Bless me, Ultima can be taken first of all as a good action novel, a work in which intense and dramatic happenings make up a considerable part. There are violent fights and deaths. The technique and calculated effects of certain scenes seem deliberately to have been drawn from popular literature and movies that reflect a legendary "wild" west, replete with stock situations and characters. One difference we note is that all, or almost all, the heroes, victims, and villains are members of the Hispanic, Indian, or mestizo communities. Some of the stereotyped elements used in the work are a Longhorn saloon, a poolroom, a bawdy house, a wise old Indian who lives in a cave, settlers and sheepherders, farmers and cowboys. But Anaya also moves beyond that borrowed type of scenario by giving symbolic value to places and objects. Thus, we have the house on the hill that...