An Old Tale in a New Time

The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey
Avon Books, New York, 1992
Original copyright 1956

I enjoyed reading The Brave Cowboy. It had all the elements of an old western - not that I've read many of them. But I definitely recognized the long-gone cowboy riding back into town with the women and children coming out on the porch to silently watch his entry. Only this time, the cowboy had to cross a four-lane highway to get back "home."

Jack Burns is back to rescue his old buddy, Paul Bondi. "Paul, I've gone to a lotta trouble on your account. I came here to rescue you and by God I'm gonna do it." "But I don't want to be rescuted." "I'm gonna rescue you whether you want it or not." (p. 100)

Great use of images throughout:

Birds:

• canary: "I don't like to sing when I'm in a cage; - who wants to be a...canary?" (112)
• mockingbird: "Mockingbird Pass in Burns' childhood (124) "when he rested he heard a mockingbirdcall, a descending glissando of sweet lilting semitones - faintly derisive." (230) reminds me of Harper Lee, but To Kill a Mockingbird was completed in 1957 and published in 1960, after The Brave Cowboy.
• owls
• jet planes (272)

Other images:

• ghosts,
• tumbleweeds spreading seeds,
• religious images (Trinity - atom bomb testing ground? 123, Threes - deer, owls, men hunting above)

Parallels - hunt of the deer, hunt of Burns

Contrasts between:

• Burns' love of the mountains and the words of the sheriff deputies and air force: malignant, sheet insolence (252) Radio operator: "godawful stinkin place." (243) Johnson was in the middle: "Johnson remained for several minutes on his knees before thespring and the blue-veined altar of rock behind it, listening, scarecely thinking, surrendering himself to the strange and archaic snesations; he remembered his childhood, fortey years gone, and a dim sweet exquisite sorrow passed like a cloud over his mind." (243) Johnson seems to represent one who once loved nature, but has become lost in the modern world of progress of the city.
• Air force men are wimps, childish; cowboy (who dodged the draft) is tough and smart
• Value of a helicopter over a man

Men who are animals:

• Sheriff Johnson's animal behavior - he's the only one with such explicit descriptions of bodily functions?
• Guttierez - the "Bear"

Journey from the confines of jail to the open rugged territory of the mountains and escape

Hope in Old Mexico, danger (and death) in New Mexico.