Indio — Sherry Garland

Fourteen-year-old Ipa-tah-chi has survived the Apache raid that killed her grandmother and took her older brother hostage. But when strange, pale warriors ride into her village on magnificent four-legged creatures, Ipa's way of life -- like that of those who lived in native Indian villages throughout the southwest United States and Mexico -- will be devastated by the disease and war that the Spanish conquistadors usher in during the late 1500s.

Captured by raiding Spaniards and sold into slavery in a silver mine, Ipa finds herself taken under the wing of two padres at the mission. Although Ipa is spared the arduous work of the mines, she helplessly watches her younger brother descend into madness after a devastating mine accident. And when her cousin is raped by the mining foreman, Ipa must risk her life to help Xucate escape.

In Indio, respected novelist Sherry Garland brings a little-known historical era to life, chronicling the virtual extinction of the native Indio and the birth of the Mexican race.