Elmore Leonard: The Law at Randado

The Law at Randado (1954), by Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard’s second novel, The Law at Randado, came out in 1954. The Bounty Hunters showed him figuring things out, still finding his voice and rhythm, but it didn’t take long for Leonard to get into his groove: by his second outing, he had more or less figured out how he wanted to go about his business, both in terms of style and technique.

Westerns were still Leonard’s genre of choice, and he’d keep working on them for a good while longer. But starting from here, his take on the Western feels decidedly more modern than in his earlier outing. The Bounty Hunters was a pretty traditional tale, all things considered: a couple of cowboys on a pulpy adventure — a pretty fun adventure, to be sure, one with some style and even real things to say, but still something that felt much like a boys’ adventure book. The Law at Randado, on the other hand, is less an adventure than it is an exploration of character. That puts it squarely in Leonard’s real area of expertise.

Plot summary: Kirby Frye is a deputy to John Danaher, sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, who “keeps order in a stretch of land as big as any one man’s been asked to watch.” Frye’s beat is Randado. He’s young and inexperienced, but he’s the only lawman in town, picked by Danaher for the job when he saw something in Frye he liked in a deputy.

Frye’s caught a couple of Mexicans rustling cattle, now in his jail waiting for Danaher in Tucson to send for them. The cattle belongs to Phil Sundeen, heir to his badly ailing father’s cattle empire. Sundeen’s got considerable power and influence, and that’s precisely how he likes it. He’s the kind of rich asshole who’s easily bored and does whatever he thinks will amuse him, which includes things like being drunk most of the time, not paying his men when he’s supposed to, or riding a horse into somebody’s living room, because what’s anybody gonna say about it? He’s got people to deal with problems; in particular, Digo, a powerfully built horsebreaker who’s enforcer and enabler in equal parts, and Clay Jordan, a dangerous gunfighter for hire. Digo’s fiercely loyal to the Sundeen family. Jordan isn’t, but as long as he’s paid, it makes no difference.

With Frye out of town on business, the Randado’s Citizens Committee — which takes its marching orders from Sundeen — decides that waiting for these Mexicans to get sentenced and hanged in Tucson is a waste of time. Surely the good people of Randado should be able to take care of their own justice.

George Stedman said, “Like R.D. mentioned this is a crime committed against a citizen of Randado. Now common sense would tell us that the citizens of Randado, as a body, ought to be qualified to see that justice is administered.”

The man in the back who had spoken now said, “We’d be nothing more than a lynch mob.”

Earl Beaudry said, “We’re going to try them first.”

George Stedman brought his fist down on the table. “If we’re a lynch mob then that’s what the court up at the country seat is, that’s what any court is if you look at it that way. Can’t you see we’re talking as the people, and there isn’t any court on the face of the earth that’s more than that!”

So in the course of one Saturday morning, the Citizens Committee elects a city prosecutor and a judge, and holds a trial to which the two Mexicans aren’t invited, finds them guilty, and sentences them to death. Then they drag the rustlers to the livery, where they hang them, with Sundeen pushing them every step of the way. Perfectly legal, right?

Frye doesn’t think so. He confronts the Citizens Committee. It doesn’t go well; Frye’s competent, but he’s only been the deputy for a month, and he’s hesitant to assert his authority in the face of these older men. As far as the citizens are concerned, Frye works for them, and in any case, they’re not about to admit they did anything wrong. But Frye won’t let it go, either. Sundeen decides to humiliate him, so he tells Digo pull down Frye’s pants right there in the middle of the saloon. He makes it into a game: if Digo can do it in two minutes, he’ll buy Digo a drink. Frye puts up a good fight, but in the end, Digo overpowers him and beats the crap out of him.

