♪Moody River, More Deadly...♫

Sometimes things arrive from the ether, and you have no idea why. Such was the case this morning when I woke up hearing the melody to "Moody River" going round and round in my head. Whut the... ?

As I rubbed the overnight crusts from my eyes, I couldn't get the lyrics right, though I remembered the rhythm and the melody correctly. I kept thinking the lyric was "muddy river" and couldn't get the following lyrics at all. What could it be? "Torments me?" What could it be about? The Rio Grande?

We don't live close to the river, but we were near it yesterday when we went on yet another literary adventure, this time to Albuquerque to see and hear Dennis Herrick discuss his historical novel "Winter of the Metal People, the Untold Story of America's First Indian War." Herrick is a friend of Ms. Ché's.

The book is Herrick's novelization of what's known as the Tiguex War of 1541-42, when the Spanish adventurer Vasquez de Coronado set himself on the conquest of the dozen or so pueblos dotting the Rio Grande Valley between present day Albuquerque and the bluffs north of Bernalillo.