Review: Gunsights: An Action-Packed Western Where Arizona Legends Become Enemies…

I’ve been a fan of westerns for as long as I can remember. Certain revisionist Westerns, such as Unforgiven (1992), have had a profound impact on me. I want to see more, and I want to see them done well.

So when I caught wind that Elmore Leonard had written westerns, over thirty-eight published ones—yeah, I’m sometimes late to learn such things—I was thrilled. Thrilled, I tell you. Gunsights, one of his later ones, published in 1979, was a joy to read.

From what I’ve seen of his movies and read of his books, his characters always have an ulterior motive, if not some sort of scheme in the works. From the “Schlemiel” Anti-Hero protagonist, to the Ordinary “Bad Guy,” to the quirky minor characters, these players jump from the page with their idiosyncrasies, distinct mannerisms, and speech patterns.

These archetypal Leonard characters have a place in Gunsights. There’s retired U.S. Cavalry Captain Brendan Early, the “Schlemiel Anti-Hero,” his friend and sometimes partner, former U.S. Army Scout Dana Moon, the “Capable, Unsung Professional,” and Sundeen, the “Ordinary Bad Guy” with one hell of a mean streak and a decades-long axe to grind against Moon and Early. Indeed, they have a violent history—the friends left Sundeen for dead years before the present story in Sonora, Arizona.

There’s an evil corporation at work here, in late 19th-century Arizona, a mining company from New Jersey (go figure), that wants to remove people from their homes if there’s even a whiff of precious metal to mine. There is, and they are.

Early finds himself an employee/stockholder of the aforesaid LaSalle Mining Company, while the United States government employs Moon as an Indian Agent, a de facto defender of the Apache and other settlers in the Rincon Mountains. Newspapermen, townsfolk, and government workers expect a showdown between these two legends, since they are officially on opposite sides of this conflict, the Rincon Mountain War.

But are they?

One thing is for sure: when the LaSalle Mining Company hires Sundeen as a security manager and tasks him with removing all of the people in the Rincon Mountain community to mine copper, with a surefire chance of finally getting his revenge on Dana Moon, plans shatter, bullets fly, and horse-riding thugs violently dismount. Sundeen is persistently failing at his task, even after hiring out-of-town gunmen and toughs. And yes, there is a showdown, and there is justice meted out, and the big-bad mining company retreats from the Rincon Mountains after it is discovered that the area is bone dry, not from the pressure of the real people living in the area. It’s all about the almighty buck. What else is new?

I recommend this novel if you’re a fan of westerns, if you’re an admirer of Elmore Leonard, or both. I had fun reading it.