Behind the mountains
by Oliver La Farge
- Boston, Massachusetts Houghton- Mifflin 1956
- 179 p.
Wedding at Rociada -- A voice in mid-August -- The loss of a hero -- God in the mountains -- The snow too deep -- The news from Rociada -- The convert -- Miss Eufemia's nose -- A job and a lunch -- Visit of politeness -- The cap in the snow -- The wind from the sea.
Imagine yourself in a secluded green valley high in the mountains of northern New Mexico. You are one of a large family who own a sheep and cattle ranch surrounding the little village of Rociada. Your father, a Spaniard, is the revered and distinguished Jose Baca, and your mother, Dona Marguerite, is of French descent. Everyone in the village loves and respects your family as their patrones, appealing to them in times of trouble and bringing them gifts at Christmas. Out of the everyday life of the Baca family, the village people, their customs and superstitions, Oliver La Farge has drawn, for example, the touching story of young Pino's disillusionment with his hero, the horse thief Pascual. Or there is the account of the wedding shoes that pinched until the bride was in tears. Then there is Carmen's discovery of treachery in the unlit hovel of the blind religious and the amusing tale of how Pino was punished for his arrogance the night the Archbishop came to dinner. But beneath this rippling surface of adventure, tenderness, and humor rides the gradual encroachment of the outside world on Rociada, one of the last survivals of the ancient Spanish way of life in the United States. Finally, this idyllic village succumbs to the invasion of tourists and the machine, and Rociada becomes only a dream of the past -- Book jacket.; The life of the Bacas, a Spanish ranch-owning family in the New Mexican highlands, in the early 1900's.