What is a book about lost mines without maps? The maps in the book were neat. Maybe the gold is still there?

I wrote the original book in 1963 (as Lost Desert Bonanzas) to mark 25 years of Desert Magazine lost mine stories. The main appeal was Norton Allen's great cartography (this is the only kind of map book that gets better as the maps are outdated by freeways and etc.). I would like input from treasure-seekers, but all I know about the particular lost mines is recounted in the book.

This book is a great read for anyone interested in the life and times of one of the more colorful characters in the western expansion era. I enjoyed and learned of Luke Short and how his life interacted and effected some of the other well known characters of the time. I wish this author knew others of the same era as well, that he might write of them as well. Hated to see this book come to an end.

I loved this book! The author totally draws you in and fills this book with such anecdotes, facts, speculations, and often subtle humor that you cannot put it down. I was eager to read this book and learn more about a less-known famous figure from the Old West, and have also read Short's other books. I heartily reccomend all of them to anyone who enjoys humorous non-fiction as well as nondisputable facts. Short has the cunning wit of an intellectual and the story telling gift of a grandfather.

My brother-in-law handed me this book one day and said it was worth reading. I had no idea who Colin Fletcher was or what the book was about. I learned a lot about Colin Fletcher, the guru of walking, but even more about a remarkable man who's life would have passed unnoticed had Mr. Fletcher not stumbled on a very remote cave south of Las Vegas Nevada in the late 1960s. This man had come to live in the cave for part of a year and Mr. Fletcher decided to find out who and why a person would choose to live there. Through tough detective work the author develops some leads about when the habitation of the cave occurred and what sort of person lived there. The man in question turns out to be a very colorful prospector and through amazing luck and perseverance Fletcher uncovers his life story. He finds this man to be much like himself. Mr. Fletcher portrays him as both saint and sinner at times, but always makes him human. Quite a good read.

In my opinion, this is one of the more fascinating of Colin Fletcher's very enjoyable writings. While pursuing an on-going project of walking the length of the Colorado River, Fletcher discovered a lonely cave in Nevada with evidence that a remarkable individual had called it home sometime in the early part of the century. Fletcher wondered who this could have been, and what had led him to this very out-of-the-way location (as Colin Fletcher himself had been led there). Years of research and discovery, aided by a not inconsequential amount of dumb luck, led Fletcher to the most probable identity of the cave dweller, and he also learned much about American history along the way. This book is a real-life mystery; it is a biography of "Chuckawalla Bill" Simmons and of Colin Fletcher himself; and like all of Colin Fletcher's books, it is also a work of philosopy. Not surprisingly, the "Man From the Cave" proves to be a man very much like Colin Fletcher himself.

Some of us go to the bookstore and seek out the history section and browse the displayed titles. History entice us, it shows our past and tells about the mistakes repeated time and again. Maybe, for some of us it is able to tell a warning or two.

History seems to me a most dangerous field to write in. Especially when in the case of this material, the concrete facts are so small and insignificant and what may or may not be the real answers to a lot of questions are buried by time and dust. One will perhaps never know what Mangas Coloradas did in his first life-years, historian Sweeney means he has found a good answer and presents it to the reader but he doesn't claim it to be the sole answer, he says it's possible. This is the respect every historian should have to his/her audience.

Of course, it's not only Mangas' first years that are lost in obscurity. Official mexican and spanish papers tell only half the story of his people, but Sweeney is extraordinary in his ability to sow a thorough and well founded history of this remarkable and gargantuan statesman. It also seems from the book's voluminous notes that Sweeney has been everywhere to find the tinyest bits of information.

All this makes noone wonder he has written his finest piece yet on the Apachean-Mexican/American relations.

Before Geronimo, before Cochise, there was Mangas. Mangas Coloradas "red sleeves" is a facinating read. Having grown up in Apacheria I knew of Mangas. In fact I lived, and have relatives, at Apache Tejo, where he met his demise. If you want to truly understand what led up to the American/Indian wars of the late 1800's, and why they occurred, then this is a must read. It is written exquisitely. My only regret is that there weren't more maps to help show where the various battle sites were. A 5-star rating for a wonderful book. This one I'm keeping.

This is a compelling story. Judge H. C. McComas and his wife, Juniata, were brutally murdered by a band of Chiricachua Apaches while traveling on the road from Silver City to Lordsburg, New Mexico, on March 28, 1883. Their six-year-old son Charley, traveling with them, was carried away by the Indians and never found, despite long and determined efforts to learn of his whereabouts. For many years, the McComas story remained an obscure footnote to the long history of the Apache Wars in the Southwest. Simmons has rescued it from its obscurity in this fine book.
The detail that Simmons brings to the McComas story is remarkable, considering the difficulties he must have encountered in his research. He has, I think, considered the story from every possible angle, speculating where the facts are not definitely known (many are not), but laying his speculations on a firm foundation of facts. The story is, of course, incredibly sad, and the Chiricahuas do not come off at all well in the telling. But the book is far from an anti-Indian screed. Simmons is sensitive to the Indians' cultural milieu and lifestyle, even if they are not in all respects admirable. The book ends with a description of the 1994 funeral of the celebrated Apache sculptor Allan Houser. Houser's Chricahua father, Sam Haozous, was ten-years-old and an apprentice warrior when he rode with the Indians who attacked the McComas family in 1883. For many years, he and his son carefully guarded the dark secret of his youthful involvement in the atrocity. But Allan Houser related his father's recollections of the incident to Simmons not long before his death. Simmons came to Houser's funeral with an appreciation of the sculptor's artistic accomplishments and a sensitivity to the Chiricahua legacy that he represented.

