Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #3: Valdez is Coming & Hombre by
Elmore Leonard
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
A pair of novellas courtesy of Leonard, a master of action and the sage of terse economical prose. Back in the day, these tightly-crafted tales were both made into films.
Race, revenge, and romance propel "Valdez," the story of an upright sheriff seeking justice for the wife of a slain man. However, the cruel gunrunner most responsible for the death is uninterested in pleas for compensation from Roberto "Bob" Valdez. The gunrunner's vicious rebuff unleashes a series of violent events that terminates in a showdown with reputations and lives at stake. The narrative is made more complex by racial status and an unsolved murder. Crisp and fast-moving.
"Hombre" is but one of many names carried by John Russell, a Mexican boy stolen by Apaches, rescued and schooled by whites, who returns for a time to live among the Indians on a reservation. During a stage coach journey, Russell is shunned as an outcast by his fellow passengers. But when all lives are menaced by a gang of ruthless outlaws, Russell's warrior skills and knowledge of the desert make him the leader of the passengers, a group roiled by greed and conflicting loyalties. In this taut little saga, Leonard questions the emptiness of racial prejudice as well the tricky nature of who to help and when.
Two well-written compact stories for those catching up on their reading in uncertain times.
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