Tierra del Oro                         A Lion Against the Wind                                             The first thing Ramón did was tear his stepfather's room from his casita.                        The brothers Fernando, Mano, and Luis helped.             From Maria's front window, cousin Anita watched Ramón      and dreamed of him.                                    Ramón's thoughts often drifted to Serafina  in  La Puerta del Sol              Serafina would forever remember the cheap,                                                                                      damp room and the broken green slat shades of the inn.                                                 They crossed the Mexican highlands.    Pablo inhaled the pungency of the brewery                                                                like a man who had long been homesick. Tia Marta's Monterrey home                had been in the Valente-Ortiz family for generations.       Serafina vowed silently to make Pablo a good wife.               The child she carried would become a Valente.           She visited the portraits of Trouble and Ramón one last time. In Los Pobres, Ramón and Anita were falling in love.                          Francisco's barn              Tio Manuelo warned Ramón that war was coming. For five years, peace reigned.                           Then soldiers came to Los Pobres. Villagers were taken as slaves,       and Anita and Serenito were among them.                         "So far away,"  one soldier told Anita,  "that you can never walk back."              Serenito silently clutched his cane whistle.     El General and Anita shared a meal on the patio of the ruby-colored lamps.  Revolution was no longer a phrase uttered by hotheads.  It was at their door. In Monterrey, Serafina and Pablo could sense the coming storm.      One day, the political upheaval would touch their lives                                         and that of Ramón's son, Domingo. San Juan de Ulua The Stories   |    Forty Grains of Black Powder   |   Legend of the Sierra Madre   |   Los Pobres   |   La Puerta del Sol   |   A Lion Against the Wind   |   Bitter Victory   |   Tierra Y Libertad   |   The Horse Tamers   |   Tesoro  |   home