Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Once Upon a River is the story of Margaret Louise or Margo, who lives near the Stark River in Michigan.  She is a tomboy who idolizes Annie Oakley.  He mother has left her with her father and she lives and hunts and fishes along and in the river.  Her grandfather gave her his boat, which she takes with only a few supplies and her bio of Annie Oakley and sets off down the river after her father is brutally murdered and she is raped. 

Margo fishes, hunts and takes up with men as she travels the river, trying to stay away from her relatives.  She tries to contact her mother but her mother won't see her and she ends up living with a sucession of men along the river in their houses.  She is very strong but niave about her relationships, so she ends of pregnant after an encounter with an Indian from California.  Her mother finally agrees to help her get an abortion, but Margo decides, in the end, that she wants the baby.  She becomes friends with a man who lives along the river named Smoke and his friend Fishbone, who help her find shelter and become positive influences on her. 

Margo was a strange character. She loved to shoot things, men and animals.  She was almost a hermit, because she never really liked relationships with others.  She was also strong because she was self-suficient, but almost scary in the way that she could shoot anything and anyone with no regrets.