James King
CRUCI~FICTION aka SANTA . . . LIA ~ HOLY . . . LEGENDIs the story recorded on the bleached pages of an old bilingual Bible, shot through with a large caliber rifle. The inside was used to record the words, lives, and friendship of three orphans with a red pencil, a blue pen, and a green crayon. In Southern Colorado there is a vast mountain valley walled by two mountain ranges, the San Juans and the Sangre de Cristos. It has no inlet and only one outlet, through which flows the Rio Grande del Norte, into the high desert and canyons of northern New Mexico. This border can only be seen on maps. It is not visible on land. The land to the south of this border has long been known as 'The Land of Enchantment.' The land north of the border is known as 'El Valle de San Luis.' Both sides always had much in common, though one hundred years ago an evolution occurred south of the borderline that did not happen on the north. Artists and writers from far and wide found Taos and Santa Fe desirable places to live and work. The art and literature they produced, as well as hundreds of followers, revealed northern New Mexico to the world. Artists and writers didn’t make homes north of the border so life on the north side remained more of a mystery than life to the south. A few miles north of the borderline is where this story is set in the town of San Antonito, Colorado. The first known language spoken there was Ute and the second that dominated this isolated valley even before Colorado became a state, and many decades thereafter, was Spanish. There are many times and places on earth where stories should be recorded. This story originates in such a time and place but, unfortunately, John Steinbeck, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Cormac McCarthy lived elsewhere. The time and place did deserve someone of their skill. I am not that person. I am just someone who wished to have read a great novel about this place and time, though never found it. Therefore, I was inspired to offer you a substitute for what I had yearned to read for myself. The opening scene begins on Christmas Eve, 1937, and the story stops in 2022. But is it really over? Much of the story occurs between 1952 and 1959. Mid-century in this place bore little resemblance to most of the United States of America. Postwar prosperity brought little direct change here, other than some Anglos with greater resources and increased tastes for the farms and ranches surrounding San Antonito. It is a time of friction and change. Having spent this time describing to you what a unique and special place I am writing about, I am sad to tell you that it was not immune to the evil propagated by men and covered up by the Catholic Church. Before, during, and after this evil, love occurs, multiple loves. Perhaps loves unlike any you have ever known; loves to be learned by. It is simultaneously a bad and good story. James King
