The Grey Pilgrim by J. M. Hayes (review)

Reviews 267 The Grey Pilgrim. ByJ.M. Hayes. (New York: Walker and Company, 1990. 220 pages, $19.95.) Inspired by the bare-bone facts of a little-known Indian uprising in 1940, J.M. Hayes’first novel,The GreyPilgrim, pits Deputy U.S. MarshallJ.D. Fitzpatrick against a band of Arizona’s Papago Indians led byJapanese Army officer Kozo Sasaki. Given that war withJapan seemed inevitable, the U.S. government decides to register young Native American males for the military draft. When the Bureau of Indian Affairs tries to set this process in motion, angry Papago elder Jujul chases them from his village. Anticipating trouble from the white man’s world of Tucson, Jujul and his people take to the desert. Embittered Spanish Civil War veteran, borderline alcoholic, and hopeless romantic, Marshall Fitzpatrick seeks a peaceful end toJujul’s resistance. With Captain Kozo Sasaki, Hayes has created a fine fictional villain in the pulp literature tradition. It is Sasaki, traveling the United States disguised as a Native American himself, who gives much-needed life to Hayes’ largely other­ wise stiffly-told tale. From reading local history, Hayes learned that 1940 Tucson was concerned about the possibilities of aJapanese attack on southern Arizona via the Gulfof California and northern Mexico. Captain Sasaki embodies those fears. In real-life Tucson, U.S. Marshall Ben J. McKinney did, in fact, resolve things on a non-violent note with rebel Papago leader Pia Machita. In an afterword toThe GreyPilgrim, Hayes discusses the historical basis for his novel. Unfortunately forThe Grey Pilgrim, Marshall Fitzpatrick and the other two major characters, Jujul and Mary Spencer, a beautiful anthropologist, all lack Sasaki’s fire. Even allowing for their extensive personal histories and pertinent psychological problems, the three characters fail to involve the reader. The Grey Pilgrim was not an easy tale to tell. An uncertain mixture of fiction and fact, it lacks the veracity of history and, at the same time, the inventiveness of good storytelling. As it is, J.M. Hayes’ The Grey Pilgrim is worth reading for Captain Kozo Sasaki and its attempt at an offbeat plot. JAMES B. HEMESATH Adams State College Heart-Diamond. By Kathy L. Greenwood. (Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 1990. 175 pages, $19.95.) Memorable writing opens up a new world as we would open the petals of a flower, luring readers in, making them one with place and time. In her books Going Over East and Windbreak, Linda Hasselstrom gave a lyrical yet realistic portrait of the lives and problems of contemporary ranchers; Mary Austin ...