>> good afternoon. and welcome to the historic trinity united methodist church. we feel so fortunate to be in this beautiful space which has been made possible by the generosity of jack and mary romanos. i'm honored to serve as a volunteer for the 11th annual savannah festival,o and i'm so glad you also are participating in this year's festival presented by georgia power, by david and nancy citron, the sheehan family foundation and mark y and pat suen. we'd also like to thank our wonderful literati members as well as individual sponsors and donors who have made f and continue to make saturday at the book festival a free event. 90% of the revenue for the savannah book festival, in fact, comes from donors like you, so thank you very much. we're excited to have a savannah bookik festival app available year, so please look in your program if you would like information on downloading that app to your telephone. before we get started, a couple of housekeeping notes. immediatelys following this presentation, our author, deanne stillman, will be signing festival-purchased copies of her book out in telfair square. if you intend to stay in this venue for the presentation that will follow this presentation, please move forward in the space so that we make room for people who are coming in through the big front doors. a couple of technology announcements, we ask that you take just a minute right now to double check that your cell phone is turned off or at least in the silent mode so that we won't have electronic interruptions during the talk, and the other is that if you have cell phones with which you want to take photographs, please make sure that you don't use a flash. and then finally, for the question and answer portion i'm going to ask that you raise your hand, i will make eye contact with one of the ushers who will bring a microphone to you. please don't begin your question until you have of a microphone in your hand, and in the interest of fairness to the other attendees and our efforts to make as many questions as possible happen, please make sure that you limit yourself to just one question and that your question is actually a question rather than a comment or a story. deanne stillman is with us today courtesy of dave and bobbi irwin and christina and jim trollinger. deanne stillman is a critically acclaimed writer. her latest book is "blood brothers" about the strange friendship between sitting bull and buffalo bill. it also tells the story of annie oakley who was a friend of both of thesek men. the book received a starred review from kirkus and was named by true west magazine and the millions as the best book of 2017. stillman is also the author of "desert reckoning," which is the winner of the spur award and the los angeles press club award for best nonfiction. her book "mustang" was an l.a. times best book of the year and was released in audio with wendy mallic, anjelica huston, francis fisher and others. she is also the author of twentynine palms, a los angeles times best book of the year which hunter thompson called, quote, a strange and brilliant story by an important american writer. we have that important american writer with us today, so please give a very warm savannah welcome to deanne stillman. [applause] >> thank you so much, savannah and savannah book festival, c-span, trinity united methodist church and my sponsors. really great to be here. so as you know, i'm here to talk about my latest book, "blood brothers," which is about the strange friendship between sitting bull and buffalo bill with kind of a corollary appearance from annie oakley. and i'm going to read a few excerpts and talk about my journey through this story and then take some questions from you all afterwards. so first i want to talk to you a bit about how i came to write this, this very strange story about a strange friendship. some time ago while working on my book "mustang: the saga of the wild horse in the american west," i have to yet adjusted here, i learned about a strange and heartbreaking moment that had transpired outside sitting bull's cabin while he was being assassinate during an ambush. a horse was tethered to a railing, and at the sound of gunfire, he d started to dance, trained to do such a thing while he was in the wild west, buffalo bill's famous spectacle of which sitting bull wasas a part for fr months during 1885. i couldn't shake the image, and as i began to look into it, i learned that the horse was a gift to sitting bull from buffalo bill presented to sitting bull when he left the show to go home. and home for him at that time was standing rock. the fact that buffalo bill had given sitting bull a horse upon his departure was significant. this was the animal that transformed the west and was stripped from theic tribes in order to vanquish them. it wasth a gift that sitting bul treasured along with a hat that cody had given him as well. after sitting bull was killed, buffalo bill bought the horse back from sitting bull's widows, and according to some accounts, rode it in a parade. and then the horse disappears from the record. it was the legend of the dancing horse that led me into the story of sitting bull and buffalo bill. for it symbolized so much. as i thought about the steed outside sitting bull's dwelling as his killing was underway, a portal into something else opened up. [laughter] strange voices coming through the portal. [laughter] it's all strange, i told you. [laughter] okay. where was i? oh, portal, right. exactly. a portal opened up. exactly what, i was not sure of at the time other than the fact that here was my next story, and it was calling, and at some point i would head on down its trail. later as i was well along this path, i came across another image. it's's now on the cover of this book, and it too captured my attention. it was taken for publicity purposes while sitting bull and buffalo bill were on tour in