lawman appear in history as the Western spectacle: notably, fame and a reputation
accompany each figure as it does Raylan. In his pursuance of order, Raylan is willing to
cross boundaries, to behave immorally, to ensure a momentary stop to the criminal
behavior in his community, thereby returning it to its former utopic condition. When the
series opens, Raylan appears to have parted ways with Harlan County; however, this
separation is short-lived.
In 1.1, Raylan is introduced as a seventeen-year veteran of the US Marshal
service currently located in Miami, Florida. According to Slotkin, the Old West was no
longer considered an existing space but rather only an influential concept after 1890 (4).
As Etulain discusses the popularity of the Western, indicating its various representations
in media (the novel, the film, etc.), he also acknowledges that interest in the Western
waned briefly in the late 1960s and 1970s before increasing with the appearance of
Dances with Wolves in 1990 (Telling 95; Introduction x). As with other New West
writers, Leonard has recreated a version of the Old West in “Fire in the Hole”, thereby
updating it to reflect twenty-first century concerns. Reporter Julie Hinds of the Detroit
Free Press calls Raylan “a hero with a hint of John Wayne” (Leonard, “‘Justified’
character”). In reference to the frontier, in the case of Justified, this term is used to
designate a space without defined borders in which a threat to the “standard of living”—
one’s freedom—expressly exists and must be defeated by th