Big Sky Country

People think Wyoming is boring. Most of them didn’t grow up here.

Well, a lot of the people who grew up here think it’s boring, too. And if I’m going to be completely honest, I didn’t really grow up here.

But I feel like I did.

And maybe it’s not really Wyoming that I think is beautiful. How the hills roll endlessly, every smooth lump of pasture-grass-laden dirt stretching on for what seems like forever until it touches the most profoundly vast sky in the world. A sky so big you can see the storms rolling in from hundreds of miles away, over hills so tall and so deep that you can watch the gust front rushing through the leaves of grass long before it hits your face.

No, if I tell myself the truth, it’s not simply the beauty of the infinite that makes me love Wyoming. It’s because, ever since I could remember, seeing the waves of the hills meant I was going to visit Uncle Bobby.

Today I watch these hills out the passenger side window and there are tears in my eyes. This is the last time I will see them, because today we are clearing out the few remaining possessions from Uncle Bobby’s farm.

I give a tiny sniff and wipe a stray tear.

“Lori?”

I look over at my partner. Of course he noticed. Perry always notices. He’s kindhearted like that.

“Hey,” he continues, reaching out a hand, upturned on the center console. “How are you doing?”

I take him up on his offer and give him a sad smile.

“I’m okay,” I say quietly. “It gets harder as we get closer.”

“How do you know we’re getting closer?” my cousin Jeff scoffs in the back seat. “I know you were out here a lot more than me, but I can’t imagine you can tell these hills apart.”

I can’t help an amused smile.

“Yeah, it’s more signs and mile markers out here,” I say diplomatically.

I’m too weary from the funeral to tell him that it’s the very fact that you need signs to know where you are that makes Wyoming so stunning. A land this big is a humbling thing.

~

My husband tends to drive very slowly on gravel roads. He’s a city slicker. So the ten miles of dirt road that is virtually Uncle Bobby’s driveway takes us at least a half hour to traverse. We know we’ve reached the farmstead when we encounter the first dwelling since we left the asphalt. The neighbor’s place is beyond sight, because after all of Bobby’s pastures, then there’s Duncan’s pastures, too.

“This is terrifying,” says Marisa as she climbs out of the car.

“What, the no landmarks thing?” Jeff asks his girlfriend.

“Yeah,” she replies. “Makes me kinda dizzy.”

I don’t necessarily like Marisa. Nevertheless, her comment makes me smile.

“You get used to it,” I reply.

We walk across the driveway toward the house. Faced with the looming façade of what was practically my childhood home, I feel terribly comforted and terribly sad all at once. It is a hard thing to hold in my head and heart at the same time. So Perry comes up beside me to take my hand again and holds the pain with me.

Uncle Bobby was a simple man. He really only kept things he needed. There are a few sentimental pieces around the house, and of course, his dilapidated furniture. Other than that, it’s mostly kitchenware, some cleaning supplies, a few books and tools, and the oldest tube television anyone’s seen in likely a decade.

And his guns, of course. The rifle that used to hang over the fireplace, and the revolver in his lockbox in his bedroom. Those would be mine. I’m the only one who would want them. Hell, the only one who knows how to use them.

I don’t want the rifle. It’s what he used. Thankfully the police still have it as evidence, so we don’t have to worry about clearing it away today.

But the revolver I want—

~

“Got a good grip?”

“Yes, Uncle Bobby,” I said, my two tiny, twelve-year-old hands wrapped around the pommel of the gun.

“Good girl,” he said. “‘Cause remember, it’s gonna jump when you fire it.”

“Yes, Uncle Bobby.”

“Now sight down the barrel,” he continued. “And pick a can. And don’t second-guess yourself. Then you’ll miss. Now when you’re ready… squeeze.”

I fired. The crack of the .45 was deafening. The reward was the high, hollow ting of the empty soda can taking a direct hit and jumping off the post.

“Well done, Lori!” said Bobby. “Or should I say Annie Oakley.”

He smiled down at me, and I grinned proudly up at him.

~

—I look over the little Smith and Wesson. Uncle Bobby was meticulous about keeping his guns properly stored, so it’s unlikely the piece is loaded. But he also taught me gun safety, so as I prepare to take it out of his house, I do exactly what he would have done and check for live rounds.

Empty. And clean as a whistle.

Closing the cylinder, I pause, staring, my brow furrowing. I flatten my hand as if to weigh the weapon.

Why didn’t he use this?

But I shrug the question off. If I am going to try and find clear reasoning in his death, my first question should be why he would commit suicide in the first place. Then the whole train of inquiry derails at the beginning. I will never understand why he decided to do any of it.

So I tuck the .45 securely back in its case, lock it, and leave my uncle’s bedroom.

Walking through the living room, Jeff stops me.

“Hey, Lori?” he asks. “Do you want this rocker?”

