One Man’s Honor

This happened out where distance ran past vision and only clumped silver-green of sagebrush and blunt bare rising ridges of rock broke the red-brown reaches of sand and sun-baked silt.

This spare tale by Jack Schaefer, author of the rightly vaunted Shane, is one of shifting perspectives. In one view we have a pursuit over the harsh ground so memorably described in the opening passage.

In the other view we have a heart-breaking visit to a homestead and the tragedies that have been visited upon it.

Schaefer has these two perspectives combine in an unexpected manner. While this highly regarded story is good, in this reader’s mind it is not up to his earlier reviewed Emmet Dutrow, but lesser Schaefer is often head and shoulders above many.