Betrayed
Page 16
Separating Fact from Fiction in Betrayed
The Cave of the Winds and the Carranza River are real. I had to move them north just below the border for purposes of plotting. My apologies to the geographers of the world. The town of Carranza does not exist. It is not based on any town in Mexico or the United States. It is entirely a product of my imagination. The teachers' strike in Oaxaca and their subsequent firing and mistreatment by Mexican education and government authorities is real and well documented.
While I hope the Biblical allusions were clear, I also hope they were not overly obvious. I naturally wanted Rico's "betrayal" to take place in an olive grove just as Judas' betrayal of Jesus. The research I conducted showed that only one species of olive tree is indigenous to Mexico, and that is the olecia, a species so old that it no longer bears fruit. Just as Jesus's triumph could not have been accomplished without Judas's action, neither could Austin triumph over Omaga without Rico turning him over to the soldiers. The place called Olecia, the grove in which the betrayal takes place, exists only in my imagination.
The idea of Omaga and people like him getting compensation to halt illegal immigration stems from a real proposal called the "Five Mexican Generals" plan put forth by Texas satirist and former candidate for Texas governor, Richard "Kinky" Freeman. In an interview with the Kilgore News Herald, he said he was "dead serious" about the plan. He later amended his comments to a Dallas Morning News reporter, saying he intended the plan as a joke "with an element of seriousness."
The Rio Grande is a sandy bottom river whose course has shifted periodically over the last 200 years. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the end of the Mexican-American War in 1849 established the Rio Grande as the border between the United States and Mexico, though the course of the river left the boundary in dispute as late as 1900. The matter was officially resolved in 1963 when U.S. President John F. Kennedy signed an agreement with Mexican President Adolfo Lopez Mateos.
A Note about
Austin Pierce Whetsell
In the summer of 2007, Austin Whetsell, age 15, went with a group from his church to Zihuantenejo, Mexico. He was part of a 13-member mission team with Lexington (South Carolina) Presbyterian Church. The group was in Mexico for a week to help with construction of churches and working at sports camps there. After church services on Sunday, the group went swimming in the ocean.
Austin became caught in heavy surf and drowned in a rip current. Shortly before his death, Austin spoke to his grandfather by phone and said, "I wonder if this is something the Lord would have me do the rest of my life."
It was an honor to write this book in his memory, a labor not intended to draw attention to his tragic and unexpected death, but rather to the way he lived his life. May he continue to inspire faith and action in others, and as Austin would have wanted, to God be the glory.
Sam Morton
Columbia, SC
Sam Morton, a 1985 graduate of The Citadel, holds bachelor's and master's degrees in English. He is co-author of four fiction anthologies and sole author of Ramblings, a collection of his own short stories and poems.
He is a member of The Inkplots Writers Group, and is an active freelance writer for several regional and national magazines. He has received a number of awards for his writing.
His past occupations include a 12-year stint as a robbery/homicide detective for the Richland County Sheriff's Department in Columbia, SC, a ten-year career as a professional wrestler, and one long week as the blade changer on the potato cutting machine at the Frito Lay plant in Charlotte, N.C.
He resides in Columbia, SC with his wife, Myra, and two children, Alexey and Nikki. Find out more about Sam by logging onto www.sammorton.com.