Frye’s nursing his pride and his busted face when Sheriff Danaher arrives, having heard about the lynching. Danaher’s tough as nails, but he’s not about to do Frye’s job for him. He likes Frye — after all, he hired him — but he also wants to see if Frye’s really got what it takes. Frye’s discouraged and hesitant, and scared. But he knows what he’s supposed to do. In Randado, he’s the man with the star on his chest, and it’s about time he served arrest warrants on all of these folks.

Danaher would just drag these people into jail at gunpoint. Frye doesn’t want to do that, because it’ll be weeks before the actual court date, and he doesn’t think they will run. They have businesses and families here. He just wants to serve them the warrants to get the process started. But he can’t find the men responsible; they’re all ducking Frye, and the town is covering for them. The only one Frye can find is Phil Sundeen. So he’s the one Frye confronts… but Sundeen isn’t about to be served, either.

“Mr. Jordan takes care of my legal affairs.” Sundeen nodded to Jordan who was standing directly in line with Frye now, his coat open and his thumbs hooked close to the buckle of his gunbelt.

Frye said, “Then he can advise you about the warrant you’re getting.”

“He says I’m not going to get one. Digo either.”

Now it’s coming, Frye thought, holding himself still in the doorway, making himself relax. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept his jaw clenched and his eyes steady on Sundeen.

“Jordan says I won’t get one ’cause you’re not man enough to serve it. He says when a sheriff’s got a yellow streak then he’s got no authority to serve warrants.”

“Do you want it right now?” Frye asked.

“You can try,” Sundeen grinned.

“But you’d rather see me try for my gun.”

“You might as well. If your hand went inside your coat how’s Jordan to know whether it’s for a warrant or a gun. He’d have to protect himself.”

“What’s he got to do with this?”

“I told you, he’s my lawyer. Digo’s too.” Saying this he glanced at the Mexican. “That’s right?”

“Nothing but the best,” Digo said, taking the cigarette from his mouth.

“So if you got something to take out of your pocket,” Sundeen added, “it’s for Mr. Jordan.”

Frye can tell that Jordan’s all too happy to draw and shoot, something he’s obviously very good at. And Sundeen’s people will swear that Jordan acted in self-defense. They keep goading Frye to go for the warrant or the gun. It’s a tense situation, and finally Frye attempts to arrest Sundeen. For a moment, it looks like it might work, but then things go sideways: Frye ends up disarmed and beaten again. Sundeen has Digo pull off Frye’s boots, and drive him out of town, walking barefoot over the harsh ground as Digo rides after him, lashing at his back with a rope — something Sundeen also did earlier to a few of his riders when they demanded their wages for a cattle drive, and Sundeen didn’t feel like paying them.

It’s another low for Frye, who has to hide outside of town. But it’s not that great for Sundeen, either; he’s got wealth, power, and political juice, and the entire town kissing his ass — but he’s crossing major lines here. When Sheriff Danaher returns to Randado a few days later, having not heard from Frye, he comes with a posse. Sundeen makes it out of Randado before he’s caught. Digo isn’t as lucky. Separated from him, Sundeen flees with Jordan. Frye, Danaher and the posse give pursuit. At one point Jordan and Sundeen have a falling out; Jordan sees Sundeen is just running around at random with no real plan, and takes off. The posse splits up, with Frye and an Apache tracker named Dandy Jim going after Jordan. They track him down, and after a tense game of cat-and-mouse where Jordan, pinned down behind some rocks, first pretends to be wounded and in need of help, then tries to goad Frye into showing himself, and finally pretends to shoot himself in order to lure Frye in — none of which works — Frye manages to sneak up on Jordan’s position. Jordan isn’t the surrendering type, and Frye guns him down. Which only leaves Phil Sundeen.

Sundeen manages to escape from the posse after shooting one of the Citizens Committee members who tries to surrender, and makes it back to Randado. He’s starting to realize there’s no way out of this, that he’s out of allies, that there might actually be hell to pay for everything he’s done. As far as he’s concerned, it’s all Frye’s fault, and Sundeen intends to make this kid pay for his insolence and interference. But Frye takes him down without even drawing his gun, establishing once and for all that money and power aren’t the law at Randado.

