Faraway Blue

Max Evans

10/2005 · UNM Press

Táto e‑kniha

"Evans paints marvelous word pictures of a land and people he knows extremely well."--Booklist

"As always with Evans, written with a good sense of the times and place."--Kirkus

First published in 1999, Faraway Blue is based on the real-life exploits of Sergeant Moses Williams, former slave, Civil War veteran, and Buffalo Soldier in the Ninth Cavalry Regiment. Included in Moses's story are four women and two men representing the ethnic groups and economic levels found in the late 1800s American Southwest.

At the story's opening, Williams's cavalry unit has one assignment: kill Apaches in the "faraway blue" mountains of southwestern New Mexico Territory, also known as the Black Range. As a fighter in the white man's campaign to obliterate the Indians and take over their lands, Williams finds a nemesis in Nana, an old Warm Springs Apache warrior who is a tactical genius. Nana leads his small band of followers to repeatedly strike area mining camps and settlements. Both men know they must meet before the end of the war and a maddening cat-and-mouse pursuit ensues.

Williams is sustained by his love for Sheela Jones, a mulatto whom he wants to marry when the army will allow it. But Sheela's love for Moses guides her to take an immense risk just as Moses and Nana ride out to settle their score.

O autorovi

Max Evans was born on August 29, 1925 in Ropes, Texas. He was a writer and director. In addition to writing, his career included soldier in Europe in World War II, a cowboy, a miner, an artist, and a smuggler. His writing focused on "post-war transition of the American West." His best-known novel was The Rounders, published in 1960. In 1965 it was made into a movie. The Hi Lo Country was published in 1962 and was made into a movie in 1998. His other books included Ol' Max Evans--The First Thousand Years, written with Slim Randles (an autobiography); Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan (nonfiction); and Bluefeather Fellini, a collection of animal stories. His last novel was The King of Taos, published in June 2020. He published over 25 books and won multiple Spur, Wrangler, and Owen Wister awards. Max Evans died at the age of 95, on August 26, 2020.