Elmore Leonard - Hombre & Three-Ten to Yuma

The 1967 Paul Newman film Hombre is a classic revisionist western. It was based, as many brilliant westerns are, on the 1961 short story by Elmore Leonard, which has been reissued recently by Penguin as part of their short Western Classic series. The book has an unusual protaganist in John Russell (played by Newman in the film). Russell is white, but grew up and lived with Apaches. Despite later being adopted by a white man, he retains his close relationship with the Apache, capturing and selling horses to the Whites for use hauling stagecoaches.

The story is told by Billy Lee, a young teenager who comes to idolise Russell. Russell inherits some land and needs to travel to sell it. An impromptu stage journey sees a disparate collection of travellers join them as the scheduled stage no longer runs. Lee is keen to demonstrate that he is now and adult and is leaving to seek adventure. On the coach are a former Indian Agent and his wife, Mr and Mrs Favor, the Mexican owner and the "McLaren girl", a young woman who has been rescued from capture by the Indians.

This is the set up for a scenario that sees the stage robbed because Mr and Mrs Favor are running away with money stolen from the government while he was Indian Agents. Getting this money meant starving the Apaches - essentially claiming more money than was spent on food. Russell's sympathies with the Apache mean hostility to Mr Favor, but a bigger threat comes from outlaws who know the cash is on the stage. But framing all this is the hostility toward Russell by the Favors who class him as an Indian despite his actual heritage. Russell is forced to travel on top of the stage, but when it is robbed and the horses killed, Russell is the only one with the tracking and shooting skills who can get them to safety.

Like all of Leonard's writing this is a very sprase narrative in terms of description. But it has a lot in it. Written in the 1960s it has anti-racist themes, and as a result it is a intelligent story. The film is relatively faithful to the novel, but I'd recommend the book before the film. The closeness of the movie to the original material undermines the power of the novel. The climax is, however, just as tense as the film.

This edition also contains the super short story Three-Ten to Yuma itself made a film twice (1957 and 2007). This time the films extrapolate a much larger story. The short story just covers the tense last part of the films. Nonetheless its a brilliant little read. A massive tale condensed to barely 15 pages, with the reader feeling he knows everyone's backstory even though its not written down. Again, a fantastic and exciting ending gunfight. You can see way Leonard's work was so often chosen for the big screen - its almost movie like in its sparsity.

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