Riders to Cibola by Norman Zollinger (review)

Reviews 77 and stunted Indian-Spanish son-in-law. . . . from Hill Man Alejandro, maker of leather stood only as tall as his ancient bench . . . from The Brujo of Santos: A Folktale The first time I saw him, he rose out of the grass of a hill, his eyes straight into mine, big head low . . . from Wolf Triptych Wilson’s choice of this rhetorical mode is, I am happy to say, intelli­ gently suited to the basic conceptual framework of the collection: the attempt to create “legend” out of man’s struggle to survive in the great Southwest, that land of power and beauty and mystery. In such a place, man, too, can only reach significance if he is trans­ formed into the mythic and the legendary, by reason of his courage, his resourcefulness, and, most of all, his capacity to endure. And so, Wilson presents old cowboys, leather-workers, outlaws, his parents, and Spanish women on their way to church as figures of power and mystery. The limitations imposed by such materials and methods are evident in those poems where the attempt to transform the commonplace to legend fails (Climbing in the Organ Mountains), where the focus moves from the specific to the generalized (The New Mexican), and where the primary mode seems to be the lyrical (Vision). Overwhelmingly, however, the material and methods combine so well that if we read the poems out loud, imagining ourselves drawn close about a campfire high in the mountains, we will experience again the imaginative power of a story well-told. One final word: the volume itself is printed and arranged with the same quiet concern for craftsmanship as are the poems. ALAN STEINBERG, Idaho State University Riders to Cibola. By Norman Zollinger. (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mex­ ico Press, 1977. 258 pages, $10.95.) Set in southern New Mexico, Riders to Cibola follows three genera­ tions of the McAndrews family of the D Cross A ranch from the late ter­ ritorial days (1905), when ranching flourished as a way of life, to the present 78 Western American Literature decade, when most of the ranches seem to be disappearing rapidly. The novel’s protagonist — a Mexican vaquero and ranch foreman named Ignacio Ortiz — serves the McAndrews family for more than sixty years, never wavering in his early promise to the older Douglas McAndrews to “keep the fence tight.” For Ignacio, “keeping the fence tight” means riding herd on Jamie McAndrews, Douglas’ son, as well as serving the whole family in the roles of trusted employee and virtually adopted son-brother-uncle. The novel follows the changes in the New Mexico range country through statehood, the two world wars, and the Depression, and in the process it details the effects of mechanization on ranching — such as the replacing of horses with pickup trucks and the changing public ethos in regard to the land — with a realism seldom seen in contemporary fiction. Ignacio Ortiz is almost infallible: always dependable, always anxious to serve and to suffer, he is perhaps a little too good to be believed. Douglas McAndrews approximates god-head. He is reminiscent of Colonel James Brewton in the first section of Conrad Richter’s The Sea of Grass, but in contrast with Brewton, McAndrews is without the hint of a tragic flaw, and is therefore a characterization of limited dimension. Despite the overdrawn portraits and a number of scenes that border on the melodramatic or sentimental, Riders to Cibola is an engaging novel of power and eloquence and one that should invite comparison to The Sea of Grass and the modern-day Westerns of such authors as Clair Huffaker and Max Evans. This is good company to be in. GEARY HOBSON, University of New Mexico Captain Mayne Reid. By Joan Steele. (Boston: Twayne Publishers/G. K. Hall & Co., 1978. 149 pages, $8.95.) Given that the study of popular literature has been largely excluded from traditional literary histories, it follows that a good deal of literary history needs to be rewritten in order to present a more accurate and bal­ anced view of our literary past. The publication of Joan Steele’s Captain Mayne Reid is a step in that important direction, dealing...