I didn’t know this was Leonard’s first published novel until after I read it. After reading “Valdez is Coming” and “Hombre”--two fantastic westerns-- one would think there’d be a letdown, but I didn’t find that to be the case. Although it is not as tight as his later novels, it is still a fine piece of work that was thoroughly entertaining.
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Elmore Leonard was an author who paid attention to the writer’s market. He began his career writing westerns. When the demand for Westerns dried up, he turned to the hardboiled crime fiction that would make him famous. But his Westerns should not be ignored. Five of them, including Joe Kidd and 3:10 to Yuma, were made into successful films. The Bounty Hunters (1953), his first Western novel, displays the cold-eyed look at the frontier myth that Cormac McCarthy would later turn into poetry. Civil War veteran and Army scout Dave Flynn and a young Lt. are sent across the Rio Grande in pursuit of an Apache renegade. Our sympathies are with the Apache, though Leonard never sentimentalizes him. The true bad guys in the story are white men collecting bounties on Indian scalps, but any long dark hair will do, Indian or not. The style is stripped to the bone. Here is character-building at its most efficient: “Dave Flynn was a month beyond his thirty-first birthday, but from fifteen feet he looked forty. That’s what patrols in Apache country will do.” Later, a character observing Flynn assesses his character: “There was a lot to think about. But Flynn makes everything sound simple. He looks at things one at a time, and doesn’t worry about something that’s supposed to happen next week because there is no assurance there will be a next week. That’s a good way to look at things but it takes some doing.” Such present-mindedness is quintessentially that of a Western hero. ( )

The old Apache renegade Soldado Viejo is hiding out in Mexico, and the Arizona Department Adjutant has selected two men to hunt him down. One -- Dave Flynn -- knows war, the land, and the nature of his prey. The other is a kid lieutenant named Bowers. But there's a different kind of war happening in Soyopa. And if Flynn and his young associate choose the wrong allies -- and the wrong enemy -- they won't be getting out alive.

A former US Army guide, David Flynn, is asked to come out of retirement to accompany a young Lieutenant Bowers to cross into Mexico and capture Soldado Viejo, an Apache renegade and bring him back to the US. Flynn knows the land and the nature of the prey he will be chasing.

What he finds when he gets to Mexico is there are two other groups chasing the Apaches- the Mexican Rurales and a scalp hunter group led by Laird Lazair. The latter group kill any dark skinned people and turn their scalps for payment. The Rurale officer knows they are killing Mexicans but he also makes money on the scalps.

Flynn and Bowers experience many close calls as they try to complete their mission and at the same time put some very bad people out of business. I found it a very fast moving, intriguing read. ( )

We miss you Elmore ( )