Mavericks

Old Jake Hanlon sits above a southwestern plain and retreats into memories of the years when he was a working cowboy. Townspeople now regard him as an inconvenient relic, but his recollections recover the horses, cattle, companions and difficult work that once gave his life purpose. The narrative moves between the diminished present and the physical confidence of Jake's youth.

Written for younger and adult readers, the novel is an affectionate but unsentimental study of ageing and the disappearance of the open-range world. Jake's stories preserve the skill and fellowship of cowboy life while acknowledging that memory can enlarge the past. His final insistence on independence makes him one of Schaefer's clearest symbols of a West overtaken by modern towns and changing expectations.