Titus Bass Books in Order
Part ofTerry C Johnston Books in OrderExplore the Titus Bass mountain man saga by Terry C. Johnston, with the books in order, brief plot notes, series background, and simple tips on where to jump into the series.
Last updated: December 25, 2025
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
9 books
Wind Walker
by Terry C Johnston
2001
An aging Titus Bass leads his family north to winter with the Crow, hoping for peace as the fur trade fades away. Saving old friends, rescuing his daughter from traders, and helping a doomed wagon train, he faces how little room is left for men like him.
Death Rattle
by Terry C Johnston
1999
With beaver nearly trapped out, Titus Bass joins a risky raid into Mexican California to steal horses and mules for resale back east. Hounded by soldiers and hardship, he returns to a changing Rockies and is swept up in the bloody Taos Rebellion.
Ride the Moon Down
by Terry C Johnston
1998
In the 1830s, veteran mountain man Titus Bass rides with his Crow wife and children through a West filling with traders and rival tribes. When Blackfoot raiders seize his family amid smallpox and fur company feuds, he fights to hold on to both kin and way of life.
Crack in the Sky
by Terry C Johnston
1997
Still learning the trade, young Titus Bass crosses the high plains to trap beaver, winter in brutal cold, and battle Comanche raiders and horse thieves. His wanderings lead him to fellow wanderer Josiah Paddock, binding two frontier lives together in friendship.
Buffalo Palace
by Terry C Johnston
1996
Leaving the settlements behind, Titus Bass finally reaches the Rocky Mountains he has dreamed about. He learns to trap beaver, ride out storms, survive rival trappers, and marvel at vast buffalo herds in the country he comes to call the Buffalo Palace.
Dance on the Wind
by Terry C Johnston
1995
Restless farmboy Titus Bass fears a small life more than any danger. At sixteen he slips away from Kentucky with a rifle and a flatboat crew, discovering river towns, bandits, and Indian attacks on a long run toward St. Louis and the beckoning West.
One-Eyed Dream
by Terry C Johnston
1988
In the beaver-rich Bayou Salade valley, Titus "Scratch" Bass, Josiah Paddock, and the women they love briefly find a mountain paradise. When a vengeful Arapaho war party and an old enemy close in, the trail leads from the high Rockies to bloody reckonings in Taos and St. Louis.
Borderlords
by Terry C Johnston
1986
After settling a deadly score, Josiah Paddock and Scratch Bass limp back to a Crow village to heal and belong. A rivalry over a Crow woman tears them apart, sending Scratch alone into the wilderness until the friends meet again at Green River to face a new threat.
Carry the Wind
by Terry C Johnston
1982
St. Louis clerk Josiah Paddock flees west after killing a rival, only to nearly die in his first winter in the mountains. Rescued by veteran trapper Titus Bass, he learns the brutal craft of survival and faces a murder that tests his loyalties on the high frontier.
Series background & context
The Titus Bass novels follow one mountain man from restless boyhood to worn out old age, using his life to chart the rise and fall of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. Readers meet Titus as a teenage farmboy in Kentucky and ride with him through rivers, rendezvous, and high passes into a West that is still largely unmapped.
The early years unfold in Dance on the Wind, Buffalo Palace, and Crack in the Sky. Titus runs away down the Ohio and Mississippi, survives river bandits and slave catchers, then pushes beyond St. Louis into the Rockies. There he learns to trap beaver, endures brutal winters, fights rival trappers and hostile tribes, and discovers the vast buffalo herds that first pulled him west.
Johnston then loops back to the earlier published Bass and Josiah Paddock trilogy, Carry the Wind, Borderlords, and One-Eyed Dream, which show Titus in his hard earned prime. Those books take him from the Green River rendezvous into Crow camps, Blackfeet country, and a growing friendship with young clerk turned mountain man Josiah Paddock, as the pair try to carve out a place in a landscape claimed by many nations.
The closing volumes, Ride the Moon Down, Death Rattle, and Wind Walker, pick up as the fur trade collapses. Titus rides with his Crow wife and children across New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, tangling with Blackfoot raiders, disease, and rival companies, then is drawn into a raid on Mexican California and the violence of the Taos Rebellion. By the time he leads his family back to Crow country, settlement and new trails are transforming everything he thought he knew.
Across the series Johnston lingers on the small textures of mountain life, from how to make camp in a whiteout to the talk at a summer rendezvous. He shows Titus as a fighter and hunter, but also as a husband, father, and friend who keeps trying to balance wanderlust with family obligations.
It is, in many ways, a single long biography written in nine thick chapters.
You can start with Carry the Wind if you want to meet Bass as an experienced hand, or with Dance on the Wind if you prefer to follow him from his first step away from Kentucky. Either path eventually winds through the same mountains, friendships, and losses, giving you a detailed look at the fur trade era from the inside.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.
Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts