montana 1948
...em medical examinations. The accusations are not made public, but to Frank’s brother Wesley—David’s father—who is the sheriff of the small town in which the family resides. Wesley who was the town Sheriff, wrestles with his sense of justice and his fear of confronting his own father who has controlled his whole life. His father is the sheriff, but he never seems to do anything heroic. “And that disappointed me at the time. As long as my tather was going to be a sheriff, a position with so much potential for excitement, danger and bravery, why couldn’t some of that be fulfilled?” This is an awkward situation as not only are the men brothers, but his father handed down the position as sheriff to Wesley, hoping to keep a clean Hayden family name. We perceive him to be the type of person that cannot turn in his own brother and is not the hero that a stereotypical western town should have. In the beginning of the book we get a visual picture of Wes from the eyes of his son David. "He wore a shirt and tie, as many of the men in town did, but at least they wore boots and Stetsons; my father brogans and a fedora. He had a gun but he never carried it, on duty or off." This quote shows us what David thinks of his father. Wesley then had to decide whether he was going to enforce the law like he should as the sheriff of the town, or whether he should turn his back on the law and forget that Frank had done what he had done. The pieces are all put back into the image of a honarable sherrif when Wes makes a revolution in his self esteem. He cant be called a honorable person, or a brave person. Wes is a decent man because of his actions. Wesley was a self-effacing person, a sheriff who never wears his badge. In...