The short chapters in this historical collection cover times dating back to the Pueblo Revolt all the way up to the early days of space program research. Each character is thoroughly researched and portrayed with color and flair. I can’t possibly summarize all of the stories, but there were several that particularly struck me. Two had to do with a flood of the Dry Cimarron River, so called because it seldom flowed fully.
In the early 20th century, a tremendous monsoon filled the river to overflowing. One of the heroes in this book was a telephone operator named Sally Rook. By staying on the job despite the raging flood, she saved the lives of almost everyone in town as she called them while the storm and the waters closed in. Her courage truly moved me.
The aftermath of that flood allowed a cowboy named George McJunkin to discover what became known as the Folsom Site, with the famous Folsom points. It changed the understanding of prehistory in North America. McJunkin had been enslaved in Texas until age fourteen. After the Civil War, the free young man moved to New Mexico, became a cowboy, and worked in exchange for reading lessons as well as money. He became a self-educated naturalist. He was riding fence when he found what he was sure were not modern buffalo bones exposed by the recent flood. And he noticed indications of human activity in the area. He tried to get scientists to study what he had found, but they ignored his letters and even the bones he sent. After all, he was just a cowboy. Many years after he died, the site was finally investigated.
The heroes range from people who made great discoveries to people who risked their lives or lost their lives to save others. Chester Nez, author of the outstanding autobiography, Code Talker, is one of those portrayed. I highly recommend his entire book, as well as the chapter about him in this book, I took my time reading it, getting absorbed in each vignette. The writing is a little over the top, but it definitely keeps you engaged. And I haven’t even mentioned the villains!
Amber Foxx Mysteries 