He’s standing next to a very run down chair. It’s pretty much an armchair, but with two long wooden rockers at the bottom, and at some point it was probably a very pretty shade of blue. It’s now faded, pilling where the upholstery has taken the most ware. It was Uncle Bobby’s favorite chair, and he’d had it for longer than I can remember—

~

“Easy now, sweetheart,” Uncle Bobby said, his tone gentle, and kind, and sorrowful.

I could smell the tobacco and whiskey in his scraggly beard. It wasn’t all that strong, but it was easy to detect as I was buried in his arms, bawling. He kept a soft but firm hold about my shoulders and my knees as he rocked.

“I know you’re sad,” he said, “but slow down. Deep breaths. It’s not worth hurting yourself over.”

Even though I wanted to scream even harder, it was too warm in his grip, too soothing a motion from the chair, and too quiet outside to be as upset as I wanted to be. Somehow, my six-year-old mind heard him and steadied.

“Now listen close,” he continued softly. “I know your mom and dad are living apart right now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come back together. Sometimes people just need time to themselves to find out how much they miss each other.”

~

—He had been wrong. But somehow, that never bothered me. The result of his falsehood was that I got to spend more time out here.

There are a few spots on the rocking chair that are noticeably lighter than the rest of the weave. It’s where the crime scene techs cleaned his blood away. The effect isn’t much better than the bloodstains would have been.

“No,” I say to my cousin. “You can have it.”

“I actually—,” Jeff fumbles. “I didn’t want it, I just knew you liked it, so wanted to check before we left it for the junkers.”

I can only stare at him. It hurts. It hurts a lot. But I want to junk it, too. I don’t want to do anything else with it. I can’t.

So I say, very quickly, “Yeah, junk it,” and stride out of the house.

I don’t remember the walk to the car, though I do remember tucking the gun case safely in the trunk. Uncle Bobby would have been angry if I didn’t take care. And I don’t remember when I start to cry. Before I know it, I’m walking up the steep slope behind the three-sided shed just off the driveway, tears running down my cheeks.

I stand at the top of the hill overlooking Uncle Bobby’s pastures. I watch the wind whip through the tall grasses, the rippling of a gust rushing toward me. I feel it hit.

The wind is the most powerful thing that was ever made of nothing. This one is so strong, I feel as if it could lift me off my feet. It rips my hair from my face and pulls at my clothing. I feel powerless, but also like I am flying.

And I remember standing atop this hill as a child, ten years old, now from a broken home, and holding a blanket by two corners behind my back to catch the wind. The challenge is to neither step back nor fall forward. The trick is to lean into the gust and trust the air to hold you.

So I lean in.

And the wind blows away my tears.

And then I can see clearly. And something is… wrong.

“Lori?”

My husband is coming up behind me, panting a little as he climbs the hill. I don’t look back, because I knew he would be along soon. Not in an intellectual way, given my fit of upset. Just a part of me that could feel him coming to check on me.

“Trust me;” Perry says, “if we need to find a way to get that chair home, I will find a way.”

I want to smile, but I can’t. I’m looking out over the pastures.

“Honey?” he prompts me, concerned by my unresponsiveness.

“Where are the cattle?” I ask.

“What?”

“Where are the cattle?” I repeat. “Uncle Bobby never had less than three hundred head. Where are the cattle?”

Perry comes shoulder to shoulder with me and looks at what I’m looking at; the empty pastures.

“Huh,” he says. “Maybe someone’s come and got them already?”

“They’re fine on the range as long as the water tanks are working,” I reply, somewhat sharply. “The auction barn is getting them in lots. It’ll take weeks to sell them all off. So where are the cattle?”

Perry doesn’t have an answer. Neither do I. But I know that none of it could be good.

“Why did he use the rifle?” I ask.

“Lori, don’t think about that,” Perry says quickly.

He grips my upper arm and kisses the side of my head. His body is warm against my shoulder, but something’s so cold and tense and tight in my chest that his presence can’t will it away.

“Why would he use a rifle when he had a .45?” I insist.

Perry hums uncertainty, because he doesn’t have an answer for this either.

“I don’t know,” he says. “He wasn’t thinking straight—,”

“No,” I disagree, feeling my temper rise as I consider everything. “No. I know my uncle. Even in that bad a state, he wouldn’t have done something that… illogical. It’s a pain in the ass to blow your brains out with a friggin’ long barrel rifle.”

“Jesus, Lori,” Perry breathes, taken aback by my unceremonious phraseology.

“But I tell you what,” I continue, too mad to be perturbed by my partner’s squeamishness. “Not a lot of people knew he had a .45.”

I can see the gears turning in his head as he realizes what I’m suggesting… then his anxiety as the pieces of the puzzle I’m presenting him with come together to make the same picture.

We lock eyes. His, shocked. Mine, determined.

While I’m looking back at him, I catch movement over his shoulder. I refocus my gaze just in time to see the flicker of a person stepping behind the grain bin.

“Who was that?” I ask.

“Who was what?” Perry replies, turning to look where I am looking.

“Someone just went behind the silo,” I say.

