Dust on the Wind (1998)

Bill Brooks's western was published by Pinnacle; its copyright page reads 1997 and gives the first printing as January 1998. Quint McCannon, the narrator, a friend of the murdered Ben Beadle, sets out to find Ben's killer; late in the book, at Mattie's snowbound cabin, he faces the gunman Kimbo Luke. (Open Library)

Watches

Ingersoll watch: Shamming death in the snow after Kimbo Luke's big gun has brought down Hook's horse, McCannon feels the gunman go through his jacket pockets and pull out his Ingersoll, his tobacco and the book about Don Quixote; after the shooting he gathers up his nickel-plated watch and puts it back in his pocket (p. 324). Riding on toward Cheyenne with no money, he lays the Ingersoll on a homesteader's table to pay for a meal: he bought it in Laredo from a club-footed man selling them on a street corner (p. 336). It is a pocket watch. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: I reached in my pocket and took out the Ingersoll and laid it on the table. I'd bought the watch in Laredo from a man with a club foot who was selling them on a street corner one summer afternoon. It kept better time than half the railroads. (Bill Brooks, Dust on the Wind, scan cataloged as Pinnacle Books, 1997 (copyright 1997; First Printing: January, 1998), p. 336; the OCR breaks the first sentence with a stray rule mark after "in my", omitted here; Internet Archive scan OCR)