapacity, expropriation and death . We somehow sense his sounding of the death knell . . . To repeat, this novel - by a white man - is griping." - Cyrus Colter, Panorama, Chicago Daily News.

" The reader . . . will discover a rather warm tale of an Apache who must face the end of the Indian wars and the beginning of the reservation system. Olson has created a true character of fiction, one with three dimensions, caught up in a major conflict of his time." - Sioux Falls Argus-Leader.

"In this first novel the author gives evidence of thorough research. He reveals the Apaches as vengeful fighters and cruel torturers, but only in retaliation against exploitation by greedy Indian agents and frontier drifters and treachery by the United States government. His excellent portrayal makes Ulzana seem to be a real person, fully deserving the sympathy of the reader." - Southwest Chronicle.