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Merle McRae
Bence is the chief ranger of Arches National Monument; he’s Abbey’s age, a geologist by training, who shares Abbey’s hatred of desk jobs and his passionate love of the open West. Like Merle McRae, Bence’s role is minor: he helps orient Abbey on his first day in Arches, joking about the solitude, and he later joins the manhunt for a dead photographer. Also like McRae, he’s aware of the coming development in the parks, but his closeness to Abbey in age highlights a difference between the two men: Bence seems sadly resigned to these coming changes, while Abbey, as a seasonal employee who’s largely an outsider, is outraged.
Floyd Bence Quotes in Desert Solitaire
The Desert Solitaire quotes below are all either spoken by Floyd Bence or refer to Floyd Bence. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Solitaire Quotes
The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante’s paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West.
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Floyd Bence Character Timeline in Desert Solitaire
The timeline below shows where the character Floyd Bence appears in Desert Solitaire. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Solitaire
Merle McRae (the park’s superintendent) and Floyd Bence (the chief ranger) bring Abbey supplies for his remote trailer—water, tools, first aid, and so...
(full context)
...some non-potable desert water. After some time together, the sun sets. Abbey asks McRae and Bence to stay for dinner, but they must go, and he watches them drive off.
(full context)
In McRae and Bence’s sudden absence, Abbey is struck by the desert’s silence and emptiness. Looking down at his...
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Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks
...the unpaved roads have kept the desert serene until now, as Merle McRae and Floyd Bence warned, development is coming. One evening, while watching the dusk from his stoop and enjoying...
(full context)
The Dead Man at Grandview Point
...He meets his brother Johnny (also spending the summer as a ranger), Merle McRae, Floyd Bence, and some policemen, to search for the man: a photographer who left his car on...
(full context)
