River Song

Recipient of Romantic Times’ Best Western Historical Romance (for The Law
And
Miss Penny) and
Bookrak’s
Best Selling Author Award (for The Bride Wore Spurs) and nominee for Romantic Times Career Achievement in Love and Laughter, as well as several other Reviewer’s Choice Award Nominations.

RIVER SONG-
Nominee, Best First Indian Historical Romance
,
 
Romantic
Times.

Copyright © 1991 by Sharon J. Ihle.
All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.
 

First published by the Berkley Publishing Group
, a Diamond
Book
 
published
by arrangement with the author.

Other Electronic Books by Sharon Ihle

The Bride Wore Spurs

Maggie’s Wish

Spellbound

Marrying Miss Shylo

Untamed

The Law & Miss Penny

Wildcat

Tempting Miss Prissy

Gypsy Jewel

Wild Rose

The Marrying Kind

Dakota Dream

River Song

E-Books available for download at
:
http://www.backlistebooks.com/?author=52&submit=view

Dedication:

To: Marge Campbell and the Thursday group: Audrey Austin, Helen
Barkdoll
, Maureen Brown, Marilyn
Forstot
, Kate
Higuera
, Juanita Kline, Diana
Saenger
, Jan
Toom
, and Billie Wade— for the encouragement, the honesty, and most of all, the friendship

AND

Ruby
Brucker
, with love and many thanks.

River Song

Sharon Ihle

PROLOGUE

Arizona City—1866

She kept her silence.

In the way of her ancestors, the Indians of the Quechan nation, Moonstar suffered the agonies of childbirth with a stoic heart. But unlike other Quechan women, she suffered alone.

Droplets of sweat began to pour down her bronzed cheeks and blazed a path across her heaving breasts. She arched her back as the final stages of labor tore through her exhausted body and struggled to bring forth her third child.

During a precious moment of calm, that coveted segment of time she likened to the stillness just before a sudden storm, Moonstar glanced out through the door of the hut. She cast lusterless black eyes on her two young sons as they drew stick people in the sun-baked earth of their desert home and noted how waves of heat distorted their images. Early April, and already the sun was high and relentless. It would be a very long and dry summer.

Another,
stronger contraction pulled her up on the straw mattress into a sitting position.
Soon it will be over,
Moonstar thought.
Soon there will be another child brought into this strange world of many cultures, a child who will belong to none of them.
The most powerful contraction yet obliterated all thought, and she focused her energy on the emergence of her newest child.

When it was finally over, after Moonstar had severed the cord and disposed of the afterbirth in a crockery bowl—all things an Indian midwife would have done for her had she remained a true Quechan—she wiped the baby clean and placed it at her breast. Then, exhausted, she beckoned her husband with a high, thin wail. "Patrick?"

The restless father burst into the hut, too concerned about his wife to inquire about the child first. "Are ye having a wee bit of trouble, Star? Shall I try to find ye some help?"

The dusky-skinned woman shook her head and pushed a length of damp hair off her broad cheekbone. "We're healthy, my husband. See what I have brought you this time." Moonstar opened the blanket to reveal a plump, raven-haired daughter.

"For the love of sweet Jesus," the ruddy Irishman proclaimed, "I finally got me a flower to bloom amongst the cactus."

This brought a warm smile and a sudden vision to the new mother. She looked back out the doorway, past the saucer-eyed stares of her sons as they peered into the hut, and let her gaze linger on her favorite crop. This daughter would bloom under the desert sun, open her petals, and sprinkle the earth with the seeds of her multifaceted heritage.

Her smile more serene now, she said, "You have your Mike and Sean, my husband. I wish to name this child Sunflower."

"Sunflower Callahan?"
Patrick Callahan's booming laughter threatened to crack the mud cementing his pole and brush home. "Now there
be
a name to keep the little dickens on her toes."

 
CHAPTER
ONE

Yuma, Arizona—1886

Sunny dipped her small, tapered fingers into the cool spring water and painted her copper-colored arms with its moisture. This was her spot, a secret place in this arid land where vegetation grew without soil, where soil lay barren.

And she waited. Hoped, in the way of her mother's ancestors, for a vision, that elusive dream showing her the path she would follow in the next phase of her young life. But it didn't come,
wouldn't
come. Had that part of her heritage been left in her mother's womb, the void filled by a healthy dose of her father's blarney?

Sunny chuckled at the thought,
then
craned her neck until the heavy mass of her waist-length hair fell into the pond. After squeezing the excess water from her tresses, she flipped the long coal-black strands across her shoulders and sighed as the coolness penetrated her checkered shirt.

