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A few years ago, in downtown Phoenix, an Apache beggar touched me for a quarter. As I walked on, I was more than a little depressed.

Like so many of my generation, I had been brought up on tales of villainous fighting Indians, heroic Indian fighters, and ferocious encounters between the two. And of them all, the Apaches were the most courageous, the most fiercely independent, the most resistant to the white man's domination.

Was it all a myth? If not, was there any way to reconcile the derelict in Phoenix with the proud traditions of his haughty ancestors? What was the Apache side of the "winning of the West," anyway? I determined to find out.

Since I already lived in Arizona, which is as rich in Apache lore as in minerals, I was ideally situated. I visited battlefields, forts, libraries, museums. I read every book I could find. I consulted Indian authorities, in particular Odd Halseth of the Pueblo Grande Museum. I went to see present-day Apaches at their prosperous cattle ranches in Arizona's White Mountains, and talked with Apache rodeo performers at dusty little desert stockades.

When the material had been sifted, the obviously false information discarded, the legends and the facts evaluated, I knew the book I wanted to write. This is it. Wolf Brother doesn't even pretend to be history. All the characters are fictional, and I have made no attempt to fit the events to any actual chronological sequence. However, much of it is based on historical happenings, and I have done my best to keep the spirit true to Apache traditions.

Jim Kjelgaard