The Bad Bell of San Salvador

This dramatic historical tale bold is set in the Southern California of the 1840’s when Mexican patrons ruled vast empires of land and people. It was a harsh and violent era of outlaws and vaqueros, of plains strewn with animal carcasses. 

The band of Mexicans who came to settle along the Santa Ana River bring along a young Indian boy who has been kidnapped as a child and sold for a barrel of whiskey. Fiercely loyal to the traditions of his Comanche ancestors, the boy, now call Jacinto, refuses to bend to the ways of his hated captors; he lives for the day he can steal a horse and escape. Instead his rebelliousness causes him to be watched with ever-increasing suspicion. How the Comanche redeems himself by helping to cast the bell of San Salvador and then sounds an alarm on it makes the story builds to rousing climax.

Based on true events, this pioneer-adventure is an absorbing addition to Patricia Beatty's much-admired novels.