Chenneville, Jiles - A*

                    In the fall of 1865, Lt. John Chenneville comes to in an army hospital in Virginia, where he has been in a coma for seven months. He ha suffered a head injury during an explosion outside of Petersburg. He slowly begins the process of remembering who he is, and how to live.  He returns home to his family's large farm north of St. Louis and is told that his sister and her family were murdered in the spring, during a troubled time in the south of the state. His sister had married a paroled Confederate officer, whose presence in town had offended a Union man. John will pursue the killer, but first must recover his mental acuity, ride a horse again, and shoot a rifle.  He spends a year recovering and putting the farm back together. In November of the following year, he rides south. The only lead he has is a name - Dodd, who has left Missouri and headed to Texas when he hears someone was looking for him and. Chenneville rides into Indian Territory, loses his horse in a snowstorm and walks to a Western Union station where he receives help. He continues and picks up occasional bits of information about Dodd. A cautious man by nature and now out looking for revenge, he steers clear of company and conversation as much as he can. He crosses the Red River into Texas and learns he s two days behind Dodd, who had killed again.  He rides deeper into Texas and is surprised to learn that federal marshals are looking for him, thinking he, and not Dodd, killed the Western Union telegrapher. Chenneville is laid up in Marshall with a fever and then heads to Galveston, where he hopes to find Dodd before he can get on a boat and disappear. On the way to Galveston, he catches up with the outfit Dodd was in during the war and learns he's in San Antonio.  On the way to San Antonio, Chenneville meets up with the Marshall who is pursuing him.