Fort Zion is the story of a mountain man, Jeff Curtis, who is asked by Joseph Smith to lead a secret wagon train to the "Yutah" territory. He is asked to map a route and find a place for the Mormons to build a fort once they arrive. The story is full of action and romance. There is intrigue which involves one of the wagon train members conspiring with the Mexicans to wipe them out. There are Indians who kill one of the members and kidnap two of the children. There is an ambush and encounters with wild animals. The book moved along rapidly and kept my attention to the end.

The author, Robert Foster, is an English teacher at Salt Lake Community College. He graduated from the University of Utah with a B.A. in English literature and a minor in history. He weaves the historical in with the fiction so that it is difficult to see where one ends and the other begins.

One of my favorite characters is George Ledbetter who the Indians called The Teller of Tales. He is another mountain man who I picture to be a kind, grand-fatherly person. He finds a young Shoshone boy, Little Badger, whose people had been attacked and killed. George befriends Little Badger and later returns him to his uncle's people. For the kindness that is shown to Little Badger, the Shoshone tribe befriends the Mormons when they are settled in Yutah.

George Ledbetter and Jeff Curtis both take time to teach the members of the wagon train things about the Indians, the history of the area that they are traveling through and things to expect along the way. Foster does this in such a way that you don't realize that you are learning history while reading a wonderful story.

One of the members of the wagon train is a young lady named Alison Foster who came from England to teach Joseph and Emma's children in Nauvoo. When she learns about the secret wagon train she wants desperately to join. Emma agrees with her and encourages Joseph to let her go. Along the way Alison and Jeff fall in love and even though Jeff is not a member they get married when the reach Yutah.

I fully enjoyed this book and only had two problems with it.

First, I believe that the people would have addressed each other using the titles of Brother or Sister or Mr., Mrs, or Miss. In the book they are all pretty much on a first name basis. I realize that this may be due to poetic license by the author but I felt that it was out of character for the time period.

Second, I found many, many punctuation errors. Most of these happened with quotation marks being in the wrong place. It was confusing to be reading along and have to reread a sentence to get the meaning. I believe that it was more an error of the editing or typesetting then the author. I am sure that an English teacher would not have made those errors. However, the story was well told and I could see that there is plenty of room for a sequel to this book. At least I hope there is. I would love to read it. I believe that this book would appeal to anyone who is a lover of Utah history.

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Marilee McQuarrie
April 19, 2006