Up Sweetwater

About the Book

Hayden Kayden is the last of a dying breed. He clings to the memory of the Colorado of his childhood: an open country of endless grazing land and crystal clear trout streams. Now, land developers are subdividing the cattle ranches and carving ski slopes into the mountains and the only place for a cowboy is on the professional rodeo circuit. The encroaching urban sprawl and subsequent changes in lifestyle have ignited a smoldering anger and discontent in Hayden. The only thing that grounds his restless soul is his love for his wife, Battle Bear, the daughter of Frank Killer Bear, a Ute Indian, and Mary Rodriguez Bear, a Mexican. The storyline of this eloquent novel shifts through different periods of time, chronicling the intense relationship shared by Hayden and Battle as they struggle to adjust as the life they know vanishes. We follow the two on their journey to find the place where they might reestablish a connection to the land, but it is a quest that will exact a tragically heavy price. Hayden, who speaks in a distinctive, naturally poetic cadence, narrates Michael William Mulnix’s richly textured story. Hayden is a fiercely independent iconoclast who channels his frustration and outrage through his physicality and finds peace in the reverent meditative state that can only be achieved while standing hip-deep in a pristine trout stream.

About the Author

Michael William Mulnix is a fourth-generation Coloradan whose family originally homesteaded in Gypsum in 1887. He has worked as a commercial fisherman, roofer, surgical orderly, egg candler, chicken culler, singing waiter, ranch hand, actor, journalist, professor, university vice president, and lobbyist. He holds terminal degrees from the University of Colorado, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Maryland. At the present time, he is a professor of marketing at a private university in San Antonio, Texas. He is an avid fly fisher.