In the New Mexico village of Camposanto, a priest is tied to a cross made from a sacred cottonwood tree. Father Lorenzo Soledad’s adversaries, the impoverished tribe called the Calabazas, observe from below, and Juan Lobo, the head man of the Calabazas, sings the Song of Passage, preparing the priest for his journey by rubbing a white powder across his brow. It’s a chilly April Friday in 1897. In two days it will be Easter, but for Soledad there will be no resurrection.

Is Soledad a martyr? A saint? A suicide? This gripping novel by a New Mexico writer who has spent a lifetime pondering the complicated cultures of the Southwest tells Soledad’s story from his boyhood in a Texas bordello to his final day in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.