Hombre is straightforward in technique, as westerns normally are, much simpler than Leonard's later novels of suspense and detection. It also differs from much of his later work in that there is a clear narrative voice: twenty-one-year-old Carl Everett Allen, who worked for the manager of the stagecoach company office at Sweetwater.

Allen's purpose is to tell the whole story of John Russell and the last stage trip out of Sweetwater, and he is perfect for the role: An honest fellow (the same age as Russell), he has a sense of mission that assures forthrightness and completeness. Importantly, although he is intent upon producing a testament to Russell, he tells at the same time the story of his own initiation into manhood, for the stagecoach trip (he is a passenger) marks his progress from youthful innocence to the tragic awareness of adulthood.

Except for the preliminaries, the action...