Nearly fifty years ago - during a nationwide wave of concern over growing numbers of missing and sexually exploited children - I interviewed a child and family counselor in Oklahoma who worked with local police to help find missing children and teens. That was only part of her job. The majority of her time was spent providing therapy and counseling, particularly if sexual molestation and abuse were involved.

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   More recent statistics gathered by the National Crime Information Center show that the incidence of missing persons is declining after years of increasing public and parental action to prevent kidnappings and abductions. Specifically, that’s a decline in missing person cases which are reported and documented. However, there has been no such decline in child and teenage exploitation. Reported cases of exploitation have even increased in some areas of the country. But what is the fate of victims with no family to miss them and no one to report their abduction? That overlooked person is potentially a lifelong slave; forced into drug addiction, human trafficking, pornography, prostitution, and eventual execution to eliminate the evidence.

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   Kotah Gold is a fictional treatment of the threat to victims of unreported child abduction and exploitation. It shows how the main character, Tre McMillan, falls through the cracks of the missing person process. It details the painful physical beatings by her abductor: drug-induced indoctrination to prostitution by her “new owner”.

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   Further, it details her hopeless attempts to escape her “owners” brutality. As her abductor searches to recover his "property," Tre flees across the plains and finds security in a Comanche family making an annual pilgrimage to Palo Duro Canyon, Texas.

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   This is a timeless story of how a determined young teen finds much needed attention and love. She finds strength in the Great Spirit, horsemanship, and self defense as taught by her newly adopted Comanche family. Aided by a badly wounded Bear Kotah, Tre eventually exacts her personal form of Comanche justice on her tormentors, amid the grandeur of Palo Duro Canyon, its dangerous storms, and the ghostly return of 1,000 slaughtered Comanche horses.

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   In its conclusion Kotah Gold is really about the discovery of the indomitable spirit of a young teen committed to a mission and dedicated to the memory of a native culture which has all but disappeared.

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   The mystical remnants of the infamous Battle of Palo Duro on September 28, 1874 is imaginatively captured for this novel by artist Laurie Prindle. Copies of Laurie’s cover art for Kotah Gold are available from Laurie at her studio http://www.llprindle.com/.

 

   Graphic designer Rob Williams put the finishing design on the cover. He and Laurie jumped through hoops to meet our many requests for cover design. As on all of my novels, my son Trent coordinated every effort of design and art to produce a unique and intriguing cover.

 

Warning Signs Of Abuse        From Texas Child Protective Services (CPS)
 

   What Is Child Abuse? To help prevent child abuse, you need to understand what it is. It’s any mistreatment of a child that results in harm or injury. There are four basic types of child abuse, though children often experience more than one kind.

   Physical Abuse: Physical abuse includes actions such as beating, burning, or punching a child.

   Emotional Abuse: Emotional abuse may involve criticizing, insulting, rejecting, or withholding love from a child.

   Sexual Abuse: Sexual abuse includes rape, touching or fondling, or involving a child in pornography.

   Neglect: Neglect includes failure to provide for a child’s basic physical, medical, or emotional needs. Leaving a young child home alone or failing to provide needed medical care may also be considered neglect.