montreal, and its caption was foes in '76, friends in '85. i began to imagine these two men on the road, sitting bull on that horse crisscrossing the nation, visiting lands that once had belonged to the la coe eta, appearing -- lakota, appearing as himself on crowded thoroughfares built on top of ancient paths made by animals and the people who followed them with william f. cody, another mythical figure of the great plains reenacting wartime scenarios that had one outcome. the end of the red man and the victory of the white leading the whole parade many a celebration of the wild west that became the national scripture. what were the forces that brought these two men together, i wondered, and what was the nature of their alliance. were they each trapped in a persona, a veneer that was somewhat true? and behind the myth, the projected ideas in which they were preserved, who were they in day-to-day life? theirs was certainly an unlikely partnership, but one thing was obvious on its face, both had names that were forever linked with the buffalo. one man was creditedded with wiping out the -- creditedded with wiping out the species, though that was hardly the case, and the other was sustained by its verype life. theyas were, in effect, two sids of the same coin, foes and then friends, just as the photo caption on the publicity poster said. so this image, too, entered my consciousness. here were two american superstars, icons not just of their era and country, but for all time and around the world. what story was this picture telling, and how was it connected to the dancing horse outside sitting bull's cabin? okay. so now a little bit, a little bit about all of these questions. can't answer all of them, but there are a few thoughts. first of all, something i do in my book is i recount the stories of each man from cradle to the grave literally, and i kind of track their parallel histories. i mean, both grew up, both men grew up on the frontier, both came from very rough circumstances, both were quite revered in their own tribes, both became superstars, both -- they were husbands, fathers, sons, warriors. they shared a bloody history. they were enemies, you know, for quite some time million they hooked up -- until they hooked up in buffalo bill's wild west show. so here's a little bit about cody. in europe he was known as nature's nobleman, a frontier self-sufficient with the sophistication of western civilization. in america he was king of the old west, a title he deserved. he was a hunter, scout, shooter, rider, warrior, teller of tall tales and man of adventure par excellence. his experiences in sitting -- [inaudible] rendered him a kind of wise man, and presidents and generals sought his advice. his friends included frederick remington and mark twain, pawnee chiefs, broncs busters who coud drink him h under the table, archdukes from foreign lands and ranch cooks who needed a job. he was open to all. he had no airs. what you saw was what you got. even if what you saw was sometimes a mirage. hehe was the simplest of man, as annie oakley would say at the end of his life, as comfortable with cowboys as with kings. before the term was forever linked to his name, william f. cody grew up in the wild, wild west. once he was a boy, not a superstar, notot named for the animal that he would kill by the thousands. others, for the record, killed more. but just a boy who played with indians on the great plains, perhaps even members of sitting bull's extended tribe. he would pass through a territory near his home in kansas as they followed the buffalo. so, too, by his own account did he kill an indian in his youth and others later while he was employed as a wagon train hand. but, of course, he was not aware that the curtain would soon fall on their way of life and that he would participate in that last act as well as try to preserve what came before. once he was just a boy who helped his struggling family eke out a living on the frontier. so how he came to hook up with sitting bull is the pretty amazing part of this story. after the battle of the little bighorn during which custer was killed as i hope all of you know -- a [laughter] sittingg bull was blamed for killing custer which was not true, he did not pull the trigger. but he was nearby, and he was certainly a factor in that battle. fact, his medicine was all over the battlefield as i recount in my book. but because of this very humiliating defeat for the u.s. cavalry and victory, great victory for the lakota and cheyenne, the native americans who were involved in that battle fled northward into the arms of grandmother, aka canada, because they were branded as hostiles and had to leave their homeland. or be arrested. so sitting bull took his people to canada, and they lived there in exile for a number of years, and then at some point were forced to leave by the canadian government which was being pressured by american authorities and also buffalo there were vanishing as well. you know, there was kind of -- sitting bull was caught in this squeeze play, and he returned to his, to the dakota territory, his homeland. and he was quite well known, infamous i should say at that point. they didn't have the term public enemy number one there, but i use n it in my book. hehe was, he had become public enemy number one. he was the guy who killed custer, you know? civil war hero. and pretty notorious for his role in the indian wars. and so when he turned himself in at fort buford or with his people and his children including his young son and had his son surrender his rifle in a very poignant with ceremony which i describe in my book, he makes a a point of saying that e reason he came back is he wanted to make sure his children could see how the white man was living and learn to endure and assimilate into this new culture. he was so famous then that everybody, people would -- him and would surround want his