Flappers & Fiction

John Hardy, a heartbroken railway worker fleeing a failed romance in Wyoming, accepts a dangerous assignment as station-master at Santa María de los Angeles, a rough frontier outpost in New Mexico. The superintendent warns Hardy that the town is populated by criminals and that the previous water station manager, Harwood, appears to be stealing company firewood. Hardy’s romantic past haunts him as he prepares to confront corruption and violence in this remote desert settlement where Franciscan missions once flourished. The story chronicles Hardy’s journey from Pennsylvania coal country through years of frontier wandering after being devastated by Mary Wade’s betrayal.