Talking Rock to Tucson — Dewey Dempsey

This is the second book in the Qua Nie saga. Books Two through Seven are completed and I am publishing them as short, sixty to seventy-five pages, Ebooks every two months and then will consolidate them and publish them in paperback form. The time is the last months of the Mexican-American War and the resulting change from the Mexican state of Californio to the American state of California. It is a bloody time full of greedy men even before gold was discovered. Benjamin Franklin Goss Adair, whose Cherokee names is Qua Nie, has returned to Georgia to spend time with his Cherokee mother and grandmother who want him to become a medicine man in the ancient traditions. His Scottish and English grandfathers want him to pass for White and operate trading posts. His militant uncle wants to enlist him in the internecine Cherokee wars where he has already killed a cousin. He wants to make his own decisions. He knows Jedediah Smith's travel legends and the Fremont and Benson attempts to create a state in Californio. He determines to spend a couple of years exploring the West, his own spiritual beliefs and his mixed heritage. He is joined by cousins, a Cherokee medicine man and a former mountain man. In spite of attempts to move unobtrusively they find themselves having to kill men who are attacking them. Kit Carson gives him sound advise and support while they are in Taos. This book ends just before they get to Californio.