Today, it is still possible to see in the land itself something of its past. Driving west along Route 40 high in the Colorado Rockies last week, I saw a herd of horses, some 40 or 50 head, that looked as if they had just descended, wild and free, from Byers Canyon above. There were overos, palominos, chestnuts and pure blacks, running against a classic Southwestern cerulean sky with cumulus clouds that dwarfed even the mountain ranges in the background.
There are few more enduring archetypes than the American cowboy. Certainly McCarthy's ability to conjure up a world in which men still ride on the backs of magnificent beasts trying to master a natural world that is both alluring and hostile has made him one of America's most popular literary figures.
But as the Southwestern landscape retreats, as suburbs encroach on the range, as fewer and fewer people know what it is to tackle nature head-on, what will happen to the cowboy tale? Perhaps this generation will be the last to come across boys like Jimmy Blevins or John Grady Cole or to see all the pretty horses running free, and all that will remain is a collective memory evoked by writers like Cormac McCarthy.