When young Will Smith goes west to Alberta, he's nursing a number of questions: What does real cowboy country look like? Anything like those hombres in the movies? What does a real cowboy do? Anything heroic, as recorded in the western fiction he’s addicted to? How does a city boy become a cowboy?

You don’t just walk in off the street and start roping cows, do you?

Will, now a dreamy cowboy of reduced circumstances, has a number of surprises in store. There’s a rancher’s wife to watch, and her pesky daughter to avoid. Or he could just fall in love with both of them.

With coyotes yodelling away the lonesome nights, disrupting his dreams, and fresh cow pies laying in wait for unsuspecting new boots, not to mention an old nag that shakes Will's bones apart whenever he dares to ride the range, the code of the west is mighty hard to find, let alone follow. But Will has come out west to put irons in the fire. Trouble is he also has a paint brush in hand, because he's been hired mainly to paint fences.

A teen novella that is waiting for its home on the range. (Presently in submission.)

Interested publishers can email me: j_a_simons@hotmail.com.