A few weeks later, they flew to Bismarck
and drove south through frozen farmland that looked to Hallie like sheets of rusted,
buckled iron. As they entered the reservation, the road changed from paved to dirt
and passed under a crude, lodge-pole pine archway to which someone had nailed a
hand-painted sign:
WELCOME
TO CHEYENNE RIVER
Poorest
reservation in the US
Highest
suacide rate
Enjoy
your stay
What Hallie first took to be derelict
shacks with cracked windows and unhinged doors were occupied houses, surrounded
by piles of trash and dog shit. Despite the January cold, an inordinate number
of children and teenagers were outside fighting, some for fun and more in
earnest. Many adults seemed unable to walk normally.
This novella is not actually a Western; it is an
action-adventure fiction piece from real-life deep-cave explorer James. M
Tabor.
The crux of the story is standard adventure fare, the
sort you might find in a James Rollins or Matthew Reilly work but…I include it
here as a “B” plot has our heroine visit a Reservation.
The writing here acquires a vividness and immediacy
that seems to be lacking in the more formulaic main body of the story.
The Reservation visit is limned so punishingly well,
this Reader, wanted more of this and less of the Plot.
Tabor clearly has descriptive power and his vision is
informed by experience.
I would love to see what he did if not hampered by the
confines of the whiz-bang thriller genre.
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