Salomon

by David Xavier

Salomon Part Three The Salomon Pico Bandits have become legendary in California, loved by the Californios, despised by the gold-seekers they terrorize. They have avoided being apprehended and have taken refuge in the hills that would be named for Salomon Pico a hundred years later. After a newspaper article featuring the bandits, they are sought again with new vengeance, and forced to flee. Salomon heads south, giving up the life of an outlaw, but the law is closing in. The Legend Before the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill brought tens of thousands of prospectors to California, the land was sparsely populated by Californios up from Mexico. It was untamed land. The wild West. Salomon Pico was one of these Californios, the cousin of Pio Pico, the last governor of Alta California, before it became a US territory after the Mexican-American War. Salomon rode the California hills as a ranchero, and then as a scout for the Mexican Army under Captain Andres Pico. These glittering hills would eventually be named for Salomon, although, the reasons for which are bloody. He returned home to a land overrun with gold seekers. Brutal circumstances lead Salomon to become one of the most legendary bandits California has ever seen. The life of Salomon Pico became the basis for the fictional character the world knows as Zorro.

117 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 18, 2015

About the author

"If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write."

My favorite authors are the dead guys of literary fiction: Graham Greene, Richard Yates, Evelyn Waugh, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis. I have to put Cormac McCarthy and Charles Portis on the list.

These authors influence my writing. I have written seven novels. They are all free to read. Just ask for a copy.