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These episodes are non-fiction accounts relating to New Mexico from the earliest visit by a priest, Fray Marcos de Niza, sent by the Viceroy of New Spain in 1539, to the unwelcome intrusion of an enemy saboteur in World War I. Between these extremes we meet a witness who recalls details of an abandoned dwelling whose owner lived there two hundred years earlier, newspaper accounts of a shoot-out at Pinos Atos and its bloody aftermath, a stage ride from Las Cruces to Silver City, and how cattleman John Chisum dealt with two knights of the road. Billy the Kid's escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse is seen in a new light, and an introduction to the Lincoln County War will help the unfamiliar reader to understand what was truly a New Mexico horse opera, with tragic results. The role of the military in the nineteenth century is shown in a glimpse of life at one fort and the report of an Army scouting party that saw a part of the country prior to its settlement. And what would an anthology be without a dog story?
About the author
The author is an archaeologist and historical researcher, now retired after ten years with a state museum and another twenty-eight years contracting for clients that included utility companies, mining and engineering businesses, Native American tribes, and several state and federal agencies. Among his published books are When the Texans Came, Missing Records from the Civil War in the Southwest; Islands in the Desert, A History of the Uplands of Southeastern Arizona; Peoples of the Middle Gila, A Documentary History of the Pimas and Maricopas, 1500-1945 and New Mexico Episodes, Stories from a Colorful Past, the latter from Sunstone Press. He lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
