ATDTDA (7): Out as far as Reef could see, 209-210

[Paul Nightingale]

Now in Utah, the novel has echoed, or mimicked the
advice to Go West. It began in Chicago, with the Fair
as a celebration of modernity. Before leaving for
Denver, Lew was warned that the West no longer exists;
indeed, he was going the Denver because the West no
longer exists. To recap: according to Madsen (American
Exceptionalism) "[t]he Western is a product of the
twentieth century--the first Western was Owen Wister's
The Virginian (1902)--and this century's desire to
construct for itself a noble if doomed
past" (AE, 123). This is the kind of view that
Professor Vanderjuice has in mind when telling Lew:
"It might not be the quite the West you're expecting"
(52). 

However, Reef seems to know what to expect in 
Jeshimon. As does the reader, in the sense that the
post-Vietnam revisionist Western (in fiction and film)
is familiar. Someone (Joseph McBride?) called
Peckinpah John Ford's bastard son, and the same might
be said of Eastwood.

If we go back a few pages to the first mention of
Nonechita, we see social change brought about by the
railroad (200-201); in particular, there has been an
increase in the population. In Jeshimon, progress
means more ingenious ways of dealing with the dead:
from telegraph poles to adobe towers. Communication by
telegraph (206) has brought Reef here, and now poles
with corpses hanging from them are pretty much the
first thing he sees when riding into town (209).
Earlier, Burke told Lew his brother would have a
better shot at a fair trial in Denver, "where our
local junta don't cut that much of a figure" (174).
Something similar seems to be the case in Jeshimon, a
"state within a state" (210), where the Governor runs
it as he wishes. The Reverend Lube Carnal insists
there are no laws to mention, "anything and everything
goes here"; which begs the question, how is one ever
found guilty? Answer: "once the Gov takes notice" the
wrongdoer is ready for "the ovens of the Next World".
Which is no answer, of course, if one expects a legal
system. Lube Carnal ("cheerfully") points out that
retribution is no deterrent; and the function of
religion is simply to process the individual. The
Governor, then, is another of the novel's figures of
authority; put another way, the Governor allows the
novel another take on authority.