The Hundredth Meridianrnby Chilton Williamson, JrrnWriting the WestrnThe Northwest strikes me as a betterrnplace than the Southwest to live in—fewerrnpeople, better hunting, plenty of invigoratingrnArctic air and the cold dryrnsnow—but the Southwest, probably, offersrngreater advantages for the Westernrnwriter. The presence of the Spanish andrnMexicans, the more developed Indianrnpopulations, and the clashes betweenrnthese and the Yankee pioneers and soldiersrnin the region give its history a morerndense and interesting texture than that ofrnthe north; the winning of the Southwestrnwas contemporaneous with the rise ofrnthe popular culture industry, which wasrnquick to exploit tales of gunfighters andrnhidian wars; while the populational shiftrnto the Sunbelt in the last 30 years has givenrnAmericans a familiarity with thernSouthwestern culture and landscape thatrnthey do not have with the cold and remoternNorthwest, which for them meansrngrizzly bears and bison, YellowstonernPark, and snow-blocked highways inrnJune. I published three books set inrnWyoming before the unpleasant truthrndawned that it was probably easier to sellrnone with a Southwestern milieu, and Irnheaded south with the new book almostrnfinished to find inspiration on locationrnfor completing the last few chapters.rnIn good Western writing the landscape,rnbesides serving as backdrop, isrnboth the third-person narrator and thernhidden central character as well. Butrnjust as novelists (unlike painters) rarelyrnwork with the living models for their representationsrnin front of them or evenrnwithin casual reach, the best place for arnwriter to write may not be “on location”rnbut at a distance, forcing him to recreaternthe country he is writing about ratherrnthan simply describe it. Ed Abbey wroternsome of his best evocations of the Southwestrnfrom his pad in Hoboken, NewrnJersey —and vice versa. Laura IngallsrnWilder—by all odds the greatest writer ofrnthe American West —wrote her eightrnbooks removed hundreds of miles fromrntheir geographical setting, and 50- to 60-rnodd years from the events they relate. Inrnmy own case, lack of time and money,rnnot aesthetic planning, explains therncompletion of a 757-page, 146,553-wordrntypescript about a horseback journey ofrnover a thousand miles —from Moab,rnUtah, to northern Mexico —describedrnentirely from memory, except for arnstretch of approximately 100 miles betweenrnHolbrook, Arizona, and Quemado.rnNew Mexico. Of course, even workingrnfrom an informed imagination, Irnpaid (not a high price, as it happened) forrnmy presumption. The Little Colorado,rndraining the high plateau country southrnof the Petrified Forest, was less than arntenth the size I had imagined it —althoughrnI had everything else right, almost,rnthe trickle of red viscous water inrnits tiny canyon being a perfect miniaturernof the river I had described. Back to therndrawing board: Novelists know how tornget around inconvenient impedimentarnlike this. I imagine astrophysicists,rnthough not car repairmen, work thernsame way.rnThe wide shallow valley throughrnwhich the Little Colorado flows past St.rnJohn’s, Arizona, on its way from its risingrnin the White Mountains to its rendezvousrnwith the big Colorado where therngreater river enters the Grand Canyon,rnwas covered in early June with soft seacoloredrngrass and blue sagebrush liftingrninto dark green juniper breaks, resemblingrnthe African veldt. St. John’s, whichrnis approximately one-third Mormon,rnone-third Catholic, and one-third Protestantrn(Baptist, Assembly of Cod), hasrnthree restaurants. I chose the Catholicrnone (it had a saloon adjacent to it andrnserved booze) and was waited on by a girlrnof 20, who belonged to the Assembly.rn”I’d never leave, I can’t imagine livingrnanywhere else,” she said. “There’s notrnmuch in St. John’s, but you’ve got whatrnyou need. You’ve got your Circle K, yourrnIGA, your . . . .” Since the littleness ofrnthe Little Colorado did present a literaryrnproblem, however minor, I asked her ifrnthe river was ever known to get up any.rn”Oh yes,” she said, “in the monsoon season.rnIt just flows everywhere then.” Irnhadn’t known that Arizona north of thernMogollon Rim was subject to monsoonsrnand asked her when they began. “Junern24th,” she answered promptly. “Theyrnlast through the end of August and then,rnright away, it’s fall around here.” I wasrnimpressed with the preciseness of herrnmeteorological knowledge until JanernColeman, over 200 miles south near Portal,rninformed me that June 24th as therndate for the start of the monsoon season isrnfolk wisdom in Arizona. Still, here wasrnpart of the way around the problem, anyway.rnAdd a daily cloudburst to the storyrnand Jeb Stuart Ryder and John-WaynernBilagody could be floating around in thernriver, as previously described, withoutrnloss of accuracy or verisimilitude.rnJane Candia Coleman, recipient of arncouple of Golden Spur Awards and thernauthor of two novels. Doc Holliday’srnWoman and I, Pearl Hart, as well as severalrnshort story collections and volumesrnof poetry, is married to Glenn G. Boyer,rnthe world’s foremost authority on WyattrnEarp, whose family he has been acquaintedrnwith from boyhood. I had beenrnin touch with Jane by phone since laternwinter, but she and Glenn run a dudernranch of sorts for visiting Earpomaniacsrn(Glenn’s term) and others, and we hadrnbeen unable to get together on a mutuallyrnfeasible date for a meeting. Now it wasrnlate September, the typescript of my ownrnbook, “The Last Westerner,” had beenrncompleted for a full month, and still Irnhad not met Jane and Glenn, or visitedrnthe Peloncillo and Chiricahua Mountainsrnto refresh my memory of anotherrnpiece of countr)’ I had already finishedrnwriting about. From Las Cruces I maderna call one evening to eastern Arizonarnwhere Jane was locking the house for thernnight, while Glenn turned the mastiffsrnout to prowl. No Earpomaniacs were expectedrnfor another couple of weeks, andrnfor once the timing seemed right. We arrangedrnthat 1 should arrive around five inrnthe evening, Arizona Standard Time, atrnthe ranch, where a blue gate with a largernsign on it (BEWARE OF DOGS:rnDECEMBER 1998/49rnrnrn