Patrick Callahan wouldn't approve of his daughter's attire. She could hear him bark in his faint Irish brogue that his
little
Sunflower didn't belong in her brother's shirt, breeches, and wide-brimmed hat. Guessed he would take a mesquite shillelagh to her backside if he knew of this place, this strange oasis of cool spring water shaped by one lone palm tree in an area surrounded by nothing but sand and cactus. But then, he wouldn't have permitted her to ride off in search of a vision, either.

Moonstar understood her need. She had encouraged Sunny's journey to the secret spot shortly after Patrick and his eldest son Sean left on yet another search for an undiscovered vein of gold in La Paz. Her mother knew she hoped for a vision, some sign at least, to tell her in which world she belonged or what the future might hold. Of course, one had to be in a trance or asleep in order to have a vision. Sunny had never been able to accomplish the former, and the latter only served to confuse her further. Her dreams, when they came at all, were always cloudy and obscure, filled with a hunger she didn't understand.

She regarded the copper hue of her skin, a creamy blend of her mother's berry-brown and her father's ruddy pink. She was
neither red nor white, Indian or Irish
. A half-breed, she thought with a shudder, remembering the ugly snarls of those who would call her by that name. What would become of her if she didn't have that vision soon? Moonstar said the marriage time was upon her, that she must choose a husband. How could she when she couldn't even embrace a culture to fit her needs?

"A husband," she muttered through a bitter laugh. "Now there
be
a kettle full of malarkey."

Sunny checked the position of the sun, noting the late hour, and picked up her moccasins. She would have to search for this vision another day. She peered inside each leather shoe then shook them, making sure an enterprising scorpion hadn't used one as a refuge from the sun. What
would she
do with a husband even if she found one, Sunny wondered as she covered her bare feet. She could fish, hunt, and shoot as well as her brothers. Her father, hell-bent on education, had taught all his children to read and write from an early age. What could a husband do for her that she couldn't do herself?

That mating thing,
Sunny remembered as she dusted off her breeches and launched her agile body onto the back of her pony, Paddy. She'd observed breeding practices among the desert creatures near her home and at neighboring cattle ranches on several occasions, and had no intentions of allowing some man to spend ten seconds slamming against her soft body. Her vision, when it came, would show her something far better—something that wouldn't include marriage or men.

After tucking the bulk of her raven hair up inside the hat, Sunny leaned forward, pressing her thighs and heels into the pony's rounded sides, and urged him into a slow gallop.
Her course back toward Yuma
zig-zagged
throughout the rocky, sandy terrain as she sought the less-populated trails and kept one eye out for outcast warriors or lone drovers.
An unescorted woman in these parts, especially a lowly half- breed, would make a tasty morsel for many a lonely man, regardless of his lineage.

An hour later she reached the Callahan farm situated near the green ribbon-like banks of the Colorado River. She slowed Paddy to an easy trot,
then
abruptly reined him in as her senses warned her all was not right. It was too quiet. There was no beckoning aroma of corn flour cakes roasting in her mother's new cook stove, and no movement of any kind, not even the whisper of an early evening breeze.

Then a sudden movement from overhead caught her attention. Sunny jerked her chin up and scanned the heavens. A sense of foreboding twisted in her gut when she spotted several turkey buzzards circling the farm in their eerie, ghostlike spiral down towards her home.

Suppressing the strong urge to call out her mother's name, she slipped off Paddy's comfortable back and quietly inched her way towards the adobe brick dwelling. Skirting the creaky wood porch, Sunny crept silently to the side window and stole a quick glimpse inside. The scene turned her veins to ice.

Sunny dropped to the ground and slapped her hand across her mouth. Her throat convulsed, but she managed to keep her silence.

Trembling with shock, her eyes focusing through tears, Sunny forced her shaking hands and knees to move in a soundless crawl around to the back of the house. Then she gave up the remnants of her midday snack to the sandy earth.

Where was her brother Mike? And what of the animals who'd ravaged and bloodied her beautiful mother's body? Did they hide in her home, awaiting her arrival, still hungry for Quechan blood? Or had they done their murderous deed,
then
ridden off in directions unknown?

Taking great gulps of hot dry air, Sunny stood up, straightened her strong shoulders, and crept around to the front of the house. She kicked in the door,
then
stood back listening for sounds of reaction. When there were none, she cautiously entered her desecrated home and quickly checked the two bedrooms and curtained closets and pantry.