Highly recommended!

Marc Simmon's Massacre on the Lordsburg Road, A Tragedy of the Apache Wars, Texas A&M University Press, 1997, xviii + 250 pgs. is a splendid book. It takes a great writer to make so much of so little, by which we mean no sarcasm but rather mean so little in the way of records and facts. Apaches attack a little family traveling on the Lordsburg (New Mexico) Road. The adults are slaughtered. The child? There has always been a lot of "surmisin' " about little Charley McComas, and there still must be, but Simmons has taken what facts there are, what contemporaneous stories there are, and a good deal of heretofore unpublished background material on the McComas family and their associates, and put together not only an excellent history, but also a book that at times holds the reader with the same fascination as a good "mystery" might. That's probably not odd. Charley's story is a mystery. This book not only tells the McComas story, as completely as it ever will be told barring new documentary discovery (and if Simmons missed something it really must be hidden), but gives the reader a "feel" for how it was to live in those times (circa 1883), particularly in western New Mexico and Arizona, but by extension in other places in the southwest including northern Mexico.

Merejildo Grijalva was an Indian Scout who was captured by the Chiricahua Apaches in 1849 and lived more than a decade among the people under such renowned Native American leaders as Miguel Narbona, Mangas Coloradas, and Cochise. Indeed, it was Cochise who used Grijalva as his interpreter in the late 1850s. In 1859, Apache agent Michael Steck encouraged Grijalva to escape the Apaches and two years later aided the American army working in the New Mexico Territory and out of Fort Bowie, Arizona. Edwin Sweeney's Merejildo Grijalva: Apache Captive, Army Scout is number 96 in the University of Texas at El Paso Southwestern Studies series and a work of impeccable scholarship that will be much appreciated by students of Native American studies and western frontier history.

I think this is just a wonderful book, not only because we have the same last name,but the name of Grijalva goes back into history, like Juan de Grijalva 1518 explorer, Juan Pablo Grijalva, with the 1775/76 Anza Expedtion. You have to read this book yourself to understand what Edwin R. Sweeney wrote in this book.

Rebecca Cramer, Johnson County College anthropologist, has penned her first novel, a mystery set in the modern world of the Native Americans on a reservation west of Tucson. Often called the Papagos,their name for themselves is the Tohono O'odham, and Cramer has researched them very thoroughly, even learning a bit of their language. An Anglo family dynasty has developed , centered around purchasing large tracts of land just outside the Tohono O'odham land and converting it into expensive homes, walling off access to the rugged terrain, archaeological sites,and magnificent views to all but the wealthy. Benton Brody, in the top echelon of that family, is murdered in the very reion he exploited. His body is found very quickly, much more quickly than the murderer intended. Teenager Matt Bluenight loves that country, and it is his observation of the circling buzzards which leads to the discovery. Linda, Matt's single-parent mom, teaches at the reservation school,but she left a forensic position to do so. She is called in for initial help, and of course is involved as Matt's mother as well. Linda, like the author who creates her, is of Cherokee ancestry. Ramon Morena,a Tohono O'odham youth of good repute, is charged with the murder when a tip leads the police to find Benton's credit cards in his room. Linda doesn't believe Ramon could have done it, and her feelings intensify when Ramon is found dead in his cell. The police are willing to call it a suicide, just what the killer planned.

"The desert provides shelter for predators. The cactus wren builds its nest amid boughs of thorns to protect its young from pack rats and king snakes. The poisonous centipede wraps its soft tentacles around an unfortunate insect and fondles its victim in lethal foreplay. Even the ubiquitous roadrunner, famous of stage and screen, earns its supper by plundering the burrows of sand squirrels and by using its sharp beak to slash the throats of baby cottontails." Thus begins a novel of murder and intrigue that engages the tensions between differing cultural backgrounds and between those who would conserve the desert and those who would destroy it. Of Cherokee ancestry, Cramer's character, Linda Bluenight, quit her job as a forensic anthropologist in Kansas City and moved with her son, Matty, to teach Tohono O'odham ("Papago") children on the reservation west of Tucson, Arizona. Cramer introduces many interesting characters who represent different and sometimes conflicting cultural perspectives. In the tradition of Tony Hillerman, she intersperses snippets of knowledge about local Native American cultures in a manner that neither detracts from the plot nor impedes enjoyment of her novel. She also weaves some of the region's pressing environmental issues into the plot. I highly recommend Mission to Sonora to anyone who enjoys a murder mystery. I also recommend it as a supplement to anthropology classroom readings for its insights into important cross-cultural issues in the Southwest.