autograph, and, you know, just kind of soak up some of his mojo. he was a celebrity. a lot of people were courting him for their wild west shows. there were a number of circuses traveling the country then including -- which featured cowboys and indians and animals too. he hooked up with a couple of troupes and traveled around. it was not -- the reason that native americans joined some of theseom shows isn't because it s like, oh, this is great, i get to, like, appear in these shows. it was a way off the reservation. it was a a sanctioned way for tm the reservation. and he wasn't really treated very well in these shows. he was just not, you know, this was one of the great americans of all time. and he was known and still is revered around the world. he was not treated with respect in these shows until cody came along. and cody had been after him for a long time. head knew that sitting bull was like a, you know, a big score, to used today's parlance. he knew that having him in his show would bring in a lot of money, and by then cody himself washe this huge superstar as wel after the little bighorn. he had avenged custer's death by scalping an indian and then returning to the stage many new york and elsewhere -- in new york and elsewhere on the east coast and reenacting the scalping of yellow hand and brandishing the scalp to the dismay of many. but cody was a showman, and he had been acting for some time, and he just really, like, cranked it up at this point. so he was able to convince sitting bull to join his show because of his stature. he promised him, promised to pay him -- i think he was paid more than anybody else inas the show. sitting bull was kind of, like, in baseball terms a free agent. he kind of wrote his own ticket at that time. he asked to be able to sell his own autograph, which other people in the show were doing, and cody, you know, of course agreed to all this. he really wanted sitting bull in his show. but another reason that sitting bull agreed to travel with cody was c the fact that annie oakley was already in the show. and he had met her while traveling to st. paul, minnesota, with the, with an army official a couple of years before hooking up with cody, and he was impressed with her shooting skills and even like sent her a note backstage like he was, he became a fan. and they struck up an immediate friendship, and he gave her the nickname little miss sureshot. which actually translates into else, but -- [laughter] you'll have to realize my book to find that out. [laughter] like a lot of things at that time, a lot of native american language, it was a mistranslation. but it doesn't much matter in terms of her career because when you think about it, who would annie oakley have become without that nickname, little miss sureshot? you know, he really kind of branded her. so having found out that she was, she had been hired by cody, he -- that was one other thing that made him join up. and then there was -- there were a couple of over things, but perhaps the most important of which was the fact that he wanted to get to washington, d.c. to meet the grandfather, aka the president, to ask him why the american government had betrayed his people. that was, like, really the overriding reason for him to join upp with cody. and they did get to washington, d.c. as well as a number of other places, and he and some of the other native americans in cody's show did have a meeting with some state department officials, and i describe this really another strange scene in my book where they're inside a building, an b office on capitol hill, andit there's all this western art on the walls, you know, like portraits of indians and paintings of buffalo and so on. and apparently some of the meeting started to laugh but sitting bull remained silent. so h he apparently did not get o meet the president, the grandfather, you know, to his disappointment. and, you know, that part of his desire to join up with codety was not fulfilled. but he did get to see what was going on with the white man, and he wanted to understand how this new civilization worked. and he admired all this great new technology, you know, like telephones and fire trucks and acknowledged the white man's superior firepower but bond -- but wondered how come as he traveled he was meeting all these homeless children around the country. there were all these orphans. and he would often give them money. cody helped out a lot of people too, they both were very generous. but he couldn't understand how this technologically advanced culture wasan failing its peopl. and i think that's, you know, quite interesting in terms of what's going on today. so at any rate, after the -- well, sitting bull traveled with cody for c four months in 1885, and i just want to reed you this -- realizes you this short paragraph -- read you this short paragraph about what that might have been like for him. imagine being born into a world where your tribe was the most powerful in all the land, and within that being born at the climax of its power. imagine that in your lifetime you witnessed a thing that consumed nearly everything you loved and were nourished by and that floorly everyone you cherished or parlayed with was destroyed, altered, killed or locked up. imagine being a person who lived through such a thing, sought to head it off directly and softly, was s both celebrated and hated for doing so. and yet because of an alliance with the natural world and it with you, saw the whole thing coming, even yourn own end. and then finally, imagine embracing life with allly of yor might and force, your generosity and joy, trying to contain the wellspring off sorrow and blood that was flooding your world and drowning it. knowing that a live cannot be stopped -- that a river cannot be stopped, but there are many different ways to ride it. this was sitting bull's fate and condition. so here he was, you know, joining