I once sat in the writer Chilton Williamson’s living room in
Kemmerer, Wyoming, twenty years ago, drinking coffee and chatting
about books and writers. Chilton kept parrots — I recall three or
four in a tall corner birdcage — and periodically they would begin
their subtle ornithological gossip among themselves, which quickly
escalated to loud squawking. Hardly interrupting his erudite
monologue, Chilton calmly rose from his chair, walked over to the
cage, put his closely-cropped blond-bearded face next to it and
shouted: “Shut up!” The parrots were immediately silenced: all
ruffled, pastel plumage, and cowering on their perches. Chilton
performed this disciplinary chore a couple of more times during a
long conversation where such names as Edmund Wilson, Cormac
McCarthy, and his old boss Bill Buckley were dropped, and after
another of these terrifying cage visits he again sat down, and
asked: “Have you read Stephen Bodio?”
I hadn’t, in fact hadn’t heard of him, and Chilton rose
again to pull a book off the nearby bookshelves. It was a
large-sized trade paperback titled Querencia. On the cover
was a reproduction of a painting by Montana artist Russell Chatham
of a handsome woman wearing a long draping scarf and walking dogs
in the snow, with a vast plain behind her (the painting is titled
“Betsy Huntington and her dogs”). The Spanish “Querencia” is
translated as affection for the place one calls home, a place of
security and safety, its main usage originating in the dying
art-sport of bullfighting. Chilton wouldn’t part with his copy, but
I’ve since read and reread Querencia and other Bodio
books. He’s something of a writer’s writer. I made his acquaintance
through an exchange of letters for a short time.
Sadly, Querencia is out of print. It was
published in 1990 by Clark City Press, a now-defunct small
publishing venture originally founded by Russell Chatham — among
others — in Livingston, Montana, that for a number of years put
out a half dozen titles annually. It published obscure writers —
some western, some not — including such poets as Jim Harrison, Dan
Gerber, and Barry Gifford. Bodio’s book received some positive
blurbs from the likes of Rick Bass and the late Tony Hillerman, who
wrote that “Stephen Bodio writes like Pavarotti sings. He is a
master. No one who loves the West should miss this
book.”
Stephen Bodio is a sixty-ish Massachusetts native who has
lived in tiny Magdalena, New Mexico, for three decades. He is the
author of a half dozen books about the natural world, including
A
Rage for Falcons (1992) and
Eagle Dreams: Searching for Legends in Wild Mongolia
(2003), the latter reflecting a lifelong fascination with the
ancient herding and hunting traditions of Central Asia. Predatory
birds are a central interest, Bodio being an avid falconer.
On the Edge of the Wild: Passions and Pleasures of a
Naturalist (1997) is a more eclectic collection of essays on
hunting and fishing and adventurous travel.
A previously published magazine freelancer, Bodio
initially arrived in New Mexico in 1979 with Betsy Huntington, a
down-to-earth woman with Boston Brahmin roots who “drawled
patrician vowels.” Her life with Bodio and eventual death from
cancer after what the author calls his “seven years of grace” is
the touchstone of Querencia, a memoir brimming with lives
lived outdoors, and the couple’s social connections in New Mexico.
Bodio and Huntington enjoyed friendships with writers and ranchers
and bartenders, and the sort of daily-encountered eccentrics
familiar to people who live in small towns. There’s a couple named
Chubby and Shirley Torres with a large extended family in
Magdalena, and a desert rat named Dutch Salmon who lives in a
remote trailer with fierce dogs.
And it’s a book full of vividly rendered diversions,
whether it’s catching a live rattlesnake, or attending a cockfight
(for journalistic reasons). If Querencia has a
larger-than-life character it’s New Mexico itself, “high, windy,
and bright” (the searing sun responsible for America’s highest skin
cancer rates), yet at times mysterious and “ferociously alien” with
its mixture of Hispanic, Indian and “Anglo” cultures. Magdalena
(population 900) sits at 6,500 feet on a plateau high above the Rio
Grande Valley in the central part of the state. Bodio and
Huntington are clearly enchanted by life in “The Land of
Enchantment,” and there are long days of upland bird hunting with a
view of “the sky island” of Ladron Peak, one of New Mexico’s
prominent landmarks and a long ago hideout for outlaws and Apaches.
There are rambles on the Plains of San Agustin accompanied by
beloved dogs. It’s a life of work, love and wonder.
Huntington, an enthusiastic smoker, died of lung cancer in
1986, and this final health struggle closes the book. After her
death, Bodio, while observing sandhill cranes in the Bosque Del
Apache National Wildlife Refuge that remind him of “flying
crucifixes,” reflects that after a peripatetic life “Betsy has
finally found a home.”
One would hope this book could also find a new home as a
new edition reprint. As it is a limited supply of copies of
Querencia can be found at Amazon.com and Allibris. Good
luck finding it in a bookstore. Bodio also has a website, “Querencia” (same
as the book’s title), where he details his eclectic interests,
outdoor activities, and recent work.
Steve Bodio still lives in New Mexico; Chilton Williamson
resides in Laramie, Wyoming; and nowadays I call Salmon, Idaho
home. Western writers seem to inhabit a regional network unlike any
other in America. They’re aware of each other and their work. More
so than, say, New England writers and Southern writers. It’s as if
despite the huge stretches of geography that separate us, we still
live in the same cultural neighborhood, with the same flora, fauna
and vast public lands. We inhabit small cities and tiny towns that
are still hospitable. Our doors are always open to visiting family,
friends, and writers.
I wonder if Chilton still keeps obnoxious
parrots?
