THE Ranch is the center of it all.
Meeting Salty Ewell #
From SkyPilot coming out early Summer 2026
Moose, ToadFlax, and Cat have been coming to the Valley for quite a while.
Checking out the land.
Checking out the people.
Checking out the feel of these mountains throughout the year.
In the snow. In the Spring. Late Summer. And Fall.
It takes several years.
Several years to decide that this is the right place.
The right time.
The same time Salty Ewell is settling into the idea of selling the family place. Generations of Ewells have been born on the land. Generations of memories. Generations of skeletons in closets.
Forever. Some buried.
Some needing to be.
For almost ten years family, friends, neighbors, art gallery acquaintances encourage Salty to sell all or part of the land. Downsize as befits an aging artist.
The Boys pull into his driveway.
The perfect collision of rights.
They show up in a nice looking 1947 5-window Chevy pickup. It isn’t show-quality, but it shows the quality of the people inside. The moment Salty sees the Chevy he knows that the only thing still 1947 5-window Chevy pickup is the body.
It doesn’t handle like a ’47 on the dirt road.
It doesn’t sound like a ’47 sitting in the drive. |
Salty figures the frame, the suspension, the engine, the transmission, the drivetrain are all pretty modern. But it isn’t a pampered ‘city-boys’ truck.
No air-conditioning.
Slightly faded.
A few scraps.
And It’s dirty.
This 1947 5-window Chevy pickup and the three boys in it are enigmas.
Salty Ewell likes enigmas.
So Salty sets down his pipe and Mason jar of whiskey. Gets out of his chair and steps off his front porch into the rest of his life.
Handshakes and comments about the weather are cordial.
Salty invites the boys in for coffee.
He may offer some whiskey later. After he sizes up their manners.
They are, of course, young men.
Mid to late-thirties at a guess.
Salty is in his mid 60s. Moose, ToadFlax and Cat are boys by comparison. And they will be ‘The Boys’ for the rest of Salty’s life.
As they walk to Salty’s porch, Cat asks where a good place would be to ‘take a leak’. Salty points at a couple large trees slightly downhill of the house.
Cat nods and heads for the trees.
Salty smiles.
Definitely not city boys.
He leads the others into his house and into the kitchen.
Just as Salty finishes grinding the coffee beans Cat walks in. Asks if he can wash his hands in the kitchen sink.
‘Sure thing,’ says Salty. ‘The soap is made by Ethel. She sells it at Aunt Jean’s Grocery. You all probably passed the Grocery just before you left the asphalt road and headed up the mountain’.
All three nod.
Moose, a connoisseur of coffee, walks over to check out the bag of beans and coffee grinder. The beans are in a five-pound burlap bag from Kenya. The coffee grinder is old, but in pristine condition.
Salty measures out coffee for six cups. Starts to walk over to the drip coffee maker then stops. Looks around at the boys.
They’re big.
Cat, the smallest, is bigger than Salty. With a half-smile Salty walks back to the grinder to get some more coffee. Enough for 12 cups.
The Bunn drip coffee maker is totally out of place.
It’s brand new.
Doesn’t fit the feel of the house at all. Moose’s look of perplexity catches Salty’s attention.
He smiles.
‘I like coffee. It’s one thing i’ll spend my money on just to satisfy myself’. Moose grins.
‘Coffee will take a couple of minutes. Let me walk you around the place’. They all head back to the front of the house.
Salty decides he likes these boys.
Actually, he decides that in the yard shaking hands.
There is something honest about them.
Something straight forward.
They’re comfortable in their own skins.
As they walk through the dining room Moose sees a picture hanging on the wall. A fading, black and white photograph of several Army guys wearing World War II jump gear.
Moose walks up to it. Looks a moment. Points to one of the guys. ‘This you sir?’
Moose has a way with faces. He can easily identify a face he sees in another situation. Even years later. This skill
and his size
get him into the recon unit with Cat and Toad.
‘Yep’, right before the jump into Salerno, Italy. Middle of September 1943. Our second combat jump.
First was July. Into Sicily’.
Moose tells Salty that Toad, Cat and he were in the Marine Corps together.
‘Figured there was something’. Salty nods. ‘You can tell when guys have shared seriously honest times. Let me show you the rest of the house’. Salty leads the boys around.
It’s an old house. A Sears Roebuck ‘Modern Home’ from the late 1920s. Ordered and built by the Granger family who bought this piece of land from Salty’s grandfather back in 1900. Salty brought the land back into the Ewell family in the late 1960s. The Granger clan deciding on city-life.
Downstairs has a large living room/dinning room. Kitchen. Bedroom. Bathroom. A front office/workroom.
Originally a bedroom.
A front studio/workroom.
Originally a parlor.
Salty lifts his chin toward the stairs. ‘There are three bedrooms upstairs. One is still a bedroom. The other two are for storage. Funny how one old man can collect stuff. Back when my wife was alive our house was spotless. Uncluttered and organized. Guess i’ve let things go’.
Despite Salty’s self-deprecation, the house, like the coffee grinder, is in remarkably good shape. It’s easy to see there have been skillful renovations. Some fairly recent. Some when the house came out of its crates. All done keeping the feel of a Sears’ Sheridan House.
The pungent fragrance of fresh coffee pulls them back to the kitchen.
An hour later the four of them are driving up to the ‘old Ewell family farm’ across the creek. Moose and ToadFlax in the bed of the Chevy pickup.
Cat driving.
Salty, riding shotgun, directing.
That evening all four sit on Salty’s front porch drinking coffee and sipping Salty’s ‘handcrafted single malt’.
Swapping stories and….
lies. Like friends and soldiers do.
It takes almost five months for the details to be worked out. By January the papers are signed. March 15th Salty helps The Boys start moving into the Ewell place.
The Ewell place.
Soon to become THE Ranch.
Two Men of Faith #
From SkyPilot coming out early Summer 2026
Salty and Father Alkire meet on ‘The Big Rez’. The Navajo Nation. In Arizona.
Also New Mexico, Colorado & Utah.
Father Alkire serving his first assignment as a ‘boot’ priest.
Salty visiting his mother’s family in Rough Rock. In his younger days Salty often visits Rough Rock. Often spending most of his Summer vacation. The rest of the year he lives in Harrison Arkansas. About 30 miles from the ancestral home of the Ewells.
Over the years Salty and Father Alkire become friends.
Close friends.
Family.
Their friendship built on acceptance of their differences. Respect for each other’s beliefs.
Salty learns theology in Roman Catholic parochial schools balanced by traditional Dine’ theology of his mother’s ancestors.
Father Alkire learns theology in Roman Catholic churches and universities balanced by empirical theology from his parents and John Locke. And a PhD in astrophysics.
Salty and Father Alkire both believe in God. Both practice prayer. Both reject
categorically reject
‘blind acceptance’ of anything.
newhouse notebook 