Author W. Michael Farmer has been putting up a bunch of outstanding Facebook posts providing historical background to his novels set in Apacheria at the end of the 19th Century. I haven’t read the novels — yet — but they’re on my Kindle list. The historical vignettes are really well done and I think any Frontier Partisans reader will enjoy them. The most recent is on the Tularosa Range War in New Mexico. His Facebook page is here.
Farmer is fascinated with the murder of Albert Fountain out on the desert of New Mexico in 1896 — a murder and mystery that is well worthy of obsession. It seems that all of Farmer’s works intersect in some way with this story. He’s got a new one dropping on May 17, titled Mariana’s Knight: The Revenge of Henry Fountain.
Albert Jennings Fountain. Murdered in 1896. A Western cold case.
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.
I’ve been wanting to plunge in to Farmer’s work for some time, and the historical posts on Facebook are only stoking the fire. Check ’em out.
Black Tyrone says
Thanks
Matthew says
It seems naive that his wife thought having a child with him would prevent an attack. From the description, I’m not sure you can even say they were murdered.
john roberts says
His wife was Hispanic, and it’s true (at least it used to be) that in Latino communities even the roughest hombres wouldn’t attack anyone accompanied by a child. My wife lived in Panama in the early 60s and said she never worried even when walking in the roughest parts of town as long as she had a child with her. I fear this civilized attitude has broken down now. And clearly even back then Fountain’s enemies had no such compunction.
Keith West says
I became interested in the Fountain murder a few years ago when I was reading about the Lincoln County War and its aftermath. Fascinating stuff. I’ve got a copy of Corey Recko’s MURDER ON THE WHITE SANDS up on the shelf. I haven’t read it yet; this post has motivated me to take it down.
I’ll have to check out Farmer’s work. Can I access his Facebook page if I’m not on Facebook?
JimC says
I think so.