[In The King's Fifth] a small party sets out to search for fortune, with a Zuni girl as their guide. In the vast country that would become Arizona they see terraced adobe cities whose people worship the sun, marvel at the huge Abyss which in time would be called the Grand Canyon, and find treasure that inflames their passions and eventually destroys them. How the seven travelers are reduced to two—Esteban and Father Francisco—is a harsh narrative illuminated by the beauty of the enormou...

[As The King's Fifth opens, Estéban de Sandoval is awaiting] trial for defrauding the King of Spain of his rightful share of the treasure found in the Land of Cíbola…. [Estéban] hopes that by writing down in careful sequence the story of the search for gold, by reliving the fighting, hardships, suffering, treachery, fears, and disappointments, he will find the answer to all that puzzles him: even he succumbed to the fever for gold. Captain Mendoza is not clearly characteri...