The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 27 March 2000
by Douglas Preston
In 1540, Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, following the trail laid by legends told by Spanish wanderer Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, began an exploration and conquest of the region that would one day become the American Southwestern states of Arizona and New Mexico. This expedition became the first significant encounter between Native American culture and the Western culture that would eventually eradicate it. Almost 450 years later, the author and his friend Walter Nelson, set out on a foolish and daring horseback ride in pursuit of Coronado's trail. Cabeza de Vaca had convinced Coronado and others that in the heart of the American continent lay the mythical seven Christian cities of gold. Blinded by greed and conquest, Coronado assembled a massive expedition that would change forever the history of the New World and the cultures that called it home. Douglas Preston set out in the late 20th century to see what remained of Coronado's trail, and to see what had become of the wild west of mythology. The horseback ride proves to be a grand test of endurance, crossing a thousand miles of harsh desert. The cultural journey proves enlightening and alternately depressing and uplifting. Preston encounters bitter ranchers, complaining of their dwindling grazing rights. He rides through desolate and environmentally wasted mining towns. He comes across new developments and landowners for whom a wandering pair of cowboys is an alien threat. And he encounters several of the Indian tribes who were irrevocably altered by their conflict with the invading Spanish and Americans. The book is a powerful document of the West today, and tells much of the West on the day of Coronado's arrival. The stories of the Apache, Navajo, Zuni and Pecos Indians are dark, detailed, and inevitably sad. But this book is not a round condemnation of Western culture, despite that culture's incompetent brutality to these peoples. Preston is looking for something else, something connected to the inexorable motion of History. The book is excellently detailed, personal and even-handed. It will leave the reader asking questions. Most of them unanswerable.