The sky over Ten Sleep was almost always blue, ranging from a cornflower at the horizon to a nearly purple, overhead, in the spring. In the seven months that Janine had lived in Thermopolis, she'd seen the sky over their house covered with black, tumescent thunderclouds so low she thought she could touch them with an upraised hand, and white wispy cirrus clouds 40,000 feet high, she was told, and wind that had long since pulled the dirt away and now fed on plants, ripping goldenrod and miners' candle out of the ground, blowing them half to Nebraska. But Ten Sleep seemed to have less wind, people said. Maybe it was the effects of Zeisman Dome or the Ten Sleep Canyon, some strange stratographic thing, she thought. People she asked just said, "No, Ten Sleep is just sleepy."

The wind was howling now, rocking her Subaru as she drove. She was going to Buffalo to see if anyone there had any idea how to get a new solenoid for her dish washer. Somewhere inside her, she knew it was a hopeless task, and that the best she could hope for was to end up buying a new Kenmore, driving down to Laramie or Fort Collins to pick it up, and that there was a very real possibility she would be washing the dishes by hand for a long time. Off the port bow, she saw fifteen antelope, loping along beside her car, startled but not particularly agitated. They were doing 35 miles an hour. One, closer to her, had its leftforeleg tucked up underneath itself, some old injury that didn't seem to slow it down in the slightest. Another gust of wind hit, blowing her into the other lane and obscuring her view of the antelope. She wrestled the car back into the correct lane, hoping that there wasn't a semi full of thin, gray cattle heading towards her in one of those dust-blind moments.

When she'd been at Colorado State, she'd gone up to Cheyenne Frontier Days, done some rock climbing at Veedauwoo, just across the Wyoming border, and she'd laughed at the stories of the Wyoming weather gauge ("A length of logging chain -- if it's wet, you're gonna get rain, if it's covered in a snow drift you're gonna get snow, if it's gone, you're gonna get a bit of wind") but now she thought that a nice windfarm, with 10,000 windmills, could probably power the whole United States, if anyone could afford to replace the ones the wind ripped out. The dust streaked across the road in streams, like water, and the hiss and spatter on the windshield said to her that she'd be replacing it soon, glazed and frosted before it had a single chip or crack. Her Outback's sparking dark green, after two months outside in Thermopolis, was now a matte olive, making her car look like one of the military convoys that trekked interminably across the state.

About five miles outside Ten Sleep, she saw an old white Ford F150 quarter-ton pick-up parked by the road. On its left flank was spray-painted, in red:

YARD SALE

we give up, going away

FURNATURE TACK APPLIANCES ONE MILE --->

She signalled to turn, thinking to herself how silly that was, as she hadn't seen another car in half an hour, and pulled off the pavement, kicking up dust that snared away across the low brush. There was room in the hatchback for a dish washer. She might get lucky.

The road had been driven wet, out to the mailbox and back, leaving deep ruts that the Outback squirmed over. It angled southeast, and the sun still rising to her left shone at a glazing angle through the hole in the clouds over Ten Sleep. She was under that hole now, and the air was still. She rolled down her window as she drove, and watched a jackrabbit the size of a poodle run across the ground at her approach, leaving little puffs of dust behind it as it ran towards some abandoned oil well equipment. She figured that the 'one mile' claim might have been a bit optimistic, as she could see no house within a mile. She squinted off to her right to the snow-covered peaks of the Mummy Range, 95 miles south of her, thought about the sign on the Ford, and about joining them, giving up and moving back to Evergreen or one of the Colorado Front Range cities. She could find a job, soldering electronics in a long line of robotic people all dressed in blue, or entering numbers into computers in a windowless room at the Denver Tech Center all day long. Either one would pay better than going out and counting hawks the whole day every day.

The road took a hard turn to her left, dropped down into a thin valley hidden between two low buttes, and at its heart she could see trees. Maybe it was just a mile to the house. She stopped to open a wire gate, pulling the bar over with one arm wrapped around the fencepost, leaving the other hand free to work the wire off the top of the bar, where the barbs sunk into the cracked wood. As she drug the gate free, two lark buntings shrieked off at her approach. Beyond the gate, she saw that the ground on either side of the road was aflame with firecracker penstimon and indian paintbrush, a scarlet riot, and behind them the yellow of flowering alfalfa and even some sunflower. She wondered why it hadn't been mowed down by cattle; anyone who lived out here raised cattle. There wasn't anything else to do -- well, except to count hawks, but people who worked for Wyoming Fish and Wildlife didn't get to live in places like this.

