Description: Sweet iron -- an alloy prized for the mouthpiece of bridle bits. Sweet iron -- tempered and sweetened by the heat of the horse's mouth. Sweet iron -- people shaped by the hard and the sweet of the American West. In this innovative work, Linda Hussa blends oral history, storytelling, and poetry to evoke the complexity of one westerner's life.

Henry Elijah (Lige) Langston, a buckaroo and rawhide braider, was born in 1908 on a homestead in the isolated outback of the Great Basin. Lige worked on ranches in northeastern California and northwestern Nevada, a region known as the Sagebrush Corner.

His life was made iron by the cold-blooded desert horses he broke and rode. His life was shaped sweet by the women who tried to change him.

At the heart of the book, Lige's own words, direct, earthy, reveal the character of the man. Around this core Hussa tells her own story as an outsider who found a home in the Great Basin and weaves the testimony of others who shared a lifetime friendship with Lige. The resulting tapestry of voices reflects the fine braiding from Lige's hands: "Black over sorrel, grey over black, sorrel over grey, over black again".

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