I could never name everyone who has helped me over the years, in many different ways. So to all my family and friends who have taught and continue to teach by their example, and who supported my efforts with kindness and smiles: thank you for your support. I thank Christine, Maureen, and Robert for being such good friends at a pivotal time in my life. To all my coworkers and friends in Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National Park, past and present, thank you for wearing the gray and green, the colors of one great family, the National Park Service.
I’m grateful to Pete Devine and Bridget Kerr for their insightful reading of the manuscript early on; to Maxine Hong Kingston for
being a great mentor, a steadfast supporter, and a bright example of what it means to be a writer; and to Gary Snyder for his words of encouragement when encouragement was needed. Deepest thanks to all my teachers at the University of Michigan, who offered advice and good criticism when I was their student: Gayl Jones, George Garrett, Richard Tillinghast, and Thomas Garbaty; as well as Andrea Beauchamp of the Hopwood Room; and especially Eric S. Rabkin, who told me once that it mattered.
I wish to acknowledge these friends who made a difference in my life and passed away much too soon: Maynard Gilbert, Derwin Abston, and Alex Smith, gone but never forgotten.
I’m grateful to my editors at Sierra Club Books, Linda Gunnarson and Diana Landau, who helped a manuscript become a novel. Most of all, I’m grateful to Roxann, my wife, soulmate, and anchor, who was always the first to hear and first to respond with intelligence, clarity, and wisdom, and whose words of simple praise made it all worthwhile. You showed me that I didn’t need a road map to follow my heart. Thank
you
for
Gloryland
.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shelton Johnson, a native of Detroit, Michigan, currently serves as a ranger in Yosemite National Park. He has worked for the National Park Service since 1987, also serving in Great Basin National Park and Yellowstone National Park, as well as in parks in and around Washington, D.C. He served with the Peace Corps in Liberia and attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he won several writing awards, including a Hopwood Award in poetry. Johnson has presented his original living-history program about a buffalo soldier at venues around the country and has received many honors and awards for this work, which has also been widely covered in the media; and he is featured in the Ken Burns documentary film
The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
Johnson and his wife and son live just outside Yosemite National Park.
The Sierra Club, founded in 1892 by author and conservationist John Muir, is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. With more than a million members and supporters—and some sixty chapters across the country—we are working hard to protect our local communities, ensure an enduring legacy for America’s wild places, and find smart energy solutions to stop global warming. To learn how you can participate in the Sierra Club’s programs to explore, enjoy, and protect the planet, please address inquiries to Sierra Club, 85 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94105, or visit our website at
www.sierraclub.org
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The Sierra Club’s book publishing division, Sierra Club Books, has been a leading publisher of titles on the natural world and environmental issues for nearly half a century. We offer books to the general public as a nonprofit educational service in the hope that they may enlarge the public’s understanding of the Sierra Club’s concerns and priorities. The point of view expressed in each book, however, does not necessarily represent that of the Sierra Club. For more information on Sierra Club Books and a complete list of our titles and authors, please visit
www.sierraclubbooks.org
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Copyright © 2009 by Shelton Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Published by Sierra Club Books,
85 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
SIERRA CLUB, SIERRA CLUB BOOKS, and the Sierra Club design logos
are registered trademarks of the Sierra Club.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Shelton, 1958-
Gloryland : a novel / by Shelton Johnson.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-578-05181-6
1. United States. Army. Cavalry—African American troops—Fiction. 2. United States.
Army. Cavalry, 9th—Fiction. 3. Yosemite National Park (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3610.0383G56 2009
813’.6—dc22 2009020643
Distributed by Publishers Group West