Outside Man

Farmers don't believe in luck.


"... Early spring, out from beyond Bozeman with four hundred dollars, a couple of fishing poles, and a suitcase stuffed with year-old work clothes, he was driving his car along the straight, flat highway stretching west from Spokane. It was about noon when he first saw Gainesville..."


Farmers may not believe in luck, but here and there, a few men and women survive of that ancient race for whom accidents still might mean something, and portents might exist.


In the Palouse country of Eastern Washington, a laconic, easy-going drifter named Sam Lawrence turns off a highway to get something to eat in a small town. Tired, he takes a room at a hotel and within a few days, with all the casual randomness his life consists of, he finds himself working as a farm hand on a neighboring farm. Sam plans to work through harvest, quietly and efficiently, keeping the town at an arm's distance, and then leave. Whether by luck or fate, though, he's pulled into what seems--for him--the claustrophobic world of Gainesville's small town jealousies, rivalries, vicious rumors, and even more darkly vicious secrets. A situation which, under normal circumstances, would make his taking to the road again inevitable. Except for another accident: of having possibly met the love of his life.