Watchers on the Wind
a novel
by
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"Hold on, Mr. Daniels," I said. "You've got no hold on Will. If he doesn't want to go with you, as I'm certain he doesn't, then he's free to do as he pleases. We could have you arrested already for shooting at us. Fisher stepped forward. ''Nobody shot at you," he said, calmly. But I could see the uncertainty in his eyes. Without glancing at either of the other men, I could feel them squirming in their saddles. I noticed Fisher looking sideways at Daniels, shaking his head at me, carefully holding his hands in clear view; then, slowly, deliberately, he dismounted and backed his horse away from the open barn door. Farrington, a tall, angry-looking man with black, lowered eyebrows over flaming red cheeks, pulled off his cowboy hat and slammed it against his horse's flank, sending a cloud of dust into the air. "We could break these here choir boys in two, Jase. Just say the Goddamned word." He dropped to the ground and walked his horse to the side of Fisher's mount. Jase Daniels remained in his saddle, hate in his eyes but uncertainty shaping his next move, while Will and I held our position, however shakily. Hank was stunned by the scene; he looked like a man who had been wifrLess to a horrendous, head-on automobile accident. Jase pulled his pistol from its holster, aiming at the middle of my chest. I flinched and shrank backward a step. Jase laughed a hard, mirthless laugh. "Just as I thought, a yellow-bellied chickenshit!" he sneered. I meant to speak loud and clear straight into his face, but the shakes got me. I held my ground but remained speechl "Put the gun down, Dad," Will said. He started to move a step toward his father. The blast from Jase's pistol reverberated off the barn walls; a thin puff of smoke rose in the air from the barrel. All of us fell silent. Will completed the step, then staggered, turned tired eyes away from his father and fell to the ground between X-Ray and me. "He was coming toward me!" Jase bellowed, holstering his gun. "You could see he was threatening me. What choice did I have?" Lee Fisher moved first, dropping to a knee next to Will and turning him on his side.
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About the Book
Watchers on the Wind is the story of two young men, Samuel C Rogers (Mark) and Will Daniels, 1961 graduates of Bergman High School in Bergman, Nebraska, who set out on a travel adventure to California. They find jobs in Northern California at the RBA Ranch, run by a woman named Ruby Belle Anderson, who is not much older than the boys. Both of them are attracted to her, but she is too committed to her work to be sidetracked by a couple of "boys".
At the ranch, Will, who is a good athlete, works on horseback with the other ranch hands, while Mark (the narrator of the story) spends his time as a handy man and general flunky. The underlying story is that Will joined Mark on the trip west mainly to get away from an abusive father Oase), who is determined to find him and bring him home.
Eventually Jase and his posse of ex-convicts locate the Nebraskans and trap them on horseback. In the ensuing struggle one of the boys is wounded; Jase and his men escape.
Soon after, Mark and Will conclude their time on the ranch and make their way back home.
After the men return to Nebraska, there is one more violent confrontation with Jase and his men near the boys' home town.
About the Author
Saylor D Smith grew up in the small town of Lyons in the northeast comer of the state of Nebraska. From the late 1940s until 1958 he completed his public education while pursuing his dream of playing professional baseball. In 1960 he moved to California to complete his college education. He earned his teaching credential and began a thirty-year career as a high school English teacher in California and Oregon. He and his wife Karen Ziros-Smith live in Eugene, Oregon; he is the author of four other works, Serpent's Tooth, Stealing First, A Little Catch, Whistling on the Stair and a young person's novel, The Lemonade Gang and the Mysterious Stranger (co-authored with his daughter Evynne).