On the morning of November 29, 1981, the body of Natalie Wood was found floating in the dark water off Santa Catalina Island, approximately one mile from the 58-foot motor yacht where she had been sleeping. She was 43 years old, wearing a red down jacket over a flannel nightgown and knee-high socks, with fresh … Read more
In the summer of 1962, a writer for a state historical survey sat on the porch of a small clapboard house west of Bayou Chene and recorded the testimony of a man named Alcid Veret. Veret was 68 years old at the time. He had guided men through the Atchafalaya Basin for nearly five decades. … Read more
In the spring of 1887, a Jesuit priest named Father Anselmo Reyes traveled through Arizona Territory collecting accounts from native trackers, vaqueros, and old prospectors. He was documenting what he called the spiritual geography of the borderlands. In a small adobe house on the outskirts of Sasabe, he met a man named Cuchillo Tafoya. Tafoya … Read more
In December 1937, a 60-year-old man named Abel Enukidze was executed by firing squad in the Soviet Union. He had spent nearly two decades building the revolution, served 17 years as the administrator of the Kremlin, and was the godfather of Stalin’s own wife. By most accounts, he was one of the kindest men in … Read more
In the autumn of 1947, as British survey teams were withdrawing from the Himalayas, a 64-year-old Tibetan monk named Dorje Wangchuk agreed to speak with a British surveyor named Aldis Peton. The monk had spent more than 30 years living in a monastery east of the Khumbu Glacier. He had watched survey teams come and … Read more
In the autumn of 1947, as British survey teams began their withdrawal from the Himalayan region, a 64-year-old Tibetan monk named Dorje Wangchuk agreed to speak with a British surveyor named Aldis Peton. The monk had spent more than three decades in the mountains near the Khumbu Glacier, and he had watched survey teams come … Read more
In the summer of 1931, a salvage diver named Absalom Vardsted descended into the North Atlantic off the coast of Maine. He was a hard man, a professional who had spent more than a decade working in the dark, dangerous depths of the sea. He was not a man who scared easily. By the time … Read more
The convent of Saint Adelmar’s stands on a high ridge above a valley that locals decline to name. Its windows have burned with light every night for more than a hundred years. Storms have taken the roads, the river has frozen hard enough to crack the mill wheel, and fever has emptied half the farms … Read more
In the autumn of 1897, a hunter named Catawba Ledford was hired to guide a timber survey through the high country of the Smoky Mountains. Ledford, 34 years old, was born to a Cherokee mother on the Qualla Boundary and a Scotch-Irish father. He was known as one of the best bear hunters in the … Read more
In the spring of 1879, on the edge of the Llano Estacado in West Texas, a Texas Ranger named Cashes Holloway rode out alone to track a man. Holloway was 41 years old, a veteran of nearly two decades with the Rangers, and the last surviving member of the company he had joined in 1861. … Read more