up with buffalo bill for the reasons i mentioned. weirdly, their first meeting was in, of all places, buffalo. [laughter] and[l i wondered, i mean, when i found that out, i was completely stunned. another, like, breathtaking moment as i was working on my book. i wondered, like, what sitting bull thought when he was told he was going to buffalo. i mean, i'm sure it was translatedded and he had to -- translated and he had to have, you know, known the irony of that, if that's what you could call it. and he certainly knew that cody's name was buffalo bill, cody's nickname. and then i started to think about jokes that each -- reporters followed him around as he traveled, you know, he had an entourage of friends, and there were often reporters. and i started to wonder if reporters werert making jokes about the, you know, hey, chief, here we are in buffalo, what do you think about that? and i -- it just seemed like he was in a very, again, strange and humiliating position. .. they were allowed to ride horses and were reenacting moments in our history but not from their point of view but the cowboys too were engaged in these reenactments which almost pretty much ended as cody app store was vanishing so here were these cast members, all these americans including white and red poop lou and some women and these people locked out of time, reenacting what has become the national scripture. the way i see it that is where america lives when we live inside the wild west and it comes out of buffalo bill. think about dutchess and annie oakley wouldn't have a name or what stories we would tell ourselves about who we are as americans without buffalo bill and his wild west show, what dreams with this country have about it self. there is a dark side. i write about all this in my book. here is a little bit about the two men to gather. some friendships form quickly and stay just as fast, of his last for a short period go of time. but even they may be as deep as the kind that last for a lifetime. there are those in which mysterious forces, the head of the creator perhaps brings two people together, even former enemies, in an alliance that seems unlikely. and in the end not at all. such was the joined up of sitting bull and buffalo bill, friends and 85, as the photo caption said of the pair. each an icon to himself, together a powerhouse of mythology and might and sparks. the men had much in common. both were husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, both were celebrated, surrounded by admirers and those with jealousy, both were known to everyone and no one. trapped in a persona worn down by their gifts, both were men of action, nor a rumble nor a personal assault, warriors in service of their people of their time, not unlike montezuma and cortes, montezuma who carved out hearts with obsidian and a demand dreams of the newcomer's arrival and corridors who perform the assigned dance, sparkles in the ground and sending greyhounds to devour those in the way. unlike montezuma and cortes, there was one thing that made them blood brothers and that was the buffalo to which they both owed their lives and paid tribute with their names. as i said they first came together in buffalo of all places and i recount the scene in which they first met. sitting bull was with his entourage. they were in war regalia and again there was a reporter, and sitting bull paraded down the avenue buffalo to the field where cody's show was under way and when he got there, he had to wait for some time for cody to acknowledge him and invite him onto the field and when it finally happened, buffalo bill's advancement, arizona john burke, flamboyant who looked a lot like cody but was nowhere as charismatic, but a lot of advanced work. he abided sitting bull onto the field where cody was waiting for him and announced chief, i think we have got him. according to the reporter, cody was a little bit humbled by the moment ability was a big guy, very handsome, very powerful. by that i mean if you have ever been in the circle of somebody who has nothing but charisma and then some, it is very mesmerizing. it can stop you in your tracks. apparently cody was stopped by sitting bull who had that impact on people too. cody was over 6 feet, he appeared to shrink down in stature when sitting bull approached and the two men hesitated a moment or two and cody extended his hand. they shook hands and then cody made this incredible speech to everybody describing buffalo bill as the napoleon and his people in the great native american figure and he was urging all the spectators to give sitting bull his do. it was an important speech, not that everybody followed cody's command. as they traveled around the country, sitting bull was often blue the data in his experiences, sometimes was warmly welcomed but was still regarded by a lot of people as public enemy number one, the guy who killed custer, a big deal for these two men to coming together, people excoriated cody for having his show and exploiting native americans, but also providing them off of the reservation and acknowledging their humanity and their achievements in battle when she respected so it the end of this four month. co-sitting bull was homesick for standing rock and not having met the grandfather although gotten very close and having seen enough of the white man's world he wanted to go home. and i want to point out, did not participate in any reenactments in the show but only rode around the arena once at the beginning of each production and left the room. he was not hired fuzz to perform powwows, he treated him with respect. at the end of this 4-month. co-he gave him the horse that he rode in show. and sitting bull went home from his last performance that year in st. louis. sometimes during his tenure with cody he had given buffalo bill a bear claw necklace which was also a great gift, kind of a warrior to warrior symbol of respect