Winter Count by Barry Lopez

 

What I remember most from the first visit, however, was neither the dryness nor the cactus but the wind. When I was a child in California the Santa Ana wind that came west to us from this side of the mountains seemed to me exotic but aloof. The wind I found in this upper Sonoran country with my father was very different. It was intoxicating. The wind had a quality of wild refinement about it, like horses turning around suddenly in the air by your ear. Whether it blew steadily or in bursts its strength seemed so evenly to diminish as you turned your face to it, it was as though someone had exhaled through silk. I have never since felt so enticed or comforted by the simple movement of air.

This slim volume of short stories [9 total] by the noted naturalist, Barry Lopez highlights his knowledge Plains Indians and the Land---very much the Land.

Those familiar with Lopez, either thru his work with National Geographic or his nonfiction works Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men can expect the writing quality to be high and the observations of natural phenomenon to be gimlet focused.

That is, indeed, what one finds here.

I will say each story, while interesting, is of the elliptical style, where often the point or even the finale of the story is a bit…lost in the horizon, very much like the horizon of the Land Mr. Lopez describes so well.

At a slim page count [my copy runs 112 pages] and written with clear intelligence, I am not sorry I spent time with it.

I will admit, I am philistine enough to long for tighter plotting once I finish such New Yorker fare no matter how Western or skillfully done.