cover image The Maze: A Desert Journey

The Maze: A Desert Journey

Lucy Rees. Countryman Press, $21 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-88150-369-2

By American standards, the Welsh couple were ill-equipped for desert travel--wrong horses, no pack mules, no guns. Rees (Wild Pony) was seeking inner peace after a personal tragedy; her friend Rick wanted to see a stone carving on the Hopi reservation, reputedly identical to one in Cornwall known as the Cretan maze. In Prescott, Arizona, they bought two horses for a journey that would take them across desert, high plateau and half of Navajoland. Rees gives a spirited account of their adventures. One of the horses, Duchess, had been badly handled in the past and was unpredictable. Through Rees's affection, Duchess learned to trust humans again--a rewarding story in itself. Eventually, the travelers found the maze on the second mesa of the Hopi. This combination of travel with horses, a spiritual search and extraordinary adventure leaves the reader with a sense of satisfaction. (Apr.)