The Captain of Ponche Verde

Prologue — The Red Sky over the Pampas

The coxilhas rolled like green waves, stretching as far as the eye could see. The sky, wide and boundless, was just beginning to take on the golden hues of dusk.

Few imagined that those quiet fields would soon be crossed by armies, cannon, and armed horsemen.

Few knew that a war was about to be born.

At Santa Vitória Ranch, one of the largest estates in the province of S?o Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul, the men were closing out another day’s work.

The cattle spread across the fields.

The ranch hands rounded up the horses.

Smoke from the cookfires began to rise toward the sky.

Among those workers was Bento Fagundes.

He was twenty-two years old.

Tall, strong, and hardened by the rough life of the range.

He knew every stream, every fence line, every rolling hill on the property.

He knew how to break a wild horse.

He knew how to rope a skittish steer.

He knew how to weather a storm.

But there was one battle he was not prepared for.

The battle of love.

On the veranda of the great house, lit by the last rays of the sun, stood Isabel Albuquerque.

The only daughter of Colonel Anselmo de Albuquerque.

Heiress to thousands of head of cattle.

Bearer of a surname respected across the entire province.

Her eyes searched discreetly for the young ranch hand’s figure.

And his, inevitably, met hers.

The distance between them was small.

But the world that separated them seemed impossible to cross.

In that moment, neither of them knew.

Neither of them could imagine.

A war was coming.

A war that would tear families apart.

That would alter destinies.

And that would test a love capable of enduring time, distance, and history itself.

Long before he became a captain.

Long before he rode across battlefields.

Long before he crossed Brazil in search of the woman he loved.

Bento was just a ranch hand.

And it was all about to begin.