Pictures from an Expedition is another intriguing venture in historical fiction. Once again Smith offers a woman on the late 19th-century American frontier. This time aspiring scientific illustrator Eleanore Peterson joins a small project seeking fossils in the badlands of Montana. Well, maybe they're seeking fossils. Maybe they're looking for bird bones. And maybe she's supposed to be an illustrator. Or maybe she's supposed to be a mole working for the rich guy who is funding the expedition. The leader of the expedition may only be a hired hand. Or perhaps he's recovering from the traumatic stresses of his Civil War experiences. The nearby Indians may be friendly. Then again the story is set in Montana during the summer of the battle at Little Big Horn, and many Indians are headed north to Canada. Or maybe they're just hunting buffalo as usual.

There are many, many things that are vague and unexplained in this story. The ambiguities were bothersome for me. I even went back and reread the beginning chapters to see if I'd missed some crucial scene setting. I hadn't.

At times, it seemed like there were too many people wandering around the frontier. The expedition Peterson is working with collects a large and unlikely crew of companions. The cast of characters is one of the wonders of the book. But, I always imagined that in the days when Custer was leading his cavalry around North Dakota and Montana (on the way to Little Big Horn) that there were few non-Indians about, except for the wagon trains headed west. But there were soldiers, traders, tourists, scientists, settlers, miners, surveyors, steamboats and entrepreneurial boatmen on the rivers.

I even have a family story to help me accept the presence in this story of a pair of miners (one from England, the other from China) heading from the California gold fields for the Black Hills, a New England maiden (and her matronly aunt escort) on a visit to her fiancÈ's homestead, a Civil War veteran who has "gone native" and travels with a pet bear, and a crew of Welsh stone masons hired to build a huge house on the edge of the Montana badlands.

It was only a few years after the 1876 setting of this book that my great-grandfather set off after his 21st birthday to see the world. He told stories to his granddaughters and to me of riding west, sleeping in the open with the horse's rein tied to his ankle, and seeing Yellowstone. A young tourist on the frontier, he was warned away from Deadwood, South Dakota, because strangers weren't welcome.

But I'm getting carried away.

In spite of all these interesting characters, most of whom are only sketched lightly in the book, there's not much going on. For me there were too many things unexplained. The main character seems unsure about what her role is and what her behavior should be. But there wasn't enough explanation for her confusion to make it believable. There are hints (mostly in the publicity and reviews) of conflict between evolutionists and creationists, but the conflicts aren't obvious. There are hints about competition between fossil hunters (and even a fossil creation scam), but it all happens in the background without enough clarity to really be part of the story.

The last fourth of the book makes up for some of those deficits, but it was pretty late in the story telling. Eleanore Peterson is an interesting character. I think I'd read more about her life after 1876 if Smith wrote about it.

So, I had mixed reactions to this book. You might have other reactions, and I'd love to hear. If you read Pictures from an Expedition, let us know. Tell this little bit of the world what you think.