“Was it Jeff or Marisa?” he asks.

“Why would they be out here?”

Then Jeff steps out of Uncle Bobby’s house, looking around. He seems confused. Or is it concerned? But then he turns to look up at my husband and me, and it’s both.

“Have you seen Marisa?” Jeff shouts to us, walking in our direction.

“She’s behind the grain—!” Perry begins.

“That wasn’t Marisa,” I cut him off.

“What?” Perry turns back to me.

“He was too big, and Marisa wasn’t wearing red,” I say.

Then I march in the direction of the silo, passing my ever-more confused cousin on the way.

“What were you saying?” he asks. He missed the conversation over the roar of the wind. “You saw her?”

“No,” I say sharply. “There’s someone else on the property.”

“What?”

He redirects himself to follow along with me. Perry is right on my heels.

“Who would be here other than us?” Jeff asks. “There isn’t even another car in the driveway.”

“They could have parked out of sight,” I say. “Or walked.”

“‘Scuse me, did you say ‘walked’?” Jeff scoffs.

“Yeah, Jeff. Walked,” I reply.

We come up to the bin and begin to work our way around it. I feel anxiety, balled up and buzzing, deep in my gut, but my anger overrules it. Nobody gets to come and wander around my uncle’s farm without his permission.

“Hey!” I call out as we go. “Someone here?”

“Marisa?” Jeff can’t help asking the emptiness for his girlfriend.

We make our way around to the far side. No one’s there. The wind whistles through the space between the buildings. In the distance, a loose piece of tin taps under the breeze’s coercion. We all turn on the spot, searching every corner we can see. And still, we see nothing.

But I know the game of keep-away, how you can hide behind a silo by staying opposite of your pursuant, like a squirrel on a tree trunk. So I keep walking counter-clockwise around the bin. This time I try to walk quietly. My companions don’t know the game as well as I do, but they at least keep their mouths shut.

And finally we reach the other side… and no one’s in sight.

So the questions remain: who was that, and where is Marisa?

The latter we get an answer to first. Because Marisa slides off the roof of the silo and hits the gravel twenty feet away from us.

I scream.

Perry does, too, grabbing onto me as if to pull me out of the way, even though she’s already finished her descent.

“Oh my God!” Jeff shouts and runs over to his girlfriend. “Marisa! No! Marisa!”

He turns her over as Perry and I come up beside him. She’s drenched in blood, but most of it is not from the fall. Her throat has been slit. What’s worse is that her tongue has been cut out.

It’s worse because I know whose specialty that is.

“Oh, God!” I gasp. “Duncan!”

“What?” Perry asks.

“Duncan! Uncle Bobby’s neighbor,” I say. “He’s a butcher in town. He’s known for his cuts of cow tongue. He’s got his own cattle, but he was always jealous of Uncle Bobby’s….”

“Dear God…,” Perry gasps. “You think he’s the one…?”

I nod.

“I’m calling the police,” says Perry.

But when my husband pulls out his phone and tries to dial, he discovers what I already knew about the farm. There’s no signal out here.

Jeff is weeping over Marisa’s corpse. My husband is trying to figure out a way to call for help. I’m watching them… until in the background I see Duncan.

He’s standing by the machine shed where the tin is snapping in the wind. Watching us. Staring. Unsettlingly, like he always had. His arms are at his sides, almost limp, and in one hand he holds a very bloody cleaver.

“Car,” I say.

“What?” Perry looks at me.

“Car! Car! CAR!” I yell.

As I’m screaming my instruction, Perry follows my gaze to find Duncan. In that same time, Duncan starts to walk towards us.

“Holy shit!” my husband screams.

Jeff finally realizes the hubbub and spots Duncan, too.

“You bastard!” he yells.

And like the idiot he is, he runs at the murderer.

“No, Jeff!” I shout after him.

I make to follow, to try and catch him, but Perry grabs me about the waist, because he’s more aware than I am that there’s no helping my cousin. Indeed, Jeff swings a wild haymaker, misses, and immediately takes the cleaver in his gut.

Perry has a tight hold of my wrist and is pulling me after him as we bolt for our vehicle. I know he’s right, but it’s agony to run away from my dying cousin. Jeff’s guttural, wet screams echo after us as we flee.

But when we reach the car, it’s locked.

“Where are the keys?!” Perry begs.

“I don’t have them!” I reply.

“I don’t either!” he says.

Duncan is baring down on us fast. He’s going for my husband first. Perry doesn’t hesitate to look me in the eye, straight to my soul.

I see his mouth form the word “RUN!” rather than hear him say it. And I know he means it, and that he’ll put up a good fight, if to do nothing more than give me a head start. He’s kindhearted like that.

So I take off down the road.

Wyoming is a beautiful place. The rolling hills like the waves of the sea stretch on endlessly. It is stunning to see their dusty, earthen crests and valleys laid out across the forever right up to an infinite ceiling of blue. With not another living soul in sight.

A land this big is a humbling thing.