The Cruciform Tree
- Book 1, The Vicar Apostolic, begins.
- We look in on a lone horseman traveling through the New Mexico desert. It seems like he's lost in barren territory and nearly dying of thirst. Just when hope is draining out of him, though, he spots a weird tree that's growing in the shape of a Holy Cross. He immediately gets off his horse and starts praying to it for help.
- As we probably already guessed, this guy is Jean Marie Latour, the dude who's been put in charge of creating a new Catholic district in New Mexico. The guy originally set out from Cincinnati and it's taken him an entire year to reach this part of America.
- Oh man are we ever glad to live in the age of airplanes.
- We learn that during his journey, Latour was in a shipwreck and lost all of his belongings except his books. Then he had to live with an Irish family until his injured leg got better. In short, it's been a crummy trip.
- For most of his trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Father Latour had a comrade with him—a guy named Father Joseph Vaillant, who is actually Latour's boyhood friend from France.
- But even though the two men reached Santa Fe just fine, Father Latour is somewhere else now, alone in the desert. The problem is that once he (Latour) and Vaillant reached Santa Fe, none of the Mexican priests would recognize their authority. In these men's minds, New Mexico might as well still be part of Old Mexico. Besides, the current bishop in the area has no plans to hand power over to Father Latour. So Father Latour has had to set off for Mexico to see the Bishop of Durango and prove that he's supposed to be in charge now.
- Unfortunately, Latour has gotten lost on his way to Mexico and is now dying of thirst. Miraculously, his horses smell a stream and take him to it.
- Near the river is a house. A girl comes out and runs up to ask who he is. When she finds out he's a priest, she gets excited and tells a young boy (her brother) to run inside and tell their father.