Blood Stones
Blood Stones is The Title of a fictional book written by American author Gerald Kearny. It is an action/adventure story set in northeastern Minnesota in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW or BWCA). The premise of the story involves a hunt for two legendary stones crafted from emerald stone with gold grooves on their surface. It was self-published in 2008 by AuthorHouse, ISBN 9781434399762.
Plot Summary
The story begins with a teenaged Gib Larkin vacationing with his family at their cabin in Ely, Minnesota. It is here that Gib’s father tells him of a book written by a distant uncle, Gerald Kearny. Through the story Gib learns of the blood stones and through clues in the book he comes to believe the stones are real, as many others have before him.
Eleven years later he is ready to search for the stones in the BWCA. To help him, he has brought together Josh and Addison, also descendents of Gerald Kearny through different lines. Together they embark on a camping expedition into the remote wilderness of northeastern Minnesota. However, they are not the only ones looking for the stones.
Temple Marston along with his assistant Harris and a group of military mercenaries are also on the hunt. Temple’s ambition for fame and fortune eclipse any internal sense of morality and he is prepared to kill anyone who gets in his way. Harris, a morally conflicted man, dutifully navigates the clues of the book for his employer.
On their journey, Gib and the others retrace the steps of their distant ancestors to the site of an old cabin that belonged to their distant common ancestors. There they are secretly watched by Temple. Believing that these newcomers might have a better insight into the location of the stones, Temple and his men secretly follow Gib, Josh and Addison deeper into the woods.
The first stone is recovered on Basswood Lake after an ordeal that nearly takes Josh’s life. Temple’s men are closely watching, but unwilling to make their move until the other stone is found. At their camp, Gib reveals to Addison that the location of the second stone is at Gerald Kearny’s private cabin on the northern shore of Lake Superior.
As the group makes their way out of the wilderness, they begin to suspect they are being followed. To throw their pursuers off track they decide to make the arduous trek through the remains of old Ely, an eerie place whose century old ruins are sunk deep in a crystal clear lake and where strange log totems guard the land. Josh’s journey through the town takes an especially ghostly turn when he is forced to go through the old cemetery and confront his personal demons and one of Temple’s men is killed when he does disregards the purpose of the log statues.
Successful in alluding the men, Gib, Josh, and Addison leave the BWCA and travel to Lake Superior. Temple has not given up and discovers a personal connection between Addison and the guide that helped them. Ruthlessly, Temple forces Ben Jurick to tell him where Addison and her friends have gone. Ben, for fear of his family’s safety, reveals their destination and is killed.
At the cabin on the north shore, Gib continues to follow the clues in the book to determine the location of the second stone, but his insights are now fuzzy and vague. He feels he is missing or overlooking something. Josh unravels the next clue and they learn that they must go to the bottom of a lake further up the property. Due to his near drowning on Basswood Lake, Josh chooses not to go scuba diving to the bottom of the lake where Gib and Addison find the key that unlocks the second stone.
Temple and his men have arrived to find Josh sitting idly in a boat in the middle of the lake just before another trick sends Josh swimming for his life once again. All three resurface and go to get the other stone. Temple decides to wait until the three come back to make his move.
Unaware of what awaits them, Gib and Addison make their way to the cabin while Josh returns to the beach to pick up his shoes. The split of them confuses Temple’s men until one accidentally reveals his hidden position. Gib and Addison flee at the sight of him and a shot is fired that just misses Gib’s head. Temple and one of his men pursue while two others stay behind to eliminate Josh. The sound of the shot has alerted Josh to danger and he begins a game of cat and mouse with the two men which results in the death of Harris before he is able to redeem himself as a morally sound person.
Gib and Addison are outsmarted and caught by Temple with Addison being shot in the leg. Gib, knowing that they are about to die, recovers the insight he’d been missing and unlocks the final secret to Kearny’s clues. He tricks Temple with a spectacle of nature that Kearny has planned and he uses Temple’s momentary distraction to tackle him to the ground. A fight ensues with Temple on the verge of winning until the wounded Addison is able to knock out Temple with the second stone.
A year later, Gib, Josh and Addison are gathered in Ely to attend the opening of a museum exhibit featuring the stones and the original Kearny family. As Gib places the stones in the chest that was meant to hold them, he turns them until the lines on the stones match with the lines in the chest drawer. The big smile he offers at the end hints at a possible sequel as perhaps another kind of map has been revealed.
