All the planning and writing of Redfish Oak was via email and telephone, as the authors never met. 

 

George Putnam and Jewel Grutman each have a twin sibling.

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The authors collaborated on a screenplay, Incident at Two Medicine River, about a Blackfoot brave, Yellow Feather, whose brother was slain by Meriwether Lewis on his return trip from discovering the Pacific Ocean. The brother and three other braves had spent a friendly night with Captain Lewis and his soldiers, but in a rite of passage into their warrior phase the braves rose early to steal the soldiers' horses. Captain Lewis awoke and ordered them shot. This was the only violent death on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. To avenge this and to retrieve his brother's valuable medicine bag that was stolen by Lewis, Yellow Feather shadows the famed explorer all the way back to his debriefing with President Jefferson. At every opportunity, with cunning and skill, Yellow Feather invokes powerful spirits and medicines to weaken and kill the American hero. Lewis' misfortunes and self-inflicted injuries depicted in the screenplay are factual. 

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