and power. i went to get back to this dancing horse, sitting bull went home knowing his time was near. he had many dreams which were present, he had animal guides in his life and paid attention to them and at some point a meadowlark told him he would be killed by his own people. he knew this was all coming. and five years later, religious apocalypse, apocalyptic movements sweeping through the tribes of the great plains calling for return to the old ways and the idea was if you danced hard enough the buffalo would return and harmony would be restored and all would be well in the world. there was a ghost dance frenzy outside a single's cabin and it frightened a lot of the reservation authorities, a hyped up fear, the call went out to assassinate sitting bull. the ghost dancing got crazier and crazier and tribal police were hired to do the bidding of the government and they were sent to arrest sitting bull at don in december 18, '90 shortly before christmas and as this arrest was underway and altercation broke out and sitting bull was killed. as this killing was happening the horse danced as i mentioned. i want to get back to that was a while ago i called chief looking horse to seek his insight into this matter. the 19th generation keeper of the buffalo pipe, for the lakota indians, which was given to his people by the woman in black out decision. a ceremony regarding environmental and other sacred concerns at standing rock, united nations and elsewhere. i had met him in a wild horse preservation event in las vegas present its conclusion everyone in attendance joined him in a prayer circle in a ballroom at the south point hotel. hotels and their ballrooms with garish chandeliers being a location of many such events because they are among central gathering places of our time. what was the symbolism of the dancing horse outside sitting bull labs cabin i asked? was he responding to the sound of the gunfire as the story goes? there was a long silence, hesitated to break it. after a few moments, this is what he said. it was the horse taking the bullet. that is what they did. not everyone believes the horse danced, but i do. that is how i came to write this book. perhaps after reading it you will have your own thoughts about what happened on a winter's don of 1890. thank you very much for coming. [applause] >> i will take questions. >> if you remember to raise your hand and let an usher and in which to you with a microphone. right here in the blue shirt blues the usher right beside you. here we are. >> you did a great job on sitting bull and also had a vignette in their. another great indian chief, tecumseh, whose background is just as interesting but i wondered if you had any intention of getting a new book on tecumseh. it has been a while since there has been a new book on tecumseh. >> appreciate the suggestion which few people have asked me about that which i grew up in ohio so i'm familiar with this story. certainly deserves a contemporary telling and i will keep it in mind, thank you very much. >> down here. >> i didn't see. >> there is a point in a song by someone i admire called sitting bull in venice. did sitting bull ever cross the atlantic ocean? >> no. he left in september or october 18, '85 before cody went to england and beyond. he wasn't part of the wild west show in europe or the uk. it was because of his time with cody that the show took off. after it began, touring overseas, the song comes out of myth. there was another native american named sitting bull who toured later with cody and that could be the source of the mix up too. >> rebecca, there is an usher coming for you right now. >> i'm wondering how difficult it must be to write a history that is authentic about native americans when that history has been written by white men? how do you get through the racism, the slant, all of that to the authentic story? >> really good question. a lot of the accepted histories, some of them quite well written, have been written by white men. i relied on those but i also relied very much on a book by ernest point's grandson, sitting bull's grandson named ernest a point whose book, i am blanking on the title, might just be called sitting bull because i have it in my bibliography. i talk about discrepancies between his account and account of all these other books written by white writers and there are a couple major ones. i will say in general there are - that is wrong, nevermind blues i talk about all this in my book. it is a really good question and an important ones. you heard me read from my introduction, i did called chief looking horse to talk about this dancing horse and he is a very respected the ritual leader internationally among native americans and what he said opened up the story in a big way. >> i have a question. i don't want to run you away at all. i think about this era as the era of the lecture circuit. how would you characterize this traveling show which was more entertainment oriented with the likes of oscar wilde and other people visiting on the lecture circuit? >> really good question. in a way, cody was such a huge factor in american theater, acting on stage in new york, and in fact it was in a bar in brooklyn after a show that he and a partner took up the idea for the wild west show. he came out of this acting tradition of the frontier, there were traveling shakespeare troops, theater was huge then. people were starved for culture and myth. we as americans were just kind of cooking up our own identity and that moved it along. we were still very much involved with british civilization so that when actors from england came here, some of you might be aware there were the shakespeare riots in new york involving some sort of feud over who performed hamlet better, an american actor or famous british actor and there was rioting in the streets which led to death and an associate of cody's was part of the whole thing. there