Point of View

The book is written in third person with an omniscient point of view, though it is sometimes at least somewhat limited. For example, Simon Kenton is involved in a fight with a man named William Leachman. Simon believes that he's killed Leachman and runs away. The reader is quickly given the information that Simon's mother refuses to give up the search for Simon after the incident, but it's not until some time later that the reader learns that Leachman didn't die but was actually tried for Simon's murder, though he was found not guilty because Simon's body was never recovered.

For the most part, the reader learns of happenings as they occur, though some of the events are relayed by way of stories told to Simon, meaning they are sometimes at least slightly out of order.

Setting

The story is set in America, along the then-western...