BLOOD GUILT
First in the Salinas Trilogy

Blood Guilt
      A Story of Atonement
      Based on the novel by Robert Franklin Gish
      Copyright 2021 Robert Franklin Gish
     
      Contact: James Clois Smith Jr., Sunstone Press / (505) 988-4418
     
     
      LOGLINE: Beautiful Nina Lucero learns early to fight fiercely for independence while maintaining family bonds. Misguided choices and a serendipitous relationship eventually lead her to new avenues of love and atonement.
     
      Act I: El Rancho
     
      Nina awakens from a dream of a past deer hunt with her uncle and lingering regrets over him shooting a pregnant doe. Rising to the commotion of neighbors arriving in the yard she remembers that her uncle and father are preparing the seasonal kill and butchering of a lamb from her father’s sheep herd, she dreads the experience and after a chilly family greeting heads to the barn to check on her prize goat, apprehensive of its destined fate. Two lustful neighbor boys follow her and against the rhythmic chomping of the ram, forcibly rape her.
     
      Act II: La Escuela
     
      Given her mixed Hispanic and Anglo heritage her gringa appearance makes for hostile encounters with her darker skinned schoolmates. Tempers flare during cheerleader tryouts and a fight breaks out after verbal insults and provocative gestures. Never one to run from a fight and given her uncle’s past martial arts instructions, Nina prevails in a bloody brawl, securing her reputation and election as head cheerleader.
     
      Act III: La Iglesia
     
      The town’s Pentecostal church lost its pastor some time ago, due in part to his dangerous use of snakes in worship, insisting such practice was endorsed in the Bible. A new call is advertised and a pastor in the north encourages his young assistant to answer the call, saying it would make a good start for him. Nina’s family as devout members of the congregation welcome him to their home, the church, and the community. He soon tells Nina that God has instructed him to marry her and in her naiveté and familial encouragement she accepts, agreeing to help reestablish the church’s membership.
     
      Act IV: Los Casados
     
      The newly weds have a troublesome time adjusting to each other. Nina soon is pregnant and submissive to her husband’s whims and strange sexual urges. In addition, he has a difficult time fitting in with the hunting and other activities of her father and uncle. Hardly a man’s man, his odd visions and delusions prove him beyond eccentric if not deranged. Nina’ mother in particular finds him self absorbed, boorish, and ungrateful.
     
      Act V: Feliz Navidad
     
      In a Christmas Eve service befitting Hawthorne’s diabolical and nightmarish dark mass experienced by Young Goodman Brown, the new pastor’s mentor is invited to deliver the seasons’ climactic service unleashing a sack full of serpents which cause widespread havoc, complete with marriage-breaking aftershocks.
     
      Act VI: El Gimnasio
     
      Determined to improve her strength and agility and augment her self defense skills she joins a fitness gym n Albuquerque where she studies with a master of Filipino martial arts. He finds her to be an ideal student and during the weeks of training they grow emotionally close. Nina finds him an inspirational contrast to her unstable husband and something of a life coach; however, when she seeks a divorce her husband breaks down and threatens to harm her and their children. She retreats back to the family ranch seeking the protection of her father and uncle.
     
      Act VII: La Lucha
     
      The struggle for the children heightens when the now unhinged pastor speeds to the ranch to kidnap them and hold or possibly kill them in the nearby ancient Native American and Spanish ruins. He is thwarted in this attempt when Nina’s mother ironically stabs him in the leg with the ice pick she had once used in preparing hospitable refreshments. He escapes to the ruins where he is tracked down and killed by Nina’s father and uncle.