Notes

Other Title: Black storm coming 1st Aladdin Paperbacks ed Summary: Twelve-year-old Colton, son of a black mother and a white father, takes a job with the Pony Express in 1860 after his father abandons the family on their California-bound wagon train. His mother is sick, and Colton needs money to pay the doctor. And Colton needs to get to California urgently to deliver freedom papers to Ma's sister, a runaway slave. The Pony Express job could get him there, but there is problem. Colton looks almost as white as his pa, but he knows what can happen when people find out his mother is black. To be a Pony Express rider, he will have to "pass" for white. That scares him - if his secret is discovered, he could hang. Soon Colton is on the ride of his life, riding for his family, for freedom, and maybe even to help keep a divided America together. As the nation plunges toward civil war, Colton struggles to unite the two parts of his own identity First published: 2005