Mariana's Knight: The Revenge of Henry Fountain

Legends of the Desert #1

by W. Michael Farmer

On the first of February, 1896, Albert Fountain, prominent attorney, legislator, and tough leader of Indian and outlaw fighting militia, despite threats on his life and his eight year-old son Henry being with him, drove his wagon across the wild and lonely Tularosa basin of New Mexico. They were returning home after Albert’s two-week meeting with a grand jury to obtain indictments of ranchers for cattle theft.

Mariana Pérez de Ovante, Albert’s wife, believing no one attacked a man traveling with a little boy, had begged Albert to take Henry with him. When Albert finally acquiesced, she asked Henry to be her knight and protect his father. When Henry exuberantly agreed, she gave him a carved ivory horsehead pocket watch fob to remind him of her pride in his choice to be her knight and protect his father.

The historical facts are that on that windy, freezing day, the first of February 1896, Albert and Henry Fountain disappeared. Their bodies never found, their empty wagon miles out in the desert headed for the ranch of an enemy, their horses gone, and near where their wagon turned off the main road, a patch of blood-soaked sand glistened in the sunlight. Legends say Henry survived to avenge Albert’s murder, but only the wind and dead men know for sure.

Mariana’s Knight is gripping historical fiction, a fact-filled story, still debated today, of tragedy and revenge that carries the reader across a whirlwind of time, characters, and events in the desert southwest.

307 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 2017

About the author

I live and write in Smithfield, Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Living for nearly fifteen years in Las Cruces, New Mexico, I was immersed in the region's rich history, living in its culture, exploring its deserts, mountains, and ranges and learning much of the rich story life of the southwest. I'm a physicist by training, and I have a couple of books on remote sensing through the atmosphere (the Atmospheric Filter)that were published nearly fifteen years ago and are still in use today. I began writing fiction in 2002 in an attempt to get at the truth behind one of the great mysteries of the southwest - the Fountain murders - I learned while living in Las Cruces. The result was my first novel, Hombrecito's War, which won a Western Writers of America Silver Spur Award for Best First Novel in 2006 and was a New Mexico Book Award Finalist for Historical Fiction in 2007. The sequel, Hombrecito's Search, was released in July 2007, and is based on the remarkable fact that Sierra Madre Apaches still raided across the United States border as late as 1930. Treble Heart Press published my third novel, Conspiracy: The Trial of Oliver Lee and James Gililland, in 2009, which, while a novel, covered in historic detail the trial of the men accused of murdering the Fountains. Tiger Tiger Burning Bright: The Betrayals of Pancho Villa, my fourth novel, also from Treble Heart, depicts the fall into near insanity by Pancho Villa and his raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916. Tiger, Tiger completes The Vanished Trilogy. I have also published short stories in two anthologies, won awards for essays at the Christopher Newport University Writers' Conference, and published an essay on Pat Garrett in Roundup magazine.

Historical fiction, framed with as much accurate detail as possible about the events driving the story, is my passion. I've learned that, as Oakley Hall once said, "The pursuit of truth, not facts, is the business of fiction." I believe Oakley Hall was exactly right, but I've also found that fiction built around the facts provides powerful insights into the life and times of historical characters and events as they actually were. I hope you enjoy my work and I look forward to hearing from you.

Reviews

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be honest, I am one of those who can be turned off by a book's cover, so I was a bit nervous when I first received this book from the publisher for review because this is not one of my favorite covers. But I put those feelings aside and started to read the book, and I'm glad that I did.

In 1896, well-known litigator Albert Fountain left his wife and children to travel by wagon across the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico to meet with a grand jury. What is known about this real event is that Albert took his 8-year-old son, Henry Fountain, along with him for the journey at the urging of Henry's mother, Mariana. They arrived safe and sound and Albert did what needed to be done professionally; however, Albert and Henry never made it back home after they left town.

Their bodies were never found, there was no evidence of any attack on them, and no one ever came forward with information as to the whereabouts or final moments of Albert and his son.

Farmer's novel is a fictionalized account of what may have happened to them. I'm usually just as suspicious of highly fictionalized stories of true events, especially when there's no solid evidence of what really happened. I'm not a fan of supposition. But Farmer's writing drew me in and I found myself actually giving a crap about the characters.

While my money is actually on an alien abduction as far as what happened to Albert and Henry Fountain on February 1, 1896 (like Ambrose Bierce or anyone else who just happens to disappear one day), Farmer's account isn't entirely implausible either.

I wouldn't be opposed to reading more of Farmer's works, and am especially intrigued by the fact that this is Book One in a possible Legends of the Desert series. That sounds promising.

Full review here.

[Loretta Miles Tollefson · Rating 5 out of 5]

By the mid-1890s, southern New Mexico attorney and special prosecutor Albert Fountain had made a lot of enemies. It wasn’t surprising that those enemies would take advantage of Fountains’ trip across the Tularosa basin to take him out.

As a matter of fact, he and his wife expected as much. That’s why she insisted that Fountain take their eight-year-old son, Henry, with him to Lincoln, where Fall was to present evidence against suspected cattle rustlers. Surely no one was wicked enough to kill a little boy, or murder his father while he watched. When Fountain and the boy disappeared, the entire Territory was stunned. Mariana’s Knight imagines what might have happened that February day and afterward.

This is a fascinating read and a riveting Western tale. I recommend it!