Thoughts: Where The Bounty Hunters was sometimes clumsy, feeling a little off, not quite flowing the way you’d expect or hope, The Law at Randado never falters. Technically, it’s a great improvement. Reading The Bounty Hunters there was often a subtle feeling that what I was reading was somehow disconnected from what I’d read earlier, almost as if I had failed to pay attention when I should have, or that I might’ve even missed an entire chapter. The technical labor of set-up/follow-through/payoff just wasn’t quite there.

That’s not the case with The Law at Randado: this is a more meticulously executed work, and as a result, a more pleasurable read. I hesitate to use the word, but I’d go so far as to call it a much more sophisticated book — not in any kind of remotely pretentious sense, but purely in how it’s crafted. It’s not really Leonard at his finest, yet — this is still very early in his career, and he’ll get much, much better at this racket — but reading these two books pretty much back to back, the difference is striking.

This consistently reads like an Elmore Leonard novel in a way the previous one really didn’t. Every scene feels relevant, the flow feels natural, and the characterization stands out throughout. Even relatively minor characters, like the Coyotero Apache tracker Dandy Jim (actually named Tloh-ka, but white men, in their infinite wisdom, just called him “Jim” because it was easier, which then became “Dandy Jim” due to his association with a cavalry regiment known as “the Dandy 5th”) come across as fully formed people with their own quirks and concerns. Dandy Jim happens to be locked up in the same jail as the two Mexicans who get lynched. He thinks it’s because he cut off his wife’s nose after catching him with another man, but it’s actually just because he was drunk and disorderly — he’s a valued and well-liked tracker for the Army, and they’ll overlook both offenses.

Dandy Jim isn’t even sure if he feels guilty about what he’s done, although he feels bad — it’s the custom, and he feels justified, but he also knows he wouldn’t have done it if he was sober. The book doesn’t resolve any of this; it’s not Dandy Jim’s story. But with this context, everything he does — how he interacts with Frye, how he helps him track and take down Jordan — has an added layer of complexity.

This is the sort of thing Leonard did all the time, and made it look easy. Almost everybody is interesting and surprising. Nobody is just one thing. Kirby Frye himself is an example of that: he’s smart and capable, brave and principled, in the tradition of idealized Western lawmen. But he’s also inexperienced and hesitant. He gets scared and discouraged. It’s obvious he can handle himself in a fight, whether it’s with his fists or a gun, but in the first half of the book, he repeatedly walks into situations without preparing properly, expecting people to respect his authority or to simply be reasonable. He’s not a hardass the way John Danaher is. And yet that softness also makes Frye the better lawman. He listens to people and he pays attention.

Not that Danaher is just a tough guy, either — he’s introspective, and he wants Frye to succeed, and in fact, he appreciates that softness and flexibility in Frye, recognizing that it’s an asset. When Danaher makes a mistake late in the story that allows Sundeen to slip away, he owns up to it. He doesn’t have to — his authority, official and moral, is indisputable — but he makes it a point to acknowledge his mistake, even if it makes him look and feel like a fool.

The difference between the sheriff and his deputy is particularly evident when Danaher is interrogating Digo to find out where Sundeen has gone — Digo, who, at that point, has given Frye two beatdowns and gleefully abused him, so Frye has no particular reason to be nice to him. Danaher is dealing with Digo the best way he knows how, the old-fashioned way, where Digo’s in a chair and Danaher works him over. He’s angry, not getting the cooperation or respect he demands, and he goes in hard on Digo; eventually, the sheriff beats him unconscious. But Digo won’t give up Sundeen. He’s got the kind of loyalty you can’t beat that out of a man.

