The Water Hole: A Western Story

By Zane Grey

Book Overview

In 1925, widowed businessman Elijah Winters brings his daughter Cherry from Long Island to stay at a trading post in a remote area some distance from Flagstaff, Arizona. To entertain herself, Cherry flirts with several of the cowboys, not realizing that they are very different from the young men she knew in the East. Also very different is Stephen Heftral, a young archeologist who is searching for an ancient and lost kiva of a primitive Indian tribe that disappeared centuries before in what became the land of the Navajos. Heftral believes that this lost kiva is most probably in a desert fastness called Beckyshibeta, the Navajo word for water hole. Elijah Winters colludes with Heftral to awaken Cherry to a new and healthier way of life by taking her, by force if necessary, to Beckyshibeta. Cherry comes to forget the luxury of her past in the beauty and dangers of the ca ons and the thrill of herself making an important archeological discovery.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 143282760X
• ISBN13: 9781432827601
• Release Date: January 2014
• Publisher: Five Star (ME)
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Lost Pueblo

I just received my copy yesterday, and have not finished reading it; but from what I have read so far the main changes from the edition known as Lost Pueblo are primarily the characters' names, and certain phraseology used to express the voice with which the characters are speaking. Why the names were changed for the magazine serial is quite a mystery, and why they remained so when it was published in book form in 1954 is also unexplained. This is the love story between a 20 year old spoiled rich girl who was never deprived of anything in her life, and a young archaeologist who is hoping to make the discovery of a "lost" pueblo. The distinct differences of personalities--she free and easy and wild, and he, quiet, reserved, "old fashioned"--is cause for quite interesting circumstances to erupt between them. It makes for a different kind of book, with lots of twists and turns as Cherry Winters, now; was Janey Endicot and Stephen Heftral, now; was Phillip Randolph struggle with their relationship. At one point Stephen "spanks" Cherry; something that could only happen in a Zane Grey story. There are villains and pseudo-villains, a kidnapping, and a near lynching--enough action and pace to go along with all the romantic difficulties. This work was originally a stage play which was never produced so Zane Grey turned it into a magazine serial which ran in Collier's in 1927. It's a good read. If I find any significant differences I will add it to this review.