Cuentos is Spanish for tale, or story.  Tres Cuentos, therefore, means three tales, which is exactly what you'll find in Cletus Duhon's first book.  It should be ready next month, and we hope to follow that one with a second Tres Cuentos, called Volume Two, a few months after that.  The three stories you'll find in the first book are The Duck Ranch, First Frost, and Last Licks.  The Duck Ranch and Last Licks were written some time ago, and in fact are the first and second books in the series The Adventures of Bubba and Cletus.  First Frost, the most lengthy of the tree stories, was written more recently. 

The Duck Ranch, the very first Cletus Duhon story, is about an attempt on two aging cowboy's part to raise a herd of domestic ducks.  This story sets the stage for all other adventures in that it introduces readers to the central characters - Bubba Espinoza and Cletus Duhon.  Bubba wants to raise ducks, and Cletus is a reluctant participant in this story.  The duck ranching enterprise fails when the ducks, lead by a maverick drake named Max, turn into a nuisance flock of several thousand destructive quackers.  State authorities are calle in to capture the ducks, and after being only partially successful at that, they decide to exterminate the remaining ducks.  This leaves Bubba and Cletus with some hard choices as to what should be done with the several thousand remaining ducks.  With the help of an unusual character named Sundance, they lead the ducks on a daring escape from the hill country down to the Mexican border.  In the end, the ducks escape, but not until after a near disaster on the highway.  If you like ducks, or radio controlled model planes, or seeing state authorities being outfoxed, or unusual characters - you'll like this story.

First Frost is a story about chile farming in southern New Mexico . . . and it is about a courageous woman dying with cancer and at the same time fighting off an unscrupulous rancher.  It is also a tender love story - Cletus's first real romance, and his last.  This story is about a drug smuggling rancher who is intent on taking over a small chile farmer's fields, aided by a band of renegade four-wheel scooter riding cowboys.  Cletus gets romantically involved with Talomai Smith, the owner of the chile farm, and this pulls them into the fray.  Bubba and Cletus are reunited with an old WWII buddy there in a small desert town.  Together, they devise a scheme to terrorize the renegade cowboys, face down the rancher, and save Talomai's chile crops . . . her final crop.  This story deals with the highly sensitive issue of dying and death, and about how several people with strong character traits handle it.  The story also features a medicine lady, an old Mexican woman who can work wonders with drugs . . . and maybe even fly.  This story has all kinds of interesting twists, and surprises.

Last Licks is a hilarious story about a rodeo clown act that featured a chimpanzee named L.B. as it's star attraction.  Also featured in the story is a goofy character named Slick Siphert, the barrel man, and a souped up yellow doodlebug car used in the clown act.  The big event in this story is a long distance, high speed chase involving L.B. the chimp, driving the hotrod Volkswagen bug, chased by a procession of cops through the hills of rural Texas.  A town drunk named Salty gets the ride of his life, and L.B. ends up winning a stock car race in the end of the story.  The story, however, has a serious theme, and that's the unpleasant but necessary coping process of men dealing with middle age and the end of their rodeo careers.

Tres Cuentos is set up to introduce readers to an entire series called The Adventures of Bubba and Cletus.  In all, there are about twenty of these stories.  Some of the forthcoming books might include more than three stories, but we'll start the series with three and see how that works out.

Keep an eye out . . . 'cause they're coming!

C. Duhon, 1/17/08