Black Mesa

by Zane Grey

First published 1955

Amazon

3.7(435)

In northeastern Arizona during the 1880s, cattle theft, illegal liquor and private grudges unsettle the country around the Navajo reservation. Ranchers and traders operate at the edge of formal authority, where a stolen herd or a whispered accusation can quickly become a matter of survival.

The story uses the Black Mesa country as more than a backdrop, contrasting the isolation and beauty of the high desert with the violence created by rustling, bootlegging and competing claims to land and loyalty. Personal relationships are tested by a frontier economy in which law is distant and reputation carries unusual weight.