Ralph Neighbor

The Bayou Salade Trilogy Ralph Neighbor

In 1846 the Earl, Lord Edwin of Drumcliffe, brings his son Percival to the American frontier. His purposes are two; to have a spectacular hunt and to make a man of his teenage son. Ray Dobbs, a retired trapper and mountain man, is engaged as guide. The hunting ground is to be a large basin deep in the Rocky Mountains known as Bayou Salade, present day South Park, Colorado, then a province of the Ute nation. As the Earl travels to the Bayou via Mexico City, Ray traverses the prairie bringing horses and supplies. The prairie entrusts Ray with care of an abused runaway teen, an autistic savant, a small Cheyenne girl and a white boy raised by the Cheyenne. At Santa Fe Ouray, a Ute teen, is engaged to guide the Earl's entourage to the Bayou. Young Tom is Percival's manservant, the seventh of the youngsters through whose voices this amazing story is told. Horses, dogs and wild animals abound. Other characters include many Indians, another mountain man, Irishmen, Mexicans, a naturalist, soldiers, and an Indian Agent, to name a few. Romance kindles as the teen boys pine over the beautiful Consuela. And danger is ever present.