Two African tribes in conflict are brought together by a melodious, laughing river. Incorporates accurate musical notes which create a song by story's end.

From a "born storyteller" (Seattle Times), this playful and moving bestselling book of essays invites us into the miraculous and transcendent moments of everyday life. When Brian Doyle passed away at the age of sixty after a bout with brain cancer, he left behind a cult-like following of devoted readers who regard his writing as one of the best-kept secrets of the twenty-first century. Doyle writes with a delightful sense of wonder about the sanctity of everyday things, and about love and connection in all their forms: spiritual love, brotherly love, romantic love, and even the love of a nine-foot sturgeon. At a moment when the world can sometimes feel darker than ever, Doyle's writing, which constantly evokes the humor and even bliss that life affords, is a balm. His essays manage to find, again and again, exquisite beauty in the quotidian, whether it's the awe of a child the first time she hears a river, or a husband's whiskers that a grieving widow misses seeing in her sink every morning. Through Doyle's eyes, nothing is dull. David James Duncan sums up Doyle's sensibilities best in his introduction to the collection: "Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to quiet glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size, renown, or commercial value, and he brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings." A life's work, One Long River of Song invites readers to experience joy and wonder in ordinary moments that become, under Doyle's rapturous and exuberant gaze, extraordinary.

The Laughing Ghosts is a realization of the self for Meenu poised to find her own truth of ghosts believed to be meandering around and looking up to her to reveal their side of the story. A stray incidence of violence in the vicinity of grown up Meenu, a mother of two children pushes her to reflect upon her joyous childhood which she shared with her neighborhood friends and cousins only to realize that even in those nascent years of her life women around her were suffering however she did find an answer and carried a learning which was kept reserved to her. Each time in her quest as a little girl to find an anchor in a woman from her surroundings to help her identify the very purpose of her existence led to their sad and untimely demise. Not ready to be a slave to the belief of the society attaching a meager and humble purpose to the existence of women i.e. to only live for others, she tries to find her own answers to the questions which no one cared to ask. Eventually she gathered the strength to face the reality with the help of goals of self preservation and salvation by looking around and seeking solace from the stories of challenges faced by women very close to her like her grandmother, mother and aunts. That made her harbor the value that it is important to step back and consciously quit to gather the strength to withstand the eventualities of life. The ghosts of the guilt haunt only the slaved souls but cannot withstand an indomitable spirit that is determined to find its own truth; rather they stand by it to be a part of the laughter of triumph and salvation. Therefore in the situations of self doubt and enigma the inevitable reflections from the past help to purposefully connect with the present to find your own answers. This lesson was true then and shall continue to be the truth.

In 1835, near the headwaters of the Arkansas River, Cara Rojo, a Ute war chief finds an eight year old white girl who had witnessed her family being swept away in a flash flood the day before. The girl has blocked out the horror of the flood and can not speak, yet seems to fear nothing. The Ute Indians take her to their village and name her Tavimois, the Spirit of the Sunrise. The girl is Hannah Headly, and her brother, Daniel, has survived the flood, but believes his sister was killed with his younger brother and parents. Daniel is nursed back to health by Big Butt, the Crow wife of negro Mountain man Bull Thompson. Needing money to return to the East, Daniel hires on as Bull Thompson’s helper and heads deeper into the wilderness to trade with the plains tribes to the West and North. Bull takes Daniel to meet the, Frenchman, Phillip Rondel, who has a beautiful half Indian daughter he wants to marry off to a white man. Daniel is soon smitten by Monique Rondel’s beauty. After a winter of trading with the Indians, Bull Thompson brings Daniel back to the Frenchman’s camp and Daniel asks Monique to Marry him. Monique will only marry a Sundancer, and Daniel agrees to Sundance. Bull Thompson gives Daniel opium to dull the pain of the bone needles the Indians thrust through his chest muscles to start the sundance. Hanging by leather cords tied to the bone needles in his chest, Daniel has a sun dream, a vision of his sister running happily through a forest of laughing aspens.