Introduction

"A powerful tale of revenge and perseverance in the face of danger. " - Kirkus Reviews

"Not since True Grit have we celebrated a plucky young girl on a mission to set her turbulent, dusty world right ..." - David Marion Wilkinson, award-winning author

"Libraries and readers seeking powerful elements of history and thriller that share equal billing in their depth and deployment will find Sarita an exceptional acquisition." - D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

"(Dossett) possesses a firm grasp of the landscapes and culture of the Wild West and strikingly demonstrates this through her narration." - Lily Andrews, reviewer at Feathered Quill

In the summer of 1920, nineteen-year-old Sarita's younger brother, JJ, bleeds to death in her arms after being shot by Javier Salsito de Ortega, a ruthless tequila smuggler. The Texas Rangers have their hands full with Prohibition and border issues. Still, Sarita is stunned when they refuse to help.

JJ's death devastates her father. Without a male heir, Sarita fears he will give in to the oil prospector intent on buying their family ranch, La Barroneña. Even in his despair, she knows her father yearns for justice, but he is too ill and weak to seek it.

Sarita isn't.

Determined to prove herself and change her fate, she crosses the Rio Grande into a world of deadly threats--from rattlesnakes to Pancho Villa's rebels to the very killer she's hunting. Quickly, Sarita realizes she's stumbled into a web of danger far bigger and more sinister than she imagined. If she is caught, the consequences could jeopardize innocent lives and put her father's safety at risk.

In a tumultuous landscape of social and political upheaval, what lines will Sarita have to cross to survive? Will her relentless pursuit of justice exact a price too steep to bear? If she succeeds--if she gets home--will she have earned her father's respect? Will she have secured her family's future?

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Excerpt

“The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors imported or exported from the United States is prohibited.”

The Eighteenth Amendment went into effect at midnight on January 16, 1920. Seldom has a law been so extraordinarily difficult to enforce or so flagrantly violated.

CHAPTER 1

Sunlight shifted through the oak canopy above, golden rays glistening on my fingers, slick with blood and gloved in small brown and gray feathers. I picked up another quail from the pile at my feet, popping the head off and snapping the fragile wing bones. As I plucked it clean, small tufts of down sailed away like dandelion seeds, floating with the buzz of locusts and grasshoppers on the summer breeze. The lazy sound reminded me of childhood naps in the shade of the big live oak behind our house, of waking up in a hazy sweat to Mama’s dinner call. My mother lay buried under that tree now, and everything had changed.

Holding the bird’s stiff feet in one hand, I pinched the film of skin around its thigh and peeled it away from the shiny meat underneath. A triangle of shotgun pellets pocked the rose-tinted breast, tiny copper cannonballs that had folded the bird mid-flight and sent it diving to the ground. I picked them out and turned the headless body over to scoop up the wormy intestines, dropping them onto a small mound of guts on the ground. Coyotes were probably circling already, nosing the wind.

I finished cleaning all the birds, shoved them into a burlap sack, and wiped my hands on the back of my canvas trousers, already soiled from a full day of ranch chores. Gathering my gear, I walked over to Buster. The horse had wandered to the edge of a watering hole, grazing on sparse stalks of buffle grass not yet burnt crisp by the July sun.

As I pushed the .410 shotgun into the saddle scabbard, I paused, sensing a subtle change in the air. The insects had fallen silent; even the chortling of the white-winged doves roosting in the high branches had stopped. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. Buster raised his head, ears swiveling.

Turning in a circle, I searched the heat-wobbled horizon. The surrounding mesquite thicket stood waist high, not tall enough to hide a horsebacker, but several nearby oak mottes, like the one I stood in, could provide plenty of cover for someone wanting to keep out of sight. A chill ran down my arms despite the near hundred-degree temperature, the four miles to our house seeming to grow longer.

A minute or so passed before the insect noise stutter-started back up. Buster let out a snort, nudging my hip. He was ready to head home to the bucket of oats waiting in the barn. Whatever had caused the hush—a bobcat, a fox—must’ve passed. 

I nudged the bird sack into the saddlebags, threw the reins over Buster’s head, and swung up onto his back. Tapping my heels against his sides, we moved out of the tree cover towards the road home. I tried to shake the feeling of being watched. On his morning rounds, Papa had discovered four cut fences and a butchered heifer way up at the north pens, which had me jumpy. He’d taken some ranch hands there to mend the holes and round up the straying cattle. Barbwire might have put an end to the open range for livestock, but trespassers only needed a good pair of wire cutters. 

There’d been a surge in activity over the past several months, news of some sort of trouble arriving like the hot gulf breeze, unwanted and inevitable. The threats of cattle rustlers, bandits, and thieves had always existed, but since Prohibition had gone into effect, tequila smugglers had been added to the mix. They seemed particularly brazen, taking what they wanted as they crossed ranches north of the Rio Grande, heading to San Diego to sell their loads. 

I urged Buster into a gallop, zigzagging through the scrub. As we came over a small rise, my breath caught. A rider was leading an extra horse down the middle of the road. I yanked the reins back, reaching automatically for my gun—then got a better look and settled back in the saddle. 

My younger brother sat astride a little dapple-gray horse he was breaking in. When he saw me, he pulled up.

“Hey, Sarita,” JJ called.

His colt pranced impatiently at the end of a lead rope attached to his saddle horn. Twister had been JJ’s payment for working a remuda of wild mustangs for the neighboring Arrowhead Ranch. He didn’t go anywhere without him; he’d have let Twister sleep by his bed if Papa would’ve allowed it.