D.H. Lawrence writes like a painter would write were he to. What is most real in the writings of Lawrence is the physical world, and of course the body. Mornings in Mexico is really a slight work but with a charm to it. There is a relating of facts (especially about Indian life and thought) that you would expect from a travel piece but the charm is in the kind of easy sauntering pace that the narrative keeps. That feeling that it is vacation time and there really is no hurry. The house he lives in for his stay in Mexico and the surrounding markets and open fields in which he walks and the balcony he stands on in the morning with parrot are all pleasantly described. It feels like a place you want to be. The way time away should feel. There is a slight mournful air to the fact that the Americans are beginning to spoil the place, it is as if the Americans have brought that intruder time itself into this timeless land. It's not so much the details you will remember as the overall feel of the work. And Lawrence himself. And here he seems at ease, searching as always but not desperately so, which is a nice Lawrence to spend time with.

Lawrence was a good traveller in these parts and he spent a lot of time carefully observing the Indians he met along the way. He was particularly interested in the ways of thought of the Indians and their religious beliefs and the ways their ideas differed from yours and mine. On simple concepts like time and distance, for example: "To an Indian, time is a vague, foggy reality. There are only three times: en la manana (morning); en la tarde (afternoon); en la noche (night). But to the white monkey (you and me) there are exact spots of time, such as five o'clock and half past three." The Indian's concept of God was different from ours. "With the Indians...there is strictly no god. The Indian does not consider himself as created and therefore external to God, or the creature of God. There is, in our sense of the word, no God. But all is godly. There is no great mind directing the universe. Yet the mystery of creation, the wonder and fascination of creation shimmers in every leaf and stone... There is no God looking on. The only God there is is involved all the time in the dramatic wonder and inconsistency of creation. God is immersed, as it were, in creation, not to be separated or distinguished. There can be no ideal God." Lawrence does a wonderful job of digging into this exotic culture and explaining to us the significance of Indian rituals and dances. I particularly liked one of his statements: "The Indian is completely immersed in the wonder of his own drama." There is also a lovely example of descriptive travel writing in "Market Day", a chapter that makes you slow down your reading pace to savor the beautiful descriptions of small things like a bird's flight or flowers in a doorway. I guess this is the difference between reading and information-processing, which we do so much of today.

I always knew this area of the Southwest was beautiful, based on my limited firsthand experience. Reading this guidebook makes me want to go back and explore more of the places I missed. Mr. White's use of the language evokes not only the beauty of the area but offers fascinating bits of information about the geology and origins of the places described. Guidebooks are used to guide, obviously, but this one, thanks to Mr. White, also illuminates and entertains. Mr. Huey's photography is first-rate. Highly recommended.

This is one of a series of books provided by National Geographic featuring the famous and lesser-known, less traveled parks in the United States. The series is divided into regions and provides invaluable information about accommodations, trails, activities, optimal times of travel, etc. Don't plan a trip without perusing these books!

This directory has everything you need to find the Indian artist you're looking for. It's extremely useful, lising artists in alphabetical order in the index and grouped together by tribal affiliation in the book chapters. If you're thinking about buying Indian art of any kind you NEED this book. Whether it's Indian jewelry, pottery, paintings, baskets, rugs, kachinas, fetishes,masks or any number of hand-made Native American items you're looking for - someone who makes them is in this book. It is the only directory I've found anywhere that lists this many artists and provides mailing addresses, phone numbers and even e-mail and web sites for some. It is current - the numbers I called were correct and up-to-date!

There is also some information about various tribal groups and a few helpful hints about buying Native art.

And the price makes it a real bargain. This book should more than pay for itself with your first purchase.

The Native American Indian Artist Directory is simply terrific. I have used it to find several artists and what a wonderful experience. To be able to speak with the artist directly and arrange to meet with them personally has provided experiences that will be remembered for a lifetime.

The book itself has chapters on various pueblo and tribal groups with a brief overview of each group. Several artists are mentioned in this section along with general directions to get to the area. Sometimes special events are mentioned and ideas about visiting are offered.

The idea of being able to contact a Native artist directly, without having to go through a gallery or trading post, offers you a chance to get to know the artist on a personal level. When you buy your art or craftwork you can ask specific questions about the meaning of certain symbols or of the work itself. The artist can also tell you about his technique, his motivation, his interests, etc. As the book says, you have a chance to make a friend for a lifetime. And, if you're lucky, you may arrive at just the right time to have some excellent frybread, horno bread, or other wonderful native food. Overall, a great opportunity!

The book is well indexed, with all artists listed alphabetically in the back, by name and tribal affiliation. It was very current, but I understand that you may find some artists have moved, changed phone numbers or added e-mail or web sites that may not be in the book.