Far as the Eye Can See

August 18, 2014
As expansive as the country it traverses, Bausch’s majestic odyssey through the Old West finds rich nuance in a history often oversimplified. After the Civil War, hardscrabble veteran Bobby Hale heads toward California only to find that rampant violence plagues both his dreams and the vast landscape unrolling before him. Learning that trouble is everywhere, he leads a wagon train along the Oregon Trail, spends five seasons as a trapper, then reluctantly puts his knowledge of the land to use scouting for U.S. forces intent on rounding up native tribes. On one mission, he attacks a native peace party under the mistaken belief that they are warriors, violating the codes of whites and natives alike. As he tries to reach his home base near Bozeman, Mont., without incurring retaliation from either side, his encounters with a mixed-race woman, a young Indian boy, and the battling forces at Little Big Horn transform him. The novel’s patient, searching first-person narration is finely balanced, with a voice at once straightforward and lyrical, grand and particular. Bausch’s (Almighty Me!) characters defy facile judgments; each is sharply distinctive, yet all struggle to find a footing amid the clash of human difference that is, in Bobby Hale’s words, the “most spacious war of all.”