The Calling

by Dick Hyson

The Calling is a captivating story about a northern New Mexico cattle ranch, the Cross S or Piedra (stone), in the 1950s. The action unfolds through the eyes of a half-breed Indian, top hand on the ranch, Frank Dalton, as he teaches an enigmatic young would-be cowboy named R. C. Roth the ways of cowboying, rodeoing, and life itself. As Dalton educates Roth to the ways of "the calling," both men become embroiled in complicated love affairs-Dalton falls in love with the daughter of the top hand on a neighboring ranch, and Roth with Francesca "Kika" Jaramillo, daughter of a Hispanic rancher-friend of the Cross S's Boss Stone. In addition, both cowboys are confronted with a puzzle begging to be solved-at the top of the formidable mesa overlooking the Stone ranch is a single, lonely grave marked with a granite headstone bearing the mysterious inscription "Abajo Verdad-Arriba Cielo" (below is truth, above is sky). As he unravels his tale of tragedy, deceit, and love in the land of enchantment, Hyson provides an absolutely fascinating reader-education in ranching and the cowboy life-including bronc peeling and controlling horses with a tendency to booger as well as respect for the old ways.

422 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1998

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hyson's novel is a curious mixture of tell-it-like-it-is cowboy life and melodramatic fiction. The setting is ranch country in the far northeast corner of New Mexico, and the time is the 1950s. The story is told by Frank Dalton, a half-breed from Oklahoma, with the name of a famous outlaw. There are numerous plot threads, most of which can be found in other cowboy novels - including the saving of a ranch, a bitter father-son relationship, and the education of a young cowboy into the ways of "the calling," or cowboying. There's also some Southwest history, dating back to Spanish colonial settlement. There are mysteries to solve. And there is not one but two love stories.

The romance of Frank and Roberta is an unusual storyline for cowboy fiction, where women rarely intrude into the all-male world of working cattle. The two characters fall in love and into bed without much complication, and Hyson describes the intensity of their love affair without embarrassment. For once, an author has written about a cowboy who doesn't reserve all his affection for his horse.

While the various threads of plot hold the story together over the length of its many pages, what may interest readers more are the factual descriptions of ranch work, like the process of feeding cattle in the winter, the breaking of a horse, working a deal with a cattle buyer, and the way a team of men goes about branding calves. A section describing how a rodeo comes to town, the lives of rodeo cowboys, and the author's inside tips on bull riding make the novel come to life with a vividness and immediacy that do not come so easily on other pages. Also contributing to the realism is a surprising candor in the cowboy talk, often bawdy and humorously coarse.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in cowboys, ranching, and the Southwest. Readers will also enjoy MacKey Hedges' novel, "The Last Buckaroo."