One hundred miles south of Albuquerque, two parallel chains of mountains isolate a 120-mile jumble of black rock, dry lake beds, flesh-colored sand, and desolation. This is the Jornada del Muerto, the Journey of the Dead.

So named because of a particular death centuries ago, this desert has witnessed many tales of loss and destruction. Alan Boye takes us on a trek through the beauty and violence of this forbidding land. Traveling the wasteland by foot, Boye visits battle sites from the Mexican-American War, to the Civil War, from the lonely canyon where the Apaches fought to keep their homeland, to the isolated site of the world’s first atomic explosion. In the sand and dust and the ruins of war, Boye discovers stories of sadistic killers, directionless rebels, and gun-toting gauchos—but also tales of poets and dreamers, of ordinary men and women who lived their lives and continue to live under this wide and ruthless desert sky. He introduces us to many travelers who have tested the desert: mysterious ancient people who built cliff-top fortresses, Spanish conquistadors, Mexican farmers, old time cowboys yodeling classical poetry to their cattle, and modern range managers tracking livestock by satellite. This is the story of an American desert told through the eyes of those who knew it best and brought to life through Boye’s own travels across the Journey of the Dead.

Alan Boye is a professor of English at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont. His many books include Holding Stone Hands: On the Trail of the Cheyenne Exodus (available in a Bison Books edition) and Just Walking the Hills of Vermont.

“Firsthand accounts are aptly balanced by personal histories and thorough research. . . . With wonderfully accessible and consistently engaging writing, Boye adds a long-overlooked and essential piece to the puzzle of American history.”—Booklist

"This unique book doubles as the first impressionistic 'naturalistic' overview, and, at least in part, the first history of the region. The Jornada del Muerto is an awesome piece of land that cries out for lyrical description and Boye's writing is well worthy of the region that it describes."—Ferenc Morton Szasz, author of Larger Than Life: New Mexico in the Twentieth Century

"This collection of oral histories and archival studies is a refreshing examination of the role that New Mexico has played, and continues to play, in the history of the United States as a multiethnic quest for happiness, opportunity, and at times, greed. The Jornada del Muerto as a place holds a unique image in the mythic vision of New Mexicans and Tales from the Journey of the Dead shows the complexities of the place."—Ricardo L. García, author of Brother Bill’s Bait Bites Back and Other Tales from the Raton