The Americano's
by Art Isberg
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This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
The author has been a freelance writer for 29 years, and in that period of time his stories have appeared,in such monthly journals as Outdoor Life, Field & Stream, Sports Afield, Safari, Saltwater Fisherman, Wing & Shot, Hunting Classics, Daily Republic newspapers, historical societies, western Outdoors, Deer and Deer Hunting, Western Angler, Rifle, Harris Publications, American Hunter, Petersen's Hunting Bugle, Bottles and Relics, and Western Treasures, to name but a few. He has had over 170 features published by these and other magazines and newspapers.
He is 62 years old and now retired after a 36 year career as a construction carpenter, foreman, and supervisor. He is the father of three grown sons, Mark, Troy, and Craig, and has been married to his wife, Ruth Delores for 42 years. He is also the grandfather of four young children, two boys and two girls.
His freelance writing has been a serious and important part of his life as well as a substantial part of his earnings over the years. His early retirement at age 59, has allowed him to concentrate even more time on writing, and he has produced five book length manuscripts over the last three years. Two were hunting related and titled "Mountains, Myths and Mule Deer," about hunting our great Westerner, and "Outdoor Reflections of the 1940's" a biograpahical boyhood novel about growing up in California's Coast Range mountains with rod and reel from ages 8 thru 16. The last three books are all fictional westerns, "The Plainsman," "The Search for the Golden Bucket Mine," and "The Americano's" which he has just completed.
Because of his great interest in western history and other outdoor subjects are long, deep, and varied, he expects to continue writing at the same pace in the years ahead.
The scene is set in 1830 in the Territory of Texas before it became a state fifteen years later. A rough hewn, self determined, middle aged man, Baron King and his wife Ophelia, come by wagon to that lonely part of the territory not far above the Rio Grand river and the border with Mexico. Here they put down roots, begin the foundations of a ranch that will someday become one of the largest and most famous cattle spreads in the entire southwest, and fight for every inch of ground they claim battling both whites, Mexicans, and Indians as they slowly build their herd from a few mangy longhorns, to dozens, then hundreds, and finally thousands of cattle two decades later.
In the process, Ophelia gives birth to her first son, Trajan, then just two years later, Mathew. But complications of this second birth, and the insurmountable distance to any real medical help prove deadly to the frontier woman and wife. Ophelia dies and leaves her two sons to be raised up by a man who turns bitter with disappointment and grief, then channels his own misery into a tough hide exterior that makes him not only feared by those that try to cross him, but even his own sons from time to time.
Trajan, tall, more soft spoken, the more moralistic of the brothers doesn't inherit his fathers penchant for violence and often conflicts with him and his way of doing things, while Matt turns out to be just the opposite. Blamed by Baron for his wife's untimely death, Matt does things his own way whether his father likes it or not and they clash constantly and violently even into his manhood, until a strange series of events changes things dramatically.
Just below the Rio Grand, Teo Montoya, a thief, robber, and cattle rustler of some renown, decides to cross the border and raid the King ranch for as many cattle as he and his band can steal. This they do, and with the help of the Federal Police, they are protected once they drive the beef back into Mexico, but they don't know Baron King. He and his men cross the river to revenge the rustlers and Montoya in particular, but when they cannot find him, they turn instead to his ranchero and kidnap his 16 year old daughter, Topaz Montoya, then take her back to the King ranch for ransom. That ransom is the return of his cattle and Teo Montoya in person if he ever wants to see her alive again.
But the cattle have been sold, and all that Montoya can offer is the money, in gold coin, that he and the Federalie captain have split, and be will have to deliver it in person to King, who plans to hang him once he gets his hands on him. Trajan wants to make the deal work as his father has promised, but both Matt and the old man have no such plans if, and when Montoya comes in. They also battle over the beautiful young Topaz, her fate, will she ever be returned to her mother in Mexico, or will King, as he has threatened, simply take her up to San Antonio and sell her off as a prostitute if her father does not meet his demands. This is the setting for the first half of the book and the strange twists that turn blood against blood, Mexican against American, and brother against brother.
Who will inherit Silver Spur when Baron King finally dies? Which brother will it be? Where will the stunningly beautiful Topaz end up? Will her or her father ever see Mexico again, or will both end up dead because of the rage and fury that drives the iron willed old patriarch? These and other intriguing questions are answered in the final 100 pages of "The Americano's."
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