J. Bradley Van Tighem was born in Los Angeles in 1961 and lived in the crowded suburbs of Southern California until he left for college in 1979. He attended the University of California, Davis where he acquired his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Electrical Engineering, specializing in Computer Graphics and Image Processing software development. He has been working in the technology industry ever since, which has kept the left side of his brain quite busy. But what about the right side, that creative side? Well, the right-side of his brain has laid dormant for far too long, so he took up fiction writing...

One of the most interesting and inspiration books I have read was, believe or not, "Jurassic Park" by Michael Crichton.

I loved the idea that dinosaurs could be brought to life in our modern world so we could see what they really looked like and how they really behaved. I often imagined as a kid what it would be like to be thrown into the Jurassic or Mesozoic Era amidst these unbelievable monsters that I could only see through my ViewMaster or in the movie "King Kong". In some sense, when Jurassic Park the movie came out, it was like a dream come true for me. I must have seen it about 4 times in the theatre.

Also, since childhood, I have been fascinated by many of the Native American cultures, specifically the "warrior" cultures like the Iroquis, Sioux, Seminole, Apache, and Comanche nations. Another movie which inspired me to study Native American cultures even further was "The Last Samurai." Though this movie focused on the dying Samurai culture, the parallels with our Native American peoples are obvious. Both the Samurai and Native Americans are built on similar principles: respect for the land and honor in battle. Their lives were dedicated to protecting their villages and surviving in very harsh environments. They dedicated themselves to learning and practicing the skills they needed to survive, namely, the use of weapons like the sword, the lance, and the bow and mastering their horsemanship.

Most of the western films I've seen and books I've read seem to focus on the white man's conquest of the American Indian, probably because that era is more widely documented and "celebrated" by our culture. But I want to know what their cultures were like BEFORE that time. What an exciting time it was in North America after the horse had been introduced by the Spanish but before the indigenous people were slaughtered by smallpox and Winchester rifles --- a span of roughly 200 years. The horse revolutionized the hunter-gatherer cultures allowing them more freedom to roam and an easier means for hunting the buffalo, which provided for all their needs. This was the Golden Age of the American Indian and this is what I wanted for the setting of my story.

Now, one thing that puzzled me about the Native American cultures is that they never adopted falconry as a means for hunting. The Asians and Europeans had used falconry for centuries to hunt small animals, long before the arrival of more modern weaponry, like the rifle. Why hadn't the Native Americans figured this out? I honestly don't know the answer, but to my knowlegde there is no known record of Native Americans using birds of prey to hunt. But what astounded me even further was that one of the most prolific birds in modern falconry, the Harris Hawk, is native to the North American southwest. Why didn't the Apaches and Comanches train them to hunt? I have had a passion for birds of prey all my life, so naturally I had to try falconry out for myself. It was a wonderful experience that I will never forget, but for now, I don't have the time in my life to do it justice. But that won't stop me from pursuing my passion for falconry in fiction...

"Blood on the Pecos" is a blend of these two journeys for me. First, to imagine and try to describe what the Golden Age of the American Indian was like and secondly, to pursue my passion for falconry. I have chosen my setting as 1700s Texas because it was time of turbulent struggle between two great nations: The Comanche and Apache. Also, it just so happens that many of my favorite animals are native to Texas like the Roadrunner, Collared Lizard, Wolf, Grizzly Bear, and of course, the Harris Hawk. Though the wolf and grizzly have been chased from the Southwest, most of these other animals still prosper there. So, I'm going to just throw all these good things into one big story pot and see what comes up. I hope you enjoy the adventure too!