Mariana's Knight

On the first of February, 1896, Albert Fountain, prominent attorney, legislator, and tough leader of Indian and outlaw fighting militia, drove his wagon across the wild and lonely Tularosa basin of New Mexico. He and his eight-year-old son were returning home after a two week meeting with a grand jury to obtain indictments of ranchers for cattle theft. Albert's wife, Mariana Pérez de Ovante, believing no one would attack a man traveling with a little boy, had begged Albert to take Henry with him. When Albert acquiesced, she asked Henry to be her knight and protect his father. She gave him a carved ivory horsehead watch fob to remind him of her pride in his courage. 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, their horses gone, and near where their wagon turned off the main road, a patch of blood-soaked sand glistening in the sunlight. Legends say Henry survived to avenge Albert's murder, but no one knows for sure...