In this book, Thomas recounts growing up on a ranch in Idaho during the Great Depression, playing baseball with Jackie and Mack Robinson, joining the Navy after Pearl Harbor, and serving as a TBM Torpedo Bomber pilot on aircraft carriers in the Atlantic and Pacific.

This book is about a remarkable man, Giovanni Maria de Agostini, born in Italy in 1801, who combined two seemingly contradictory aspirations: a fervent desire to devote his whole life to "perfect solitude" and an astonishing urge to travel incessantly.
As his decisions and actions emerge from the lightless silence - the time-covered past - a unifying purpose becomes evident.
Following extensive travel in Europe, Agostini takes vows revocable only by formal dispensation from the Pope. He immediately leaves forever his "beloved Italy" for South America. Twenty-one years he spends...

"Quien es?" The answer to this incautious question - "Who is it?" - was a bullet to the heart. That bullet - fired by Lincoln County Sheriff Patrick F. Garrett from a .40-44 caliber single action Colt pistol - ended the life of Billy the Kid, real name William Henry McCarty. But death - ordinarily so final - only fueled the public's fascination with Billy the Kid. What events led to Billy's killing? Was it inevitable? Was a woman involved? If so, who was she? Why has Billy's gravestone become the most famous - and most visited - Western death marker? Is Billy really buried in his grave? Is...