The Big Sky

READING The Big Sky is like coming from a sleet-swept New York street into the limitless, sun-baked expanses of Carl Akeley’s African Hall. In this novel, which may surely be termed superb, the Far West of a century and more ago is spread out from the wild Missouri to the towering bastions of the Rockies. Across this panorama move the characters of the book, as authentic as is that country which Guthrie has called back into being across the years. They are the “mountain men,”lineal descendants of the “long-hunters,” who preceded them in time and space, men who roamed the plains, camped among the fortlike buttes, and sealed the ramparts of the Tetons, alone or in twos and threes. To them, the endless spaces where the sky curved down to meet the mountains were a private hunting ground which they loved with a savage, inarticulate passion and which ruled them with a capricious harshness.

The story of mountain man Boone Caudill moves with stark simplicity, as inevitable as the flow of the Western rivers. A runaway boy from Kentucky, he makes the West his own as completely as it sets its stamp on him. He traps beaver, fights Indians and other trappers, starves, gorges, sweats, freezes, gets drunk and tumbles about with the complaisant squaws of a dozen tribes. The fictional tragedy in which Boone kills his most, steadfast friend, dim Deakins, on the false suspicion that the latter has seduced Boone’s Indian wife, Teal-eye, is matched by actual tragedy which runs as an undertone through the whole book. For as surely as Boone killed Deakins, so did the actual mountain men kill the paradise that held them. The fruits of their traps brought other trappers, brought traders into the west country; their skill and cunning guided parties of immigrants over the plains and through the passes. They themselves paved the way for trading posts that grew to towns, towns that grew to cities. Civilization was the grave of the mountain man.

Save by casual mention, no historical figures of any stature appear in this story. But the fictional people live as vividly as any true character ever did. Heal as Jim Bridger are Summers, Deakins, Teal-eye, Poordevil, Red Horn, Jourdonnais, and the Bostonian Peabody. Dotlike in the vastness, they move down the Big Horn, along the Sweetwater, the Yellowstone, and the rolling forks of the Seeds-kee-dee, brought into perfect harmony with river, butte, plain, and mountain by Guthrie’s touch.

The story is told in prose that is worthy of the book. There are passages of sheer poetry that suggest Carl Sandburg while remaining entirely Guthrie, passages that, one is tempted to quote at length for the sheer joy of transcribing them.

This book, which succeeds so beautifully in evoking a time, a land, and a people, ought to have a long, long life.

BRUCE LANCASTER