<p>WHEN M. JOHN FAYHEE first arrived in New Mexico's rugged Gila Country, he was a naive 20-year-old who didn't know a javelina from an enchilada. Much has changed in the intervening half century.</p><p><br></p><p>In this meandering memoir, Fayhee, with his loyal dog Casey at his side, takes us through the heart of the Gila - once the stomping ground of Geronimo and Billy the Kid and home to the world's first legally designated Wilderness Area - as he endeavors to hike every day for a solid year through some of the country's most remote and challenging terrain. "A Long Tangent" explores the process of going from wide-eyed young man to</p><p>crotchety old fart as he comes to terms with his mortality, with the fact that "There are many more trail miles behind me than there are ahead."</p><p><br></p><p>More than that, though. This is the story of the bond between a man and his canine companion as it evolves through deep canyons, across bone-dry mesas in ninety-five degree heat and toward the cactus-covered mountains that rise above the desert lands of southwest New Mexico.</p><p><br></p><p>Along the way, Fayhee reflects upon rattlesnakes, hiking sticks, bears, exploding rocks, mystery mountains, disorientation, poorly worded religious texts, lost pets, marriage, the relationship between hikers and their vehicles, and a past that slips ever further into the rearview mirror.</p>