SOURCE: Sands, Kathleen Mullen. “Closing the Distance: Critic, Reader and the Works of James Welch.” MELUS 14, no. 2 (summer 1987): 73-85.

In the following excerpt, Mullen Sands analyzes Welch's “skill at closing the distance between the reader and the landscape out of which he writes.”

Not long ago I was cruising down the freeway, hauling a quarter horse named Magpie to the Maricopa County Fair Grounds for the Phoenix “Rodeo of Rodeos” grand entry. I don't follow the rodeo circuit, rarely even go to the local competitions, but the big black gelding I ride makes a handsome parade mount, and I agreed to lend him to a hefty neighbor who was one of the Jaycee sponsors of the event. I eased onto the off-ramp behind a flashy rig. Big silver pick-up truck pulling a four horse trailer. Montana plates—“Big Sky Country.” They come from all over for the prize...