Complete with folklore on the art of mystic healing in the lost mountains of Northern New Mexico, this cuento, a legend, is first and foremost a love story. Antonio discovers affection early on for the various types of herbs found around his homeland. But he is also infatuated with Marianela. Will Antonio remain in the village of San Lucas, wed Marianela and raise a farm and family to support their future? Everything in this young man's life directs him toward a calling he cannot afford to ignore. Antonio will become a curandero, Northern New Mexico's version of a healer, a mysterious individual schooled in the magic of collecting and combining herbs with convalescent powers. But this blessed individual must also be well versed in the ecstasies of the Catholic Church as well as brujeria, black magic, in order to defeat the spiritual and physical enemies that can curse one's health and well being. Antonio follows his destiny in this romantic tale. Jose Ortiz y Pino III is a graduate of New Mexico Military Institute and New Mexico State University. He has served as an officer in the U.S. Army as a Santa Fe County Commissioner and as a New Mexico State Senator. As Chairman of the New Mexico State Parks Commission, he was instrumental in building the Villanueva State Park in San Miguel County and the Zoological and Botanical State Park at Carlsbad, New Mexico. Mr. Ortiz y Pino presently owns and operates the Galisteo Historical Museum. He is known as a curandero himself and has practiced privately for many years.

Four hundred years ago, the pioneer men and women who first came to New Mexico were forced to make their life compatible with the earth and with their isolation. The beauty that surrounded them did not sustain them, but out of reverence for the land, there appeared the chosen ones--the "curanderos" who understood the medicinal uses of herbs; the "veijitos," the old men who made folklore, history and tradition and recounted it to the younger generations. And from this same tradition came the Patron, a man who had the ability to channel ambition and determination, and to make the land and its people yield to the law of common interest. He was a protector, a watcher of signs; he was a code maker, a fashioner of a way of life that is sadly missing in today's world. He was called the Patron by those whom he loved and who returned that love with work, faith and personal devotion. They called him the Patron, but they might just as well have called him the Godfather. Jose Ortiz y Pino has portrayed New Mexico, its characters and traditions with a sagacious wit and poignant keenness that could only have emanated from one who grew up in its midst. And he has narrated for us the story of a man whose visions had no limits, a man whose dedication to his goal was matched only by his sense of justice and compassion for all men--Don Jose Ortiz, The Last Patron.