“You headed home?” I asked, trotting up beside him.

“Not yet. I need to work her a while longer,” JJ replied, referring to the young mare he rode. “They want her ready for round-up next week, and she’s still pretty squirrely.”

As if to prove him right, the mustang skipped sideways, throwing her head up and down like an impatient child. 

“Woah, there, Bluebird,” he soothed, patting her neck. 

We’d both been riding since almost before we could walk, but JJ had a way with horses; some even called it a gift. He’d earned quite a reputation breaking wild mustangs and busting broncos even grown men had given up on. The problem was that all JJ ever wanted to do was work horses. Our father didn’t mind the extra money it brought in, so long as JJ’s ranch work got done—which it never did. At least, not by him. His gift was my curse.

“You better be back before Papa gets home,” I said. “You’ve got chores and I’m done covering for you.”

“Yeah, I know.” His eyes fell on the top of the bird sack sticking out of my saddlebag. “How many did you get?”

“Twelve shots, twelve birds.”

“Guess that’s supper then,” he said.

JJ leaned over to scratch the white star marking the colt’s forehead as Twister nibbled at his leg. 

“You treat that horse like an overgrown puppy,” I remarked. 

JJ grinned. “He’s a hundred times better than any dumb old dog.”

Despite myself, his love for Twister touched my heart. He’d smiled more in the two weeks since he’d brought the colt home than he had in the whole two years since Mama had died. 

“Must be nice messing around with ponies all day,” I teased, slapping the flap of my saddlebag closed. “I, on the other hand, have to get home and do some real work.” 

“You got no idea what you’re talking about.” JJ’s blue eyes scowled at me from under his dove-gray Stetson. “Saddle-breaking mustangs is real work.”

“Real or not,” I shot back, “training other people’s horses has got nothing to do with our ranch, which is what you should be concerning yourself with.” 

He rolled his eyes, as sick of this argument as I was. In my heart, I wished my father would give in and teach me the cattle operation. I was better suited to it than JJ, and Papa needed the help. He’d had two more bad spells over the last several months. Dr. Andrew had told him his heart was getting weak and he needed to cut back, but he was too damn stubborn to listen.

“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to learn how to run La Barroneña like Papa wants,” I said. “You’re thirteen already, and he can’t work as hard as he used to.”

JJ sighed and yanked off his hat, running a hand through sweat-damp hair that had grown so long it curled below his ears. 

“You’re pissed no matter what I do; you been mad ever since Jackson left,” he said, not looking me in the eye. “It ain’t my fault he cut and run.”

Anger crept up my neck. Jackson had vanished about a year ago. Two weeks after he’d asked me to marry him. No one had heard from him since. For a while, it had been good fodder for gossip––did something happen to him? Did he get cold feet? Eventually people found other things to talk about. In spite of all my efforts, it still hurt.

“It’s ‘isn’t’ not ‘ain’t,’ and you need a haircut before people mistake you for a girl,” I snapped, glaring until a frown pulled at his mouth. “See, I can say hurtful things too.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. 

Bluebird bounced forward like she was playing hopscotch. JJ shoved his Stetson on and pulled the reins in. “We done? She’s getting antsy.”

“Guess so. Don’t go too far off, and don’t be late.”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Sarita,” he smirked in a singsong voice.

Ignoring his taunt, I kicked Buster into a canter. I didn’t enjoy bossing JJ around anymore than he liked me doing it, but Mama’s death had put me in charge of running the house and raising him—whether either of us wanted it that way or not.

  I reached the house pasture and unhooked the latch to the wooden gate. It swung open, old rusty hinges groaning the way Papa did first thing in the morning. I didn’t bother to dismount and drag the gate closed since JJ should be back soon. Buster made a beeline for the big oak doors of the barn, which stood open like two arms waiting to embrace the smallest breath of air.

After dismounting, I pulled the shotgun out of its scabbard, leaning it against the wall, then yanked the birds out of the saddlebags. A pack of black horseflies appeared as soon as I set the bag down, circling like miniature buzzards. I rolled the top of the burlap tighter, then unsaddled Buster and put the rig away in the tack room. After he ate a handful of oats, I walked him out to the corral. He nickered a greeting to the other cowpony in the pen on his way to the water trough. As I dragged the gate closed, several loose boards shook along the bottom. Fixing them was on JJ’s to-do list.

I glanced down the road past the gate, surprised to see dust boiling up in front of the brush line less than half a mile away. Maybe JJ would actually be home in time to get some work done. I stepped up on a stump, shading my eyes to get a better look.

Bluebird materialized in front of the dirt cloud, galloping flat-out. JJ bobbed in the saddle with her motion, reins held high. Twister sprinted behind them, long, slender legs flying, loose lead rope sailing next to him. JJ never worked a green-broke horse that hard, and running the colt down the uneven, graveled road could damage his young bones. JJ slapped Bluebird’s hip with the end of the reins, urging her even faster. Alarm snaked around my chest as the screen of dust behind them parted and two riders charged out. JJ wasn’t running; he was being chased. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

From the author:

1. What surprised you about the historical context of 1920s SouthTexas?

2. What significance does setting play in shaping the characters and events?

3. There are many social themes in the novel––race, culture, identity, women’s rights––how have those changed since 1920? How are they the same?

4. Legacy and succession are two main themes in the novel, how do family dynamics affect the characters’ decisions?

5. How does the novel make you think about your own family history and identity?

6. How does the novel depict the impact of violence and trauma on individuals and communities?

7. What future do you envision for the characters?

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