Ropes of the Sun

by John P. McAfee

The White Water Woman ceremony, celebrated for hundreds of years in New Mexico, is sacred among the Mescalero Apaches. This year, 2014, a young woman and a baby will die in early June during this ceremony. It is up to Sam Rifle, an ageless Di-Yin, holy man in the Native American Church, to right this wrong. A jet airplane is stolen from Holloman Air Force base and deliberately crashed in Otero County, near Bent, New Mexico, killing the pilot. Sheriff David Ortiz y Pino investigates. Charlie Three-Fingers is found dead near the crash site, but the sack of peyote he was bringing to the Native American Church is missing. Are these four deaths connected and if so, why?

396 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Born in Clovis, New Mexico in 1947, John grew up with his brother on large ranches in West Texas: Ft. Davis, Alpine, and Van Horn. He led a Huck Finn life and was probably the only kid who had an antelope named Governor for a pet. It slept with him every night until it got too large and aggressive and sent to Yellowstone National Park for breeding stock. His father was a ranch foreman and spent much of his life working ranches for absentee owners. His mother was a professional politician in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he spent many summers fishing the Pecos River and attending the Santa Fe Opera. He was educated through high school and junior college at New Mexico Military Institute, and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Infantry. He served with the 8th Special Forces Group in South America (Ft. Gulick, CZ) and 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam. He has a BA in English from University of Texas-El Paso and an MA in Education Administration from Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, North Carolina. He is married to the whimsical artist, Elizabeth McAfee, and they have a son, John Lewis McAfee, who along with his wife, Amy, work in the U.S.Citizenship and Immigration Services for Homeland Security. After a long career in teaching, coaching, and administration, He is now a full-time writer.