was tremendous fervor around theater then and spectacle. i don't know if that answers your question. there was a real hunger for it. >> right across the aisle. >> i look forward to reading your book. a question to follow on is the question of cultural cleansing. the issue of never said or documented, but an administration who set out to exterminate the opening of the west by whites. i wonder if you could address that from your vantage point knowing the native americans. >> i get into that in great detail in my book. something important to keep in mind is first of all buffalo bill and sitting bull formed the strange commercially driven alliance but crossed a fast chasm to do so. here with these two superstars coming together. not saying it was a love fest but symbolically reverberates today. standing rock in 2016, not just talking about the protests over the pipeline. that is where sitting bull lived and died. his spirit is all over the region. there were defendant's of soldiers who served at little big horn, army veterans themselves who came to standing rock to apologize to lakota elders for the role of their ancestors in the indian wars. i discussed this in my book as well. to me that is the most profound thing that came out of standing rock and one of the most profound things in terms of the ongoing conflict between the red and white men in this country and opens the door on reconciling america's original sin, betrayal of native americans, it happened to standing rock and that means a lot, that is where the story starts and ends. >> right over here. while you are here in georgia you might once to take a look at the cherokee, they won a supreme court decision saying they could keep their land and we took it away from them. >> another really sad story. but i do think back to the ceremony and standing rock, the door is now open on this rift, we are all blood brothers in terms of this shared bloodied history, and sisters too. >> i was kind of struck by the fact that once the native americans were put on the reservations, they were not allowed to really hunt and had no food and were given very limited portions. do you have any idea what the rationale was or were they trying to eliminate them? >> there was another reason some native americans joined up with cody in other shows. they were well fed during the shows at least in cody's. i can't speak for the others but cody made a point, made it a point that his indian cast members were treated the same even though some people came after them, religious groups and others to try to shut down the show and that is not as simple as it sounds, some wanted to convert the indians to christianity and wipe out their spiritual beliefs. >> halfway down. >> any parallel with the immigration issue? immigration, and also the way the indians are treated right now, anything more the federal government can do more than they are doing now? >> honor the treaties. people spent their lifetime trying to get the us government to honor native american treaties. i would say it starts there and at standing rock, there needs to be an official apology from the american government. >> i write about it in that book. and there were a number of veterans, many veterans could coming to standing rock to support the tribes, efforts to stop the pipeline and that was a big deal because in the old days when the fatter rate - cavalry showed up that was trouble for native americans. they were there to support the tribes. there was a ceremony in which gen. wesley clark's son, wesley clark junior or 3 row mac, i have his name in the book, led this prayer circle i guess you could call it or the ceremony of apology to some lakota elders asking forgiveness in the role of his and other ancestors in these wars. the very moving ceremony. the wars are quite profound. i just wanted to follow up, one thing the lakota elders who they apologized 52 said at the end of the ceremony the land belongs to no one, no one owns the land. that is important, really important thing to keep in mind these days, the assault on land, sea and air cranks up and that is the end game of the indian wars, the war on the environment, so connected to what happened in the 19th century. >> if allowed i have one or two more questions. has this coming out, and native american. any official responses, that exists on reservations. a nice review in one of the native american publications. >> telling a little bit about the book you have written before what you have in mind next. >> i talk about works in progress. these previous books, c-span covered other talks of mine and you can see those lines as well. my books are all related in a big way. they are on narrative nonfiction about the frontier and modern west and have to do with our wars against each other, against other people, against the land, against animals and take a look at how this can all be resolved. the land is a main character in a lot of my books. i see it being essential player in these stories, my last book was called desert reckoning, based on a rolling stone piece, about a hermit who lived in the desert, killed a popular sheriff in 2003 and took off into the desert and kicked off massive manhunt involving thousands of cops, 6 or 7 federal, state, and local agencies is what i get into, two men, blood brothers who loved the desert but were really enemies and never resolved their differences at all but something, this theme of reconciliation and how can -- how can these wounds be healed? something i tried to take a look at in all my work. >> thank you. thank you to deanne stillman. [applause] >> so happy you conducted us in savanna. enjoy the rest of your day. .. bls into which you can put your dollars if you believe saturday should stay free at savannah book festival. so, please, support the festival in that regard. >> thank you so much. thank you. 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