River of Destiny

River of Destiny is a 1986 historical novel, written by Arkansas writer Pat Winter of Marshall (Searcy County) and published by Bantam Books, that centers upon the fictional relationship between seventeenth-century Italo-French explorer Henri de Tonti and Weeononka, a Quapaw woman. Bob Lancaster, in the January 1987 issue of the Arkansas Times, described River of Destiny as a “checkout-counter classic” that, despite leaning heavily into tropes, “is a lot of fun, is well-written, and maintains a credible historical perspective.” In 2000, Winter released a self-published edition of the book under the title Woman Called Arkansas.

River of Destiny opens with Weeononka, “a lowland Quapaw who had lived the past ten winters with her late mother’s mountain tribe, the Osage,” being summoned by village leader Dancing Buck, who informs her that her paternal aunt’s husband, The Blossum, wishes Weeononka to be his second wife. As the party taking Weeononka back to her Quapaw forebears is traveling to the Mech-a-si-pi (Mississippi River), it is intercepted by a party of Chickasaw, who take Weeononka and others, including Game Dancer (her former lover), into the presence of a European man purchasing slaves to grow sugarcane in the West Indies. They manage to escape, making their way to the Quapaw village of “Osotony” (Osotouy, now preserved by the Arkansas Post National Memorial) and to Weeononka’s future husband, Man-Who-Stands-in-the-Middle.

Man-Who-Stands-in-the-Middle begins preparing the band for war, sending Game Dancer back home to recruit the Osage. Soon, Weeononka realizes that she is pregnant with Game Dancer’s child. Later, the Chickasaw attack the Quapaw camp, and Weeononka is captured again. The Chickasaw ritually torture Man-Who-Stands-in-the-Middle throughout the night. By the time she is transported to an Iroquois village near Lake Superior and sold to a young warrior named Walking Many Mountains, she is five months pregnant.

The second part of the book opens in 1678 in Sicily, with Captain Henri de Tonti of the French army being returned home after a prisoner exchange. In Paris, he seeks out René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, intending to travel to the New World with him. The duo impresses King Louis XIV, who grants their petition to “labor at the discovery of the western parts of New France.” Also joining the crew are his servant Sabat and André de Arcos (a.k.a. Michelle D’Arcy), a Venetian Jew, in addition to five Capuchin nuns with three orphans in their charge, led by the mother superior, Madame Ormonde. De Tonti initiates a secret sexual relationship with one of the pubescent orphans, Jeanette, whom Ormonde had locked away in a closet to cleanse her of the sin of lust, but he abandons her when Ormonde begins to suspect what is going on.

The novel’s third section returns to Weeononka, who begins learning French from Brother Martin, a “blackrobe” (a Roman Catholic priest of the Jesuit order) stationed in her village. Meanwhile, La Salle and de Tonti eventually arrive in the New World, with the goal of discovering the mouth of the Mississippi River. Walking Many Mountains leads an Iroquois war party against the Illinois, but de Tonti intervenes and sues for peace, and Walking Many Mountains offers him Weeononka (now mother to a small son, Moon Runner) to aid his journey southward.

The two develop a friendship, facilitated by her understanding of French. Soon, the expedition down the Mississippi enters the land of the Chickasaw. Camping on Chickasaw Bluff (near the present-day location of Memphis, Tennessee), the expedition encounters a large Chickasaw war party and must arrange an ambush, during which Weeononka is forced to smother her crying son for the safety of the expedition. In grief, she attempts to drown herself in the river, and de Tonti dives in to save her. The two wash up on an island, where they improvise a campsite and become lovers. La Salle and the others eventually find de Tonti and Weeononka and travel down to the home of the Kappa Quapaw, at the junction of the Arkansas River (Nigestai) and Mississippi River.

But one day, Weeononka disappears, and de Tonti is told that she is returning home to die and thus rejoin her husband and child. De Tonti separates from La Salle and goes in search of her, but he returns after encountering a tornado. Meanwhile, Weeononka decides to return to the village of her Osage family. There, she immediately rekindles her relationship with Game Dancer even as she realizes she is pregnant with de Tonti’s child. However, she quickly realizes that he has “gone windigo” (become deranged, been possessed of an evil spirit) and leaves to join the Quapaw remnant at the Lake in the Mountain, their summer hunting quarters on Petit Jean Mountain.

The last section of the book opens four years later, in 1686. At Fort St. Louis, de Tonti learns, from a fellow Frenchman who stole Henri Joutel’s diary at Arkansas Post, that La Salle has been dead for two years. Just after New Year’s Day 1689, de Tonti sets off down the Mississippi and then follows the Red River to find the remnants of La Salle’s expedition in Spanish-controlled territory. However, his men abandon him deep in the swamps. Struggling to find his way out of the swamp, de Tonti ends up fighting an alligator to save a small child and is taken to the local Caddo village. Weeononka, being told about this, travels to the village with her son, Two Hands, and negotiates his release to the Quapaw, although without his metal hand. De Tonti lives with them as Weeononka’s husband, but one day Game Dancer shows up, and he and de Tonti play a traditional ball game in lieu of a duel, which ends in Game Dancer’s death.

Later, de Tonti’s old companion D’Arcy shows up in the Quapaw village, bringing with him a young Frenchman named Claud to be raised among the Quapaw, but this turns out to be Jeanette in disguise—and not a child, as de Tonti had imagined, but a dwarf now thirty-one years of age. De Tonti rejects her advances, but she stays in the village, and when cholera spreads, Jeanette is so dedicated to the care of the Quapaw that they adopt her and name her Big Happy Woman. After the Green Corn Festival, de Tonti is determined to leave, thinking that he can use his influence to protect the Quapaw, but Weeononka has reservations, saying, “When you’re out there and can’t find your way home, remember I warned you.”

For additional information:
Lancaster, Bob. “Some Views of History Including a Sexy Indian Princess.” Arkansas Times, January 1987, p. 22.

Winter, Pat. River of Destiny. New York: Bantam Books, 1986.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas