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Synopsis

Tularosa -- the place of reddish willows in Spanish -- holds the key to Kevin Kerney's past and his future. Ex-chief of detectives in the Santa Fe Police department, retired by a shot-up leg, Kerney is drawn back into action when Navajo Indian Terry Yazzi, his ex-partner and the man responsible for his injuries, asks him to locate his son, reported missing from the high-security White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico.

To find Sammy Yazzi, Kerney must track clues that lead deep into the histories of the region -- Native American, Hispanic, and Anglo -- and surprisingly, into his own family's ranching past.  And he must deal with the complicated feelings triggered by the army's investigator, Captain Sara Brannon, a fiery young officer as formidable as she is attractive. As Sammy Yazzi's trail spirals into a web of murder, treason, and the smuggling of priceless artifacts, Kerney and Sara travel an accelerating arc across the New Mexico scene -- from the boutique-ridden plaza of Santa Fe, through the sharp-edged beauty of the high desert, to bordertown gambling dens -- to a final confrontation in which, both wounded and at risk, they must fight for their lives and for each other against opponent who hold all the odds.

His gaze moved  down from the peaks to the sun-drenched desert, chalky gray in a great sweep of rolling space.  Up the tube of the Tularosa Valley, light danced on the fringe of the brilliant gypsum dunes at the White Sands National Monument.  To the north the San Andres Mountains showed a rugged, tortured countenance to the valley floor, hiding the sinuous curves of narrow canyons that cut deep into the mountain range."

"Tularosa" (1996)

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Locale

Tularosa

Although Tularosa derives its name from the Spanish word tule meaning reeds or cattails, City of Roses is much more appealing and conjures up the picturesque town that Tularosa is.

Original settlers in the 1860s came from washed-out villages on the Rio Grande near Mesilla. Due to frequent raids by the Apaches from what is now the Mescalero/Apache Reservation, occupation was untenable and the site was abandoned.

Another attempt at settlement occurred in 1862, and with Fort Stanton in the mountains to the east for protection, it was successful. Orchards were planted and homes were built. Forty-nine blocks of the new village were plotted with allocated irrigation rights. (In 1979 this area became a registered Historic District, according to New Mexico, A Guide to the Colorful State.)

The acequias (irrigation ditches) carried the clear mountain water that nourished the fruit trees. This period of the town's history was idyllic and categorized as the Golden Age. Some of the original block-long adobe homes still exist, their walls decorated with lovely murals.

All was not peaceful, however, and in 1868 the settlers and Apaches battled at Round Mountain. This event was commemorated with the building of the first church, St. Francis de Paula.

Tularosa, at 4,500 feet elevation with a population of 2,615, has seen the arrival of Texas cattlemen, merchants, former Union soldiers, professionals and promoters. It was a mix of Spanish-speaking ranchers and Anglos, divided into Texans and Yankees, but Tularosa has managed to weather them all.

A Rose Festival is held annually, usually the first weekend in May. There is an old-timer's picnic, a Rose Queen, arts and crafts - all celebrating the abundance of blossoming flowers. Other celebrations are the Fiesta of St. Francis de Paula and the invitation from their former enemies, the Apaches, to come to the Mescalero Reservation to observe the 4th of July. Luminarias line the church plaza and the highway on Christmas Eve, giving a soft glow of welcome to those driving through on U. S. Highways 70 and 54.

Text from  New Mexico Wanderings

White Sands

Ten thousand years ago in the Pleistocene, native hunters walked the shores of Lake Otero spearing bison and other large mammals with finely fluted "Folsom" points. By 7,000 years ago, the climate had become much drier, the large mammals (megafauna) had disappeared and the grasslands had given way to desert.

The Tularosa Basin, Geologic History

250 million years ago, what is now the Tularosa Basin was covered by a shallow sea that covered most of eastern New Mexico. Marine deposits and sediment filled the bottom of this shallow sea. These sediments would eventually form the gypsum-bearing sedimentary deposit that gave birth to White Sands. 70 million years ago, as the Rocky Mountains were being formed, this area was uplifted out of the ancient sea and formed a dome. Beginning 10 million years ago, the center of the dome began to collapse, forming the Tularosa Basin. The remaining sides of the dome are what we now see as the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges forming the perimeter of the Tularosa Basin.

Gypsum enters the picture

Gypsum, or CaSO4*2H2O, normally is not found in the form of sand. Gypsum is soluble in water, thus it is normally desolved by rain and snow and flushed out to sea.

Gypsum in the sedimentary rock layers in the mountains surrounding the Tularosa Basin was dissolved by rain and snow and carried into the basin. The Tularosa has no natural drainage. Water that enters the basin either sinks into the ground or pools in low points within the basin. Lake Lucero is just such a low spot.

