Tales from the Journey of the Dead

Alan Boye

Description

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 the Jornada 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 gauchos—but 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.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Natural history
• Americas
• History

Informations

• Publié par: UNP - Nebraska
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780803258983
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Tales from the Journey of the Dead

Tales from the Journey of the Dead

Ten Thousand Years on an American Desert

Alan Boye

                                        

∫2006 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. ! Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boye, Alan, 1950– Tales from the journey of the dead: ten thousand years on an American desert / Alan Boye. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. isbn-13: 978-0-8032-1358-6 (cloth: alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-8032-1358-1 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Jornada del Muerto Wilderness (N.M.)—Description and travel. 2. Jornada del Muerto (N.M.)—Description and travel. 3. Boye, Alan, 1950–—Travel—New Mexico —Jornada del Muerto Wilderness. 4. Jornada del Muerto Wilderness (N.M.)—History. 5. Natural history—New Mexico—Jornada del Muerto Wilderness. 6. Jornada del Muerto Wilderness (N.M.)—Biography—Anecdotes. 7. Oral history. I. Title. f802.j67b695 2006 917.89%670454—dc22 2005033455 Text set in Robert Slimbach’s Adobe Minion by Key- stone Typesetting, Inc. Designed by Richard Eckersley.

For Bill Price; and for Cathy Russell and Mel Mann: companions

The men whom Zeus decrees, from youth to old age must wind down our brutal wars to the bitter end until we drop and die, down to the last man.— iliad

Go beyond this way or that way, to the farther shore where the world dissolves and everything becomes clear. Beyond this shore and the far- ther shore, beyond the beyond where there is no beginning, no end, without fear, go.— dhammapada

contents

List of Illustrations 1. Traveling the Camino U.S. 380 2. The Wild Man 3. Elements 4. Foundations 5. Glyph Time 6. Artifacts 7. Rowena 8. The Coming of theIngles 9. TheViejo 10. The Captains of Death and the Young Missouri Bride 11. Co√ee on the Porch of the Bar Cross Ranch 12. Valverde 13. The Life and Death of Victorio (On Seeing Apache Plume) 14. Two Writers of the Purple Sage 15. Virtual Fences and Real Neighbors 16. Flo Martin Puts Down Her Monkey Wrench 17. The Georgia Green Story 18. The Final Walk 19. Joe Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography

viii 1 8 17 27 33 52 70 80 86

92

118 127

143 159 168

184 195 200 208 217 221 239

illustrations

Following page 94 The Wild Man in 1934 An oryx Virgil Lueth and Lisa Peters The snake petroglyph Susan Mago≈n

James Kirker Rafael Chacón Alfred Peticolas’s self-portrait Victorio Dismounted Bu√alo Soldier

Following page 180 Gene Rhodes around 1898 Captain Jack Crawford Flo Martin Ben Cain Georgia Green in 1942 Georgia Green and her brother Bill

The author on the Jornada

Ruts on the Jornada

Joe Turner in the 1930s

Joe Turner in 2001

map The Jornada del Muerto

2–3

Tales from the Journey of the Dead