Main Characters
Gib Larkin - The main protagonist, Gib learns of the story of the stones during an impetuous battle of wills with his father when he is just a teenaged boy. After being introduced to the book written by his great, great, great uncle, Gib comes to believe the stones are real. He is confident and self-assured, but his vision is sometimes singularly focused on his own agenda at the expense of his friends, particularly Addison.
Addison Gethold - Having grown up in northern Minnesota, she is very knowledgeable about the BWCA. Her tough, pragmatic nature is often a cover for her tragic estrangement from the Kearny family legacy. Her return to valuing family relationships is symbolically demonstrated at the climax when she uses one of the stones to save them.
Josh Bertram - With his easy-going attitude, Josh is often the balance between Addison and Gib during their difficult beginning. During his time in the peaceful and reflective environment, he recalls a forgotten childhood memory that begins to haunt him. He is forced to confront these fears in the ghost town of old Ely and later demonstrates his mastery over his fears when he must “hunt the hunters” in order to protect his friends.
Harris Montgomery - Morally conflicted and easily led, Harris is torn between his desire for material wealth and his nagging conscious. As a party to Temple’s subversive activities, Harris constantly questions his reasons for staying with him and often dreams about leaving. Though he is careful not to directly hurt anyone (and in fact saves Gib and the others on one occasion), his complacency with Temple’s actions leads to the question of which is worse; being evil or being good and allowing evil acts to occur? His death, while inadvertent, is the direct result of his association with morally unethical characters.
Temple Marston - An archetypical character, Temple represents greed and personal gain over others. His actions are quick and decisive and with no regard for morality or compassion. He is also a skilled manipulator and demonstrates this ability several times on Harris. However, he shows little patience for the mercenaries he employs which suggests he truly does value Harris’ input.
Meyers – The leader of Temple’s militia, Meyers is a tenacious and ever-vigilant hunter. He is the first to confront Gib and the others face to face. He develops a specific grudge against Josh for out-smarting him and the two match wits again in the climax.
Gerald Kearny – The author of the book (presumably a pen name) is also a predominant character in the story. Though not a physically interactive character, his memory affects most of the characters in some way: Gib clearly idolizes him, Addison initially resents him, Josh is open to what he has to show them, and Harris fondly regards him for his clever story.
Geocaching
In early 2009, Kearny released a hand bound copy of Blood Stones to the geocaching community in the form of a travel bug. The mission of the bug is to travel around the country from cache to cache until his retired father is able to locate it. It was last seen in the state of Virginia.
Inspirations
In a December 2008 interview with the Hibbing Daily Tribune, Kearny cited his main inspirations for the novel. First, it was written for his family with all members of his family represented in the story as ancestors of the main characters. Their journey takes them to the site of the old Kearny cabin in the fictionally expanded BWCA. Appropriately, the theme of the story centers on the values of heritage and family of which the blood stones are a symbolic representation.
The fictional “moving” of Ely from its current location to a more southern location is based partly on the moving of the city of Kearny’s home town city of Hibbing due to mining demands and partly on the tumultuous history of the Thye-Blatnick Act of 1948. This Act was the beginning of governmental buy-outs of privately owned land around the BWCA to increase the size of the wilderness. It ended when Dorothy Molter passed away in 1986 and was the last person to have residence within the BWCA.
The Clues
To figure out the location of the stones, both Gib and Harris refer back to the book written by Kearny. Gib is introduced to the legend of the stones when he reads the first passage of the book given to him by his father:
- Their legend doubted by all but the faithful, dismissed with time as the wild imaginings of the superstitious, the power of the stones yet waits to be recovered…
This and the last clue are the only ones revealed through Gib’s point of view. The rest of the clues are revealed through Harris and are in some way a relation to, or a reflection of his moral conflict.
Fours
The number 4 occurs regularly throughout the story and is instrumental in revealing the location of the stones. Heron’s rock is set among a group of four birch trees and the shape of the rock is a pyramid. There are four balls that come up from the lake bottom and the weather vane at the Lake Superior cabin shows the four directions. Presumably the significance of four relates to the four siblings in the Kearny family.
Awards
In May 2009, Blood Stones was one of five finalists selected for the national Next Generation Indie Book Awards of 2009.