The road forked, and she took the right turn, which looked a lot more used. It promptly took two sharp turns and descended down a long slippery gravel-over-bare-rock descent to the base of the valley, where it split again, two paths going into the cottonwood that sat along the river. Neither looked very well-used, now, so she took the right one on impulse. It turned soon after getting in among the trees, and she drove across the dry streambed, all deep soft tan sand. The road rose rapidly on the opposite side, getting back onto the bank, then took a left for a short distance, and dropped precipitously down to the stream again, at which point she realized that this was a big turn-around and she was going to end up back at the rocky descent. She put the car in first and eased down over the bank, hearing the undercarriage scrape on the ground, and crept down to the bank. The front bumper scraped heavily in the sand as she slowly moved out from the bank, and the trailer hitch hit and drug on the back, digging a furrow in the middle of the road. A short distance past the streambed she found a fenceline across the road. In annoyance she turned the car around and drove back. The sand was ruffled, dark brown from exposed moisture, where her bumper had drug and she drove up to the bank slowly to keep from really tearing the car up trying to climb the bank, but as the front wheels touched the bank, the bumper dug into the raised hump and the tires shifted in the sand. She backed up and tried it again a bit harder, but there was a 'whump' as the bumper dug heavily into the bank and the car stopped suddenly, jerking her head forward. She backed up and turned, driving down the sandy streambed, to catch the road on which she'd originally crossed the riverbed, and found some big piles of sand mounded up, where someone had dug with a backhoe. She moved to the right edge of the streambed and gunned the Subaru over one of the piles; it went over, dropped down into the slight declivity, hit the next pile, and with a soft sighing scrunch, settled to rest firmly on the frame, with all four wheels sliding. In frustration she stomped on the gas pedal and sand flew up around her momentarily, until all four wheels spun freely in holes in the soft, flowing sand.

Janine turned off the car and sat for a moment. Then she struck the steering wheel a couple times with the heel of her hand. "DAMN it," she said. She opened the door, got out, and kicked the side of the car, slammed the door, got down on her knees and looked underneath. The sand had compressed under the car so it sat solidly from mid-motor back to nearly the rear bumper on a level bed. She didn't have a shovel in this car. When she was working she drove an International Harvester that had shovels and ropes and boards for just this sort of situation but she'd never tried a dry sandy streambed in her Subaru. "Dammit." She stood up and looked around. It was only a couple miles to Ten Sleep, if worse came to worse, and the only other road that branched off the road she was on looked like it was heading down to the streambed just upstream of where she stood. Maybe the house was there, the house with the yard sale. She hoped they had a tractor or at least a good pickup.

She took her backpack out of the car, made sure she had water and a jacket, and started walking upstream. She followed the fenceline less than a hundred yards, where it intersected a corral made of half-hewn pine; inside were two lovely saddlebreds and a smaller mare, maybe an Appy filly. They walked over towards her and snorted in greeting. She ducked through the fence into the corral and walked along the fence towards a stable she could see, the horses walking companionably beside her. One reached forward to nuzzle her hand and she scratched it behind the ears as she walked. The gate was welded pipe, originally painted green but sanded by use and wind to a dull grey of bare metal. On either side of it, just outside the horses' reach, were more flowers, daisies and some others she didn't recognize. The gate was latched with a bent sliding crossbar and a chain with a twisted carabiner. The crossbar slid heavily free, letting the gate sag, its weight on the chain, and try as she might, she could not get the carabiner to open while at the same time lifting the gate enough to slacken the chain and get it free from the latch. She finally gave up and climbed over the gate, swinging her right leg over, but her left leg caught and looking down she saw that the cuff of her Levis had caught on the carabiner. She tugged a couple of times, but it was stuck in the fabric and wouldn't pull loose.

"CHRIST!" she muttered. She crawled back down, and stood, one foot in the air, trying to pull the carabiner out of the hole it had torn in her jeans. One of the horses swung its head around and rubbed it against her shoulder, causing her to lose her balance and fall. As she lay on her back with her leg up in the air, she thought, "there are some days when it doesn't pay to get up in the morning."

She sat up and loosed her pantsleg from the carabiner, then stood up and kicked the gate. It clanged. "Stupid thing," she said, pushing at it halfheartedly.

"Hello?" A woman's voice from the stable.

"Hello," Janine yelled. "Is anyone there?"

