BEYOND THE RIO GILA BY SCOTT G. HIBBARD
Beyond the Rio Gila is a highly literate piece of compelling historical fiction by Scott G. Hibbard. The exquisite prose employed to tell the gritty, fascinating, hardscrabble story of a dragoon company’s march to the coast in the early to mid-1800’s – from Missouri to the Pacific, with a Mexican War along the way – and the parallel journey of a similar group of Mormons conscripted into service, lends an incredibly authentic voice to this intrepid tale, often with the same endearing tone heard in documentaries replicating field missives sent home to families by lonely but enduring Civil War soldiers. Hibbard’s resonant writing shares the same feeling of independent spirit molded by self-sufficient dwellers of isolated farms and outlying towns, yet is often spiced with the eloquence of ancient intellectuals found inhabiting prized literary collections, which infuses this highly unique novel with both historical accuracy and a profound sense of vivid immediacy.
Moses Cole is the young and fiercely self-protective protagonist of Beyond the Rio Gila, and Scott G. Hibbard writes him as precisely and penetratingly as any biographically significant historical figure, many of whom also populate this accurate recording of a life affirming/life denying martial odyssey. That he is barely into manhood – as defined by a pioneering age – and burdened with a background both abusive and inviting, allows the enthralled reader to watch as youth becomes adult, as innocence becomes loss, and a boy becomes the man destined to face both his abusive past and ever beckoning future. A wonderful and complex historical recollection.
S. HIBBARD
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