Randy, a husky old crust in a tall hat and a striped, blue western shirt, sits on a stool at The Star Hotel and Bar — since 1910 the social crossroads of downtown Elko, Nevada — drinking a glass of bitter Picon punch, a specialty of this traditional Basque restaurant. It’s three PM on a Friday, the hour of indolence, and he’s telling me bawdy stories from an era which has ended, it seems, most everywhere but here. It’s not the frontier era (corporate gold mines sustain this region now, although there are still teeming sheep herds in the mountains, tended by immigrant shepherds from Peru) though it does have the feel of an older way of being — elemental, earthy, alkaline. It’s a spirit I associate with Elko as I do no other western town, and why I visit every year or two to fill up on lamb or seafood at The Star, gamble in the Stockmen’s Hotel Casino, and fortify my depleted animal spirits.  As three weary-looking young gold miners look on, sharing a steaming tureen of cabbage soup at …