Issac’s a hard living Chicago ne’er-do-well who tends bar to stave off boredom. His parents died in a airplane crash when Issac was a boy, leaving him wealthy and in the care of his Mom’s sister. Aunt Martha means well but has no idea how to raise a boy into a man. His Dad’s brother, Uncle Darwin, wants to raise Issac but as a successful entrepreneur who travels often, the courts rule against him. It doesn’t help that Issac blames Darwin for his parent’s death and has barely spoken to him since their funeral.
Issac has mostly burned through his inheritance when he learns Darwin died and he’s the only heir. He eagerly goes to New Mexico for a reading of the Will only to be told he must live on Darwin’s wilderness ranch for a year in order to receive the considerable inheritance. Having no idea what that means, Issac accepts only Darwin has plans beyond money; he intends to save Issac from his purposeless existence by teaching him how to live a self-sustaining life. Through a series of journals Darwin wrote, Issac not only learns the mechanics of wilderness living, but the profound importance to being tied to the land.
Sprinkled randomly within the journals are poems and idioms Darwin wrote that help Issac understand who Darwin was, how much he carried about his nephew, and what caused him to walk away from his successful life as a technology entrepreneur (e.g., worries about the coming AI singularity).
Under Darwin’s tutelage, Issac reluctantly evolves and in the process realizes the tapestries of the gregarious world he’s leaving (i.e., Chicago), don’t have a place in the world he’s integrating with; including his girlfriend Gabriella how he thought he loved when he thought he knew what love was. With the help of colorful neighbors, Issac learns to not only appreciate a world he could never have imagined accepting, but how his uncle’s ranch with all it’s history, is a microcosm of everything noble and evil about humanity.
Now, if Issac can just figure out what Darwin wants him to do with all this new found wisdom? Somehow, Nova seems to know; something in the way she smiles while sternly chastising him for not correctly following Darwin’s instructions. Nova traces her family history back four hundred years when Marquez Mountain was first settled and the wild mustang herd that still roams the open meadows formed. She loves these horses with all her heart, but protecting them may cost her her life, just as it did her heroic ancestors.
Chapter 1: Marquez Mountain - Importance of history and being tied to the land
Chapter 2: A Rose by Any Other Name - The wager that lead to Issac getting his name
Chapter 3: How About Those Cubs - Living large in Chicago
Chapter 4: Genesis of The End - How Darwin made his fortune
Chapter 5:
Chapter 6:
Chapter 7: Off the Grid - The reading of the Will
Chapter 8: Nova Knows - After a frustrating week on his own, Nova gives Issac Darwin's journals
Chapter 9: Four Seasons - Issac gets a bar tending gig at the Santa Fe Four Seasons for fun
Chapter 10:
Chapter 11:
Chapter 12:
Chapter 13:
Chapter 14:
Chapter 15: The Singularity - It may be too late to save humanity from itself
Chapter 16: Where Wild Horses Are Free - Issac fights for his herd and new way of life
Chapter 17:
Chapter 18:
Chapter 19:
Chapter 20:
