Dream River

Dream River is a 1988 historical romance novel by bestselling writer Dorothy Garlock and the second book in what was originally billed as the Wabash River Trilogy, preceded by Lonesome River (1987) and followed by River of Tomorrow (1988). In 1995, Garlock published a fourth book in the series, Yesteryear. The main characters of Dream River, Amy Deverall and Rain Tallman, first appeared in Lonesome River.

Dream River opens on December 16, 1811, with eighteen-year-old Rain Tallman in an “Indian village that lay along the banks of the Mississippi River in the Missouri Territory,” when the first of the New Madrid Earthquakes strikes, destroying the village and killing his stepfather, John Spotted Elk. His Native American way of life destroyed, he returns to his adopted family at Quill’s Station on the Wabash River—a tributary of the Ohio river that drains most of Indiana and part of Illinois—and reunites with Amy, his beloved.

Their reunion is, however, brief, as Rain departs again to establish a life, and also because Amy is married to an elderly man named Juicy Deverell (part of a plot to help her avoid marrying a crueler old man, as relayed in the first book). Seven years later, Rain is returning to Quill’s Station, two years after Juicy’s death. On the way, he discovers that Hammond Perry (one of the villains of the first book) hired a young man, Mike Hartman, to assassinate him, though he is able to disarm Mike, only wounding him, and manages to arrive home on Christmas Day. Amy, having longed for him for so many years, is put off by the differences she perceives, especially his “inner toughness like tempered steel that would bend but not break.”

While away, Rain spent time with William Bradford in the area around Fort Smith (Sebastian County). He intends to relocate there soon, having been commissioned by Bradford to bring Bradford’s bride-to-be, Eleanor Woodbury, from Louisville, Kentucky, to the fort. As it happens, Amy’s elder sister Liberty, and her husband Farr, had been considering moving farther west with their family, and they want to join him, as does Mike Hartman. However, the man to whom Farr had intended to sell his land is delayed, and so Rain proceeds first with Eleanor and hired hand Gavin McCourtney, a Scotsman, bringing Amy along to keep the other woman company, intending to double back and rendezvous with Farr and family at Davidsonville (Randolph County).

The refined Eleanor looks down upon Amy, a young woman who wears britches and knows how to ride and shoot, but Rain values her abilities, and their mutual attraction grows in close quarters. Likewise, Gavin and Eleanor begin to develop a fondness for each other. At Kaskaskia, Illinois, Rain finds that Hammond Perry owns the ferry company but manages to negotiate passage across the Mississippi River with an independent ferry operator. As they are preparing to cross early in the morning, Tally Perkins, a man long infatuated with Amy back at Quill’s Station, who had been following the party, shows up and informs them that several men are en route to hinder their crossing. They manage to reach Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, sinking Perry’s own boat in the process, and Rain reluctantly lets Tally join the party. Perry subsequently hires a Frenchman, Antoine Efant, to pursue Tallman’s party and kidnap Eleanor, whom Perry intends to make his wife and aid his rise in society.

Traveling south, Tallman and the others encounter a huge flock of passenger pigeons before staying at the homestead of the Badkers, a pioneering family, where Rain and Amy become lovers. Believing that Perry intends to kidnap Eleanor as revenge upon Bradford, who had received the commission to build Fort Smith instead of Perry, Rain leaves the wagon with the Badkers, and they proceed on their mules and horses. Perry’s men intercept them, demanding Eleanor, and Gavin is shot in the melee but only mildly wounded.

Ashamed of his own cowardice, Tally departs one night before the troupe reaches Davidsonville, but they find him the next day with his throat slit. At Davidsonville, Rain receives a letter from Bradford telling him that Fort Smith is in such rough shape that it may be some years before it is fit for him to have a wife there but that he will still support Eleanor in the meantime, if she desires—but she wants to marry Gavin. The men ride away to find a preacher of Rain’s acquaintance who lives on the Eleven Point River, but while they are away, Antoine and an accomplice, Hull Dexter, kidnap the women while they are bathing in a creek. Rain and Gavin are surprised to encounter Will Bradford and a group of his men, heading up to Belle Fontaine in Missouri, and Bradford informs them that the preacher has recently drowned. He accompanies them back to Davidsonville and helps them track down the kidnapped women. Bradford then presides over the dual marriage that ends the book.

In a concluding author’s note, Garlock thanks the Fort Smith Chamber of Commerce for assisting her with her research.

For additional information:
Garlock, Dorothy. Dream River. New York: Popular Library, 1988.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas