The editors enrich each part of the collection and each group of documents with extensive citation, analysis, and brief narratives of related events. They make every effort to present exhaustive and balanced questions and answers pertaining to every group in the collection. While many if not most of the documents (or parts of them) have appeared or are readily available elsewhere, any student of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, at whatever level and for whatever reason, must now regard this collection as absolutely indispensable. By itself, the recasting of the Lee trial materials makes the case for such a strong appraisal. This is a monumental and prodigious achievement toward advancing the ideal of transparency and full disclosure on the most horrific crime in Utah history, which is still “reverberating to this day” (6). — Gene A. Sessions Weber State University
Cowboying in Canyon Country: The Life and Rhymes of Fin Bayles, Cowboy Poet
Although Bayles’s recollections of his years in the canyons are extremely entertaining, a reality of hard work and danger also emanates from them. He recalls, for instance, the story of a horse and cowboy falling from a tall embankment and rolling over several times before hitting the bottom. Despite the serious injuries received by the rider, there was no modern rescue team complete with helicopter and EMTs. Bayles, although just a boy, put the man on a horse and escorted him many miles over rough country, finally reaching a spot where a Dodge Power Wagon could crawl up a dirt road and meet them. Cowboying in Canyon Country may center on the collections of Fin Bayles, but it is enhanced by the skills of a master writer in organizing the story flow. McPherson begins each chapter with a narrative history of life in rural Utah during the Great Depression and a world at war. This sets the stage for Bayles to pick up the story and gallop away with it. Cowboying is not your typical collection of wearisome cowboy poetry but rather the entertaining and informative story of a man and his family trying to scratch out a living with horses and cattle in the canyon country of southeastern Utah.
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Through the words of Fin Bayles, a cowboy icon in San Juan County, Robert McPherson examines the life of a high-desert cowboy during the 1930s and 1940s. Bayles successfully captures excitement and emotion as he tells of his experiences through his homespun stories and poems. The reader gets a real sense of what it was, and still is, like to chase wild cattle over thousands of square miles of cedar trees and rocky labyrinths.
V O L .
Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing, 2017. 235 pp. Paper, $20.00.
2
By Robert S. McPherson and Fin Bayles
I
Two parts compose each volume. In addition to the Carleton documents, Part I—“Initial Investigations and Activities”—contains several other early reports of the massacre, various inaugural investigations, affidavits, and other official comments and proceedings. Part II consists of groups of legal proceedings against nine indicted massacre participants, from Isaac Haight and William Dame to Lee and John Higbee. Part III—“Trial Court Proceedings”— presents remastered transcripts of the two Lee trials as well as various materials related to them. The last section of the two volumes contains documents surrounding the Lee trials’ aftermath, including his appeal and statements as well as petitions for his pardon. It concludes with documents pertaining to Lee’s execution.
NOTICES
U H Q
meshes of the Mormon spider-net from which it was never to become disentangled” (219). For Bagley, it was Carleton’s use of the word “Arkansas,” and for Denton, the adjective “rich.” Bagley argues that a major cause of the tragedy was revenge for the killing of Mormon apostle Parley Pratt in May 1857 in Arkansas, while Denton, echoing an earlier work by William Wise (1976), maintains that the Mormons and Indians slaughtered the emigrants largely for their wealth.
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