Book review: Stranded by Matthew P. Mayo

Best known as an author of popular western novels, Matthew P. Mayo produces his finest work of fiction to date with this compelling, heartbreaking account of Janette Riker’s harrowing experiences while stranded for months on end in the Rockies, battling blizzards, frostbite and floods, and a vast array of ravenous, menacing creatures.

Based on a true story and told in the form of journal entries, Mayo’s novel begins at the very start of the Riker family’s ill-fated journey westward toward Oregon Territory.

Gripped with wanderlust, Janette’s father, a widower for six years, is keen to leave behind their family home in Bloomington, Missouri – the house he and his departed wife built themselves with little help from anyone else – and head out west. Although in no hurry to leave the only home she has ever known, Janette has no objections to the trip, and so she and her father and two brothers set out in mid-June in search of a better life.

Aware of ‘the horrors that can happen to people travelling west by wagon,’ Janette is not prepared for the tragedy that awaits her.

Three months into their trip, ‘with the most difficult stretch still to come’ as the final three-day journey to Oregon will be through mountain passes, they decide to stop and replenish their depleted food stocks. Her 12-year-old brother, Thomas, ‘an uneven mix of good and rascal, of laziness and kindness,’ and William, aged 16, ‘who sometimes seems older than Papa,’ set off for the day with their father to go buffalo hunting. They never return.

Alone except for two oxen, and unsure of the best path through the mountains, Janette has no choice but to stay put. Armed with an axe, a shotgun and a hip knife, her best hope for survival is to build a shelter, set traps for rabbits and other small game and recollect every scrap of advice her fath