Quicksilver Passion (215 page)

I don’t do a newsletter, but if you’d like to write me, include a stamped, self-addressed long envelope and I’ll be happy to answer and send you a bookmark. Sometimes letters are lost in the forwarding process. I always answer my mail, so if you haven’t heard from me, I didn’t get your letter. In the future, write me directly at: Box 162, Edmond, OK 73083-0162.

Zebra is forwarding some mail out here to Oklahoma and my readers ask questions. Did I see the television show
Unsolved Mysteries
in October 1989, about the
ghost lights” near Marfa, Texas? Yes, I did. But remember I told you about those lights myself way back in 1987 in
Cheyenne Princess?

For those of you who wrote, worried about the government killing the wild mustangs that I mentioned in
Nevada Nights,
you will be delighted to know there’s a happy ending. There are now two refuges for the wild mustangs besides the Nevada ranges, one in South Dakota, one right here in Oklahoma. While the government is still trying to adopt out many of the wild horses, those that are too old or too ugly to be adopted have been turned loose to live peacefully on 18,000 acres the government has leased for them up in Osage and Washington counties in northeastern Oklahoma. The Prairie National Wild Horse Refuge is near the town of Bartlesville. It seems fitting somehow that these wild horses now run free on the vast prairies of Indian country, right here in my home state.

Some of you are complaining I don’t write the books fast enough. Sorry, but I spend as much time researching as I do writing. The only way I could do more books is cut out all the research. Would you really like that?

For those who want to know what happened to little Waanibe, the half-breed Arapaho girl, and Keso, the Ute boy who thinks he’s Cheyenne, those are stories I will finish later, as well as the tale of Shawn O’Bannion and his elegant wife, Savannah. Arrogant and handsome Southern aristocrat, Rand Erikson, who was in the Yankee prison with Cherokee, will turn up again in a future book, as will the historic ship, the
Continental.
Yes, even Lulu, the whore who stole Cherokee’s father, and Elmer Neeley will appear again and get what’s coming to them in another book. No, I haven’t forgotten about other stories I didn’t finish telling. Iron Knife will finally meet his lost sister in a future book. Be patient.

For those who are keeping up with my career, I am most grateful for the 1988
Romantic Times Magazine
Lifetime Achievement in Indian Romance trophy I was awarded and the two Silver Pen Favorite Author awards that
Affaire de Coeur Magazine
gave me in 1989 and 1990. You readers have helped build my career by telling your friends about me and I’m much obliged, as we say here in Oklahoma.

Yes, that is my photo on the cover of the
Romance Reader’s Handbook
, and again, yes, I do have an article in the book,
How to Write a Romance and Get It Published,
which came out in a revised edition in 1990. Besides loyal readers, those in the publishing industry itself have been kind to me. I am happy to tell you I am signing a new contract with Zebra Books that assures you the series will go on for at least four more books through 1993. However, I will have only one book out in 1991, probably in early autumn. Alert your bookstore to watch for it.

What’s it about? In my research, I have uncovered an incredible true story about an Apache brave who scouted for the U.S. Cavalry in Arizona. In 1886, Geronimo and his warriors were at last defeated. The army decided to send these ringleaders by train far away to prison in Florida. In an unbelievable twist of injustice, someone also ordered that the loyal Apache scouts be chained and sent as prisoners, too.

On the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri, one of those Apaches managed to overpower a guard and escape from the train. He was all alone, half-naked, injured, in chains, and without weapons. Worse yet, he was thousands of miles away from home with armed citizens and the U.S. Cavalry searching for him with orders to shoot to kill.

Determined to return to his own land, he decided to take a hostage, and chose a beautiful woman alone on a farm near the railroad tracks. How could he know he had selected a girl who hated his people with a terrible vengeance? She was the widow of a Cavalry officer who had been recently killed in action against the Apache.

I invite you to return to the West that existed more than a hundred years ago. Together, we’ll experience this desperate and romantic adventure crossing the continent with the Apache savage and his voluptuous captive.

Come slip back in time with me ...

Georgina Gentry

Here are a few of the dozens of research books I used that you might find at your public library:

Brown, Dee,
The Galvanized Yankees
, University of Illinois Press, 1963; University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

Butler, Anne, M.,
Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West
, University of Illinois Press, 1985.

Ehle, John,
Trail of Tears: The Rise & Fall of the Cherokee Nation
, Anchor Doubleday, 1988.

Hoig, Stan,
The Sand Creek Massacre
, University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

Noel, Thomas J.,
The City and the Saloon, Denver 1858-1916
, University of Nebraska Press, 1982.

Ware, Captain Eugene F.
The Indian War of 1864
, Crane & Co., 1911. Reprints: St. Martin’s press, 1960; University of Nebraska Press, 1963.

Married to a mixed-blood Choctaw Indian, and the mother of three, GEORGINA GENTRY was born and reared in Oklahoma, where she still lives in a house built on land war parties once roamed. Winner of numerous awards for the authenticity of her novels, she spends winter months writing and summers attending rodeos and pow wows. Her previous Zebra historical romances include
Bandit’s Embrace
,
Cheyenne Caress, Cheyenne Princess, and Nevada Nights
. To her many fans, she says in Cheyenne,
Hahoo naa ne-mehotatse.”
(Thank you and I love you.)

ZEBRA BOOKS

are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
475 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 1990 by Georgina Gentry

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

ISBN: 978-0-8217-3117-8