Then Frye tries it his way. He talks it out with Digo. He says Danaher’s going to find Sundeen anyway; they have Dandy Jim with them, and an accomplished Apache tracker like him will pick up Sundeen’s sign, no problem — but it’ll take longer, and spending days tracking Sundeen down is just going to piss Danaher off even more. He’s already plenty mad, after all, as Digo knows better than anybody. Who knows how far he might go after he’s let it build up for a couple of days? Maybe he’ll just blow Sundeen away the moment he finally catches him. Whereas if Digo tells Frye where to find Sundeen, Frye can be the one to track him down and take him in alive. If Digo speaks, maybe Sundeen doesn’t have to die. This kind of finesse is beyond Danaher, but Frye’s got a softer touch. It works. (Danaher, to be clear, wouldn’t just straight up murder Sundeen like that — but Digo has incentive to think otherwise.)

Digo and Sundeen have a weird, sort of familial relationship. Phil Sundeen is a rich white man, Digo is a Mexican horsebreaker — they aren’t equals. But Digo is loyal to Sundeen’s father, and he watched Sundeen grow up. He knows the boy is bad, but he’s promised the father to look after Phil, to protect him, and he’ll die to do it. At the same time, whatever sympathy one might have for Digo is subverted by the fact that he’s a bully, just as bad as Sundeen. It is, in fact, Digo who does most of the work hanging the two Mexicans, and he’s fine with it. But Digo is arguably the closest thing Sundeen has to a friend. Perhaps even a father figure.

Sundeen stood at the bar, but Jordan and Digo took a bottle and glasses to a table.

“He drinks too much,” Jordan said.

Sitting down at the table, Digo shrugged. “He holds it… and it’s his money.”

“And the more he drinks, the less you have to work.”

“Watching him is work in itself.”

“It’s starting to wear thin.”

“You get used to it,” Digo told him.

“How long have you been at it?”

“Almost since the day he was born.” Digo smiled. “I taught him to ride… how to break a horse… how to drink. I taught him many things.”

Jordan’s gaze left Sundeen standing at the bar and returned to Digo. “And now there’s nothing left to teach.”

Digo nodded. “Now I watch. I told this one’s father I would watch him, so that’s what I do.”

Everybody else is either afraid of Sundeen, sucking up to him, or being paid by him. Digo actually cares. In fact, at the end, when Sundeen is by himself, when he hears that Digo’s in jail, that’s when he finally starts to think about how this might end. Until that moment, it has all been a game — lynching the cattle rustlers, refusing to pay his men their wages, humiliating and beating Frye, running from the law, and more. But now Digo isn’t there anymore. Being above everybody else is as natural to Sundeen as breathing, but in the end, that’s not the relationship he has with Digo, even though he’s the boss and Digo is the hired help — even though he’s a white man and Digo isn’t. It’s not clear if Sundeen has actual effection for Digo, but it’s clear he knows Digo is the one man who’s always going to have his back, no matter what. There’s no one else. He feels that loss.

Sundeen is casually racist, but he’s not particularly motivated by his racism. He doesn’t want the Mexicans hanged because they’re Mexican, he wants them hanged because they stole from him — and more than that, he might not even want them dead as much as he wants the Citizens Committee to do his bidding. That’s how he exercises his power over everybody else, doing things that normal people can’t get away with. Randado runs the way he wants it to.

Really, it’s power — and how easily it corrupts — that you really find at the core of The Law at Randado… power, and responsibility. Sundeen has all the power in the world, given to him by the citizens of Randado who will let him do what he wants. Frye has the power given to him by the star he wears, but not the authority — he isn’t taken seriously, not by Sundeen and not by the people he’s there to serve. It all comes to a head in the end, with Sundeen calling Frye out to De Spain’s place for the final confrontation — yet another tense situation that’s got all the makings of a classic showdown; two men facing off, and one of them’s going to be faster than the other one.

But that’s not how it goes down. Sundeen is already drunk, and he’s daring Frye to draw, over and over again. But Frye doesn’t. And Sundeen doesn’t, either.

