Fourteen-year-old John comes of age and gains self-reliance during the summer he spends up in the Wyoming mountains tending his father's herd of sheep.

A novel of the contemporary American West, Spoon tells the story of Arcus Witherspoon, a mysterious half-black, half-Indian, oddly clairvoyant man searching the West for his roots. Hitchhiking near Hardin, Montana, Spoon falls in with a ranching family struggling to keep their ranch afloat amidst the pressures of hard economic times and an encroaching coal company. Proving himself a gifted ranch hand and mentor, Spoon charges himself with rescuing...