Tales from the Journey of the Dead : Ten Thousand Years on an American Desert

by Boye, Alan

• ISBN13: 9780803213586
• ISBN10: 0803213581
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

View the Table of Contents and read an excerpt One hundred miles south of Albuquerque, two parallel chains of mountains isolate a 120-mile jumble of black rock, dry lake beds, flesh-colored sand, and desolation. This is theJornada del Muerto, the Journey of the Dead. So named because of a particular death centuries ago, this desert has witnessed many tales of loss and destruction. Alan Boye takes us on a trek through the beauty and violence of this forbidding land. Traveling the wasteland by foot, Boye visits battle sites from the Mexican-American War, to the Civil War, from the lonely canyon where the Apaches fought to keep their homeland, to the isolated site of the world's first atomic explosion. In the sand and dust and the ruins of war, Boye discovers stories of sadistic killers, directionless rebels, and gun-toting gauchosbut also tales of poets and dreamers, of ordinary men and women who lived their lives and continue to live under this wide and ruthless desert sky. He introduces us to many travelers who have tested the desert: mysterious ancient people who built cliff-top fortresses, Spanish conquistadors, Mexican farmers, old time cowboys yodeling classical poetry to their cattle, and modern range managers tracking livestock by satellite. This is the story of an American desert told through the eyes of those who knew it best and brought to life through Boye's own travels across the Journey of the Dead.

Author Biography

Alan Boye is a professor of English at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont. His many books include Holding Stone Hands: On the Trail of the Cheyenne Exodus (available in a Bison Books edition) and Just Walking the Hills of Vermont.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	viii
Traveling the Camino U.S. 380	1	(7)
The Wild Man	8	(9)
Elements	17	(10)
Foundations	27	(6)
Glyph Time	33	(19)
Artifacts	52	(18)
Rowena	70	(10)
The Coming of the Ingles	80	(6)
The Viejo	86	(6)
The Captains of Death and the Young Missouri Bride	92	(26)
Coffee on the Porch of the Bar Cross Ranch	118	(9)
Valverde	127	(16)
The Life and Death of Victorio (On Seeing Apache Plume)	143	(16)
Two Writers of the Purple Sage	159	(9)
Virtual Fences and Real Neighbors	168	(16)
Flo Martin Puts Down Her Monkey Wrench	184	(11)
The Georgia Green Story	195	(5)
The Final Walk	200	(8)
Joe	208	(9)
Acknowledgments	217	(4)
Notes	221	(18)
Bibliography	239