Lake Lucero

Gypsum-rich waters have collected in Lake Lucero for the past 10 million years. As the waters have collected and evaporated, gypsum got deposited on the surface of Lake Lucero in crystalline form, called selenite. In geologic history, there have been cycles that were very wet, followed by times of evaporation. This allowed the formation of very long crystals of selenite, some up to three feet long. These crystals eventually get broken down by wind, freezing and thawing and eventually form sand-size particles that are carried by the prevailing winds forming the dunes that we know as White Sands.

The villages that were established at the mouths of canyons on the eastern edge of the Tularosa Basin by 500 AD are referred to as the Jornada Branch of the Mogollon culture. By a thousand years ago, large pueblos were being built above ground surrounded by large fields. Many people lived in two very large villages beside Lake Lucero. By 1350, all of the major Mogollon villages of the Tularosa Basin were mysteriously abandoned ,as occurred throughout the Southwest. About 1500, the Apaches, along with their cousins the Navajo, migrated south from western Canada, Those Apaches who settled in the southwestern deserts became known as the Mescalero Apaches.

There is little evidence that the Mescaleros lived in the White Sands proper, they occupied all of the mountains surrounding the Tularosa Basin. During the late 1700s, Spaniards waged an unsuccessful campaign against the Mescalero, who continued their life style and lived in uneasy peace among newcomers to the area. In 1862, they were rounded up and placed on a reservation at Bosque Redondo by U.S. Army General James Carleton. During a famine in 1865, the Mescalero bolted from the reservation and remained at large until they agreed to live on the Mescalero Reservation in the Sierra Blanca between Cloudcroft and Ruidoso in 1873.

White Sands National Monument is located in the northern Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico. It lies in the Tularosa Basin, between the San Andres Mountains to the west and the Sacramento Mountains to the east.

The Monument is situated between Holloman Air Force Base directly to the east and San Andres Wildlife Refuge immediately to the west. It is surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range, which encompasses a vast area that includes Trinity, the site of the first atomic bomb detonation, 50 miles north of the Monument.

The forbidding alkali desert of the Tularosa Basin was one of the last areas of New Mexico to be settled by Americans. Hispanics seldom entered the Tularosa Basin except to harvest salt; they tended to remain in the Rio Grande Valley. In the 1860s, ranching began at the base of the Sacramento Mountains and the town of Tularosa was established. With construction of the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad in 1898, the town of Alamogordo was established.

Reviews:

(Nominated for an Anthony Award)

Midwest Book Review
An ex-chief of detectives in Santa Fe retires early after being shot; now he's being drawn back into police work by his former partner, who asks him to locate his son. Native American history and culture permeate a mystery which will especially appeal to Hillerman fans and those with a growing affinity for novels which blend intrigue with Native cultural insights.

From Booklist , March 15, 1996
Kevin Kerney is a bitter former Sante Fe detective forced into premature retirement after a botched stakeout left him with a permanently gimpy knee. When his ex-partner, Terry Yazzi, who botched the stakeout, asks Kerney to help find his son, Sammy, who is AWOL from the air force, Kerney reluctantly agrees. After discovering Sammy's body in the hills near the base where Kerney grew up, the detective finds himself deep in a murder investigation. There's no apparent motive for Sammy's death. Was he onto a clandestine military operation? Was he involved in a romantic triangle turned violent? Was it something from his recent, nonmilitary past? To answer those questions, Kerney forms an uneasy alliance with a military investigator, who happens to be a woman with whom he shares a mutual attraction. This accomplished first novel is well plotted with solid dialogue and complex, believable relationships among the flesh-and-blood characters. Expect to hear more from McGarrity and Kerney. Wes Lukowsky Copyright© 1996, American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews , February 15, 1996
Like so many other contemporary heroes, Kevin Kerney is just looking to be left alone. But he's goaded back into investigating the disappearance of his godson Sammy Yazzi by Sammy's distraught father, the former partner who ended Kerney's career with the Santa Fe Police Department when his drinking got Kerney shot into early medical retirement. Sammy's been AWOL from the White Sands Missile Range for six weeks, and the Army investigation, headed by Captain Sara Brannon, is spinning its wheels. So Kerney signs on, and even in the 24 hours he's allowed on the base, he turns up some new leads. A buddy of Sammy's digs up a sheaf of drawings that Sammy could have made only in the off-limits Indian Wells area; Sammy's art teacher reports that some photos he recently left with her have been stolen; and, inevitably, when Kerney and Brannon ride out together in search of new evidence, they find exactly what they'd most hoped to avoid. But Sammy's body is the beginning of a hot trail to a fabulous cache of antique weapons, gold coins, and rare correspondence that's attracted a lively and professional traffic across the border--a traffic that cost Sammy his life, and could be expensive for Kerney and Brannon too. A lean, stylish debut, with a hero who's equally at home sniffing out evidence and duking it out with the heavies. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

   El Camino Real - Photographs and some history

   Great Outdoor Recreation Pages

  The Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

   The Mexican Wolf

   White Sands National Monument

   The American Southwest - White Sands - photos and potted history

   Desert USA - White Sands National Monument

   White Sands Missile Range

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