“In this luscious alternative universe, sidekicks quote the Lone Ranger and Right inevitably triumphs with panache. What more could adventure-loving readers ask for?”— Publishers Weekly Oakland, 1946 . Ex-soldier John Rolfe, newly back from the Pacific, has made a fabulous discovery: A portal to an alternate America where Europeans have never set foot—and the only other humans in sight are a band of very curious Indians. Able to return at will to the modern world, Rolfe summons the only people with whom he is willing to share his discovery: his war buddies. And tells them to bring their families... Los Angeles, twenty-first century . Fish and Game warden Tom Christiansen is involved in the bust of a smuggling operation. What he turns up is something he never anticipated: a photo of authentic Aztec priests decked out in Grateful Dead T-shirts, and a live condor from a gene pool that doesn’t correspond to any known in captivity or the wild. It is a find that will lead him to a woman named Adrienne Rolfe—and a secret that’s been hidden for sixty years… Praise for Conquistador “Mesmerizing.”— Publishers Weekly “A novel of complex landscapes, both moral and geographical...Copious amounts of suspense and action.”— Locus “The moral landscapes of this novel are intriguing, and the sight of an undeveloped West Coast is unforgettable.”—Scifi.com “Even more of a romp than Stirling’s The Peshawar Lancers ...Its action scenes are state-of-the-art and its femmes wonderfully formidables .”— Booklist S. M. Stirling is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels, including the Novels of the Change and the Shadowspawn series. A former lawyer and an amateur historian, he lives with his wife, Jan. Prologue Oakland, CaliforniaApril 17, 1946 FirstSide/New Virginia John Rolfe had rented the house for seventy-five a month, which sounded extortionate but was something close to reasonable, given the way costs had gone crazy in the Bay Area since Pearl Harbor. The landlord was willing because Rolfe promised to do the badly needed repairs himself, and because he had a soft spot for soldiershis son had died on Okinawa, where Rolfe had taken three rounds from a Nambu machine gun and gotten a Silver Star, a medical discharge and months on his back in a military hospital. The house was a solid three-bedroom piece of Victoriana, a little shabby and run-down like the area, shingle and dormers; what they called Carpenter Gothic hereabouts, but at least it had a basement. The previous owners had been Japanese-American, sent off to the relocation camps in 1942; then it had been rented out to workers in the shipyards to the north, part of the great wartime inrush, and they’d made a mess of it. A whole house to himself was an indulgence anyway, since he was unmarried, but he’d spent too much of the last four years on troopships and in crowded bases and bivouacs, plus painful months in the crowded misery of a hospital. Solitude was restful. He rubbed his thigh as he limped out to the porch, scooping up a bottle of milk, the mail and the newspaper. The mail included his monthly check from Uncle Sam, which was welcome; every little bit helped to stretch the modest legacy from his father, even though the house and land back in Virginia had gone for a surprising sum. There were also a few more no-thank-yous from prospective employers. The market for ex-captains wasn’t all that brisk, not when their only other qualification was Virginia Military Institute. Being able to endure Beast Barracks, run an infantry company, and take out a Nip bunker complex...well, none of them were really salable skills in peacetime, particularly when they went with a slowly healing gimp leg. War heroes were a dime a dozen in the United States these days. He’d get something eventually.... I’m still having better luck than my grandfather, he thought. John Rolfe III had lost a leg at Second Manassas, leading a regiment of the Stonewall Brigade against the United States, under Jackson. That had turned out to be a bad decision, at least from the viewpoint of the family fortunes; though not as bad as Gramps’ subsequent one to put everything he had into Confederate bonds as a patriotic gesture. Of course, I’d have done exactly the same thing, but there’s no denying it never pays to lose, he thought with a chuckle. There was also a letter from Andy O’Brien, who’d been his top sergeant in Baker Company until he and Rolfe were invalided out on the same day. Enemy holdouts had infiltrated in the dark just before dawn and nearly overrun them; it had come down to bayonets and clubbed rifles, boots and fists and teeth, with only the muzzle flashes to light chaos and terror and the stink of death. For a moment his face froze under a film of cold sweat and the paper crumpled in his fist as a year vanished in an instanthe remembered the ugly crunching feel that shivered up the ruined weapon as the butt of his Garand splintered on a Nip’s face, with a splash of b