“Everybody’s wrong but you,” Frye said. He watched Sundeen take another drink. He did not touch his, but said quickly, “We let Tindal and Stedman go, but we’re going to lock you up tight until Judge Finnerty’s ready for you.”

“You’re not locking anybody up.”

“You’ll sit about three weeks waiting for the trial. Then Finnerty’ll send you to Yuma for a few years.” Frye glanced at De Spain and the bartender slid the bottle along the bar to Sundeen and filled his glass to the top. “Be the driest years you ever spent,” Frye said.

Sundeen raised the glass and drank it off, slamming the glass down on the bar. “I’d like to see Finnerty with enough guts to send me to Yuma!”

“You’ll see it.”

“He’s got guts like you have,” Sundeen said. “In his mouth.”

“Phil,” Frye said mildly, “how long have you been bluffing people?”

Sundeen grinned. “You think I’m bluffing?”

“You can shoot quicker, ride faster… drink more than anybody else.”

“You sound like you don’t believe it.”

And with that, it turns into a drinking contest, with Sundeen wanting to prove that he can hold his liquor better than Frye can. He’ll shoot Frye afterwards. Whether this actually makes sense to Sundeen or if he’s just avoiding a point of no return isn’t entirely clear, but it’s what he insists on. In a fair contest, he’d probably win, too — but Sundeen’s got a hefty head start on the drinking, and once things progress to a point where Sundeen can barely stay on his feet, Frye doesn’t need his revolver to take Sundeen down. Once again, not something Danaher would do — he’d force a confrontation and overpower Sundeen, give him the choice: surrender or get shot. Frye has more subtlety than that.

The Law at Randado is a pretty solid outing, all things considered. Still, you can tell it’s an early effort. A lot of it is kind of hard to define — Leonard’s later work is just better. In some ways, it’s hard to say why. I think it’s the accumulation of a thousand tiny things — as he goes on, the dialogue becomes a little snappier, the writing a little sharper, the pacing more on point. But you can also point to specifics. For instance, there’s how women are depicted: they’re firmly in the sidelines, just sitting around while men do things. There’s characterization, they get internal lives like everybody else, so an attempt is made, but in terms of actual character agency or relevance to the plot, they might as well not exist. That’s not atypical for Westerns, of course, but for Leonard — known for characters like Karen Sisco and Jackie Brown — it seems off. I suppose most of that can be chalked up to the 50s being the 50s, more than anything else. He’ll get better at this, as we’ll definitely see in due time.

In many ways, the book is classic Western fare; there’s the rich cattle baron oppressing the little people, placing himself above the law, and the one man who won’t bow down to him. But it’s all in the execution, how the characters go about their business, what happens in their heads. Sundeen’s the rich asshole, no question about that, but he’s also a man who never has to think about his actions, sheltered from consequence by wealth and privilege — until he pushes it too far. Frye’s the noble, incorruptible hero, but his insecurities and hesitations see him making mistakes, forcing him to learn as he goes. It’s all evolving perspectives, and that’s where the pleasure of reading the book lies.

It’s also interesting that while the stakes here are clearly defined and personal, they aren’t necessarily as high as the genre conventions of Westerns would dictate. Right from the start, there’s a clear sense that Sundeen won’t get away with what he’s done. Obviously, the people of Randado can’t just decide to become judges and prosecutors and hold trials and executions on their own; obviously, there are going to be consequences. Sure, Sundeen’s got power and influence and money, but at the end of the day, he’s no J.P. Morgan or Cornelius Vanderbilt — he’s just a guy with a bunch of cattle. The question isn’t whether he’s screwed, but how it all plays out and how much collateral damage there is.

We know this from the get-go, and it’s fine — the story doesn’t hang on that kind of suspense. No, Leonard’s always been at his finest exploring not what happens, but how and why it happens. That’s where The Law at Randado excels.

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