BOOKSHELF

A BEAUTIFUL, CRUEL COUNTRY, by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce. University of Arizona Press, 1230 N. Park Ave., Suite 102, Tucson, AZ 85719. 1987. 318 pages. $19.95, hardcover, plus $1.50 postage. Available from Arizona Highways, 2039 W. Lewis, Phoenix, AZ 85009; telephone 258-1000.

Science fiction writers use their imaginations to transport us to times and places in the uncertain future. Historians, in penetrating the past, often project the same uncertain accounts of what life was like at a time and place decades, centuries, or eons ago. Rarely does a writer come forth with a beautifully written eyewitness account of a time, place, and life-style long since eroded by the relentless process we call progress.

Add to this impact of experience the unusual setting itself: a hardscrabble ranch in Arizona Territory, pioneered more than a century ago, just 15 miles from the Mexican border. Here, in a microcosm of America's melting pot, Mexican, Anglo, and Indian lived for a time without anger.

Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce tells her story through the clear eyes of an eight-year-old and the wisdom of an aging saint. Her grandfather, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, came to Arizona Territory in the 1860s. Her father, a blue-eyed Anglo, was her hero and mentor. He taught her the art of survival in a land of climatic extremes. Little Eva was an apt student, and at the age of 10 was giving working orders for the corrida (roundup) with the commanding presence of a wagon boss.

The picture she paints of her Hispanic mother, tall, dark, and dignified, is a portrait in print. It was her mother who taught Eva to live in peace with all living things: coyotes, lizards, butterflies, or river willows. Each was part of a whole system she grew not only to love but to understand.

An Anglo father and a Mexican mother gave Eva Antonia the best of both sides of the border. Completing a cultural triad were the Papago Indians, often homeless and always hungry. When the Great White Father in Washington ordered the Indians removed to a reservation, the family and neighbors served one last meal for them, brushing aside tears with their makeshift aprons.

Little has been written about the territorial borderland. Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce has met this need with talent and insight.

The wood engravings that grace this book are by Michael McCurdy. They have the same qualities of simplicity and integrity as the text.

BUSHMASTERS: AMERICA'S JUNGLE WARRIORS OF WORLD WAR II, by Anthony Arthur. St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010. 1987. 270 pages. $20.45, hardcover, postpaid.

Histories of organizations rarely read like fiction. Bushmasters is a dramatic exception. The roots of the 158th Infantry Regiment, Arizona National Guard, reached back to September, 1865, when the First Arizona Volunteer Infantry was organized. In September, 1940, the 158th was called into federal service, and 15 months later the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, to be exact the regiment was posted to Panama. It was there that a poetic journalist christened the 158th the "Bushmasters." The name was borrowed from a large, aggressive, venomous snake of tropical America. In later combat in the Pacific Theater, the appellation Bushmasters proved appropriate.

Anthony Arthur's well-crafted account captures personalities of a diverse collection of citizen-soldiers who had little in common beyond the regimental name and number and, ultimately, the military experience. They were Hispanic, Anglo, Indian; shoe clerk, bank teller, cowboy. They came from all levels and kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds and religious beliefs. Despite their differences, they forged a team that General MacArthur described as one of the finest units under his command.

As military history, Bushmasters is superb. It does not ignore the politics of the military fraternity nor deny the fear of fear that all combatants must face before the firing starts.

Forty years after the Bushmasters were deactivated, they held a reunion in Scottsdale, Arizona. The author devotes the last chapter to that gathering, which had both its moments of mirth and a moving, almost startling degree of poignancy. Perhaps that is part of what Plato meant when he wrote: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

moments of mirth and a moving, almost startling degree of poignancy. Perhaps that is part of what Plato meant when he wrote: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

(RIGHT) "All American Cowboy," by Ken Freeman; oil on canvas, 36 by 24 inches. Freeman's lean young cowpuncher occupies the Prescott Frontier Days Centennial poster. The artist, originally from Illinois, began painting in Arizona nearly a decade ago. His favorite subjects are rodeo and the Indians of the Southwest. "All American Cowboy" posters cost $10, signed posters $20, and signed and numbered prints $75; they are available from Prescott Frontier Days, 601 W. Gibraltar Ln., Phoenix, AZ 85023.

(BACK COVER) A stately ponderosa pine towers above Riggs Flat Lake, high on Mount Graham in southeastern Arizona. JAMES TALLON