Scrawny, young Melvin Parmlee lit out of Texas wearing a pair of old overalls and riding a swayback horse. His crime: killing a man with an axe handle for shooting his dog. Out ahead lay a land of prairie, mountains, boomtowns, whores, gold, and outlaws. And behind him was a long, twisted trail that was getting more crowded with enemies every day.

"Set against the tragic events of the Cherokees' removal from their traditional lands in North Carolina to Indian Territory between 1835 and 1838, Mountain Windsong is a love story that brings to life the suffering and endurance of the Cherokee people. It is the moving tale of Waguli ("Whippoorwill") and Oconeechee, a young Cherokee man and woman separated by the Trail of Tears. Just as they are about to be married, Waguli is captured by federal soldiers...

"The first history of the Cherokees to appear in over four decades, this is also the first to be endorsed by the tribe and the first to be written by a Cherokee." "Robert Conley begins his survey with Cherokee origin myths and legends. He then explores their relations with neighboring Indian groups and European missionaries and settlers. He traces their forced migrations west, relates their participations on both sides of the Civil War and the wars...

Half Cherokee and Civil War veteran Captain Skylar Garret returns to the home of Phillip Garret, his white father, seeking an inheritance that he believes to have belonged to his late mother. Intertwined now into the lives of his three half brothers-one a vocal atheist, one an aspiring minister, and the other a black slave boy who Phillip Garret doesn't claim-Skylar finds himself in more than a quarrel for money, but also in the middle of a love triangle...