A woman stepped out of the door of the darkened stable and looked over, then smiled and waved. Janine felt a strange buzzing sensation in her head as if she were about to faint. The woman had deep reddish hair halfway down to her waist, hanging loose, was wearing a short brown skirt, a halter top with only one button buttoned. Janine found herself looking straight at the woman's breasts. The woman laughed casually, running a hand through her hair.

"Oh, I can't never got that gate to work," the woman said. "Hold on." She turned back to the stable door and leaned forward, called "Derl!" Janine's eyes ran to where the halter top gaped open. "Derl, lady out here can't work the corral gate."

A man stepped out of the stable door, staring at the woman with the red hair, then turned to look briefly at Janine. Thin, scrabbly sort, cowboy hat and boots, stray bits of brown hair out beneath the brown hat, walked over towards her.

"Yuh, gate's a bit of a bitch not used to it." He looked up at Janine briefly, then down at the ground again. His eyes were brown and the skin at their corners wrinkled. He grabbed the gate, pulled it and yanked once on the chain, and it swung open smoothly. "Welcome to Fain Ranch," he said. "I'm Derl, this is Annie."

"I didn't mean to bother you," Janine said, looking at him for a moment then looking back at the woman, "but my car got stuck in the wash down a bit." The woman with the red hair was standing, legs apart, her back to them, looking off into the sky. "I drove down this way to see about a yard sale."

"I could sell some yards, you bet I would," Derl said. "But, not much doing..." he trailed off as they both watched Annie bend over to pick a weed, her skirt riding up, her halter top hanging down loose and open. Janine felt a sharp intense twinge near her navel, felt her face flush. Beside her, she heard Derl exhale as he looked the same place she was looking, tipping the brim of his hat up. He put his hand on his face and rubbed his eyes and then looked over at her and quirked an eyebrow. She knew her face was red, her breathing audibly fast, and said, "I... walked a ways to get here, and..." trailed off.

Derl said, quietly, "Hot dry walk up here. Come on, let's eye your car."

Annie stood, waved a bit of greenery between her fingers, and said, "bindweed. Let's get something to drink" and they both turned to walk up behind her, on a path Janine hadn't seen until then.

The house was a low ranch-style place with a shaded deck, and it was surrounded and covered with plants and flowers, wild iris and columbine, pansies covering the ground, roses climbing and ravelling the porch posts. Janine thought she saw orchids growing in the shadows. The cottonwoods opened right around the house, and looking up, Janine saw that she was right in the middle of the circle of blue sky around Ten Sleep. The air felt wet on her throat and she could hear the buzz of bees. Annie ran up the steps, hair bouncing, and picked up a glass, a pitcher, poured something deep golden-yellow in the tumbler, held it out. "Cut your thirst, we can sit n talk a piece," she said. Janine noticed that Annie's eyes were the deepest green she'd ever seen. Janine took the glass. Derl stared at Annie as she handed a glass to him, and sipped from one she held herself, looking into it. She stared into the liquid for a minute and said, "Think there's a storm comin'." She turned and walked into the house.

Derl turned to Janine suddenly, took her glass, said, "let's go find that car of yours, ma'am."

Janine jumped a little as his hand touched hers, said faintly, "I wouldn't mind a drink..."

He looked straight at her eyes, and mouthed 'no', then said, "find you the way to that yard sale of yourn, huh?"

They walked down the steps and along the path. The flowers were everywhere, laced into bushes, obscuring the path. Janine had no idea where the stable was, and couldn't even figure out which direction was downstream, where she'd left her car, but Derl walked quickly down the path, taking a turn or two.

"Annie," she said, "she..."

"Annie Fain," Derl said, quietly.

"She's... beautiful."

"That she is. Could make a rock sweat. Been a looker since bout twelve year old."

"Are you her husband?"

Derl coughed. "Ranch hand," he said. "I help with strays, try'n fix gates."

"Does anyone else live here?"

He stopped, looked back, with a tired expression. "Her mom passed on couple year ago. Her da... Well, he travels. He stops in every now and then." Derl looked down, then up at her quickly, "Feller named O'Brien."

She shook her head, feeling as if he needed some sort of response.

"He's out there," Derl said, waving his hand, "somewhere."

"Nobody else?"

"No'm."

"Do you... do you have a truck? I didn't see a garage or any tire tracks."

"No'm."

"I think it'll take a truck to get my car out. Do you have a phone?"

"No'm. Truck won't do you much good neither."

"Why not?"

He gestured and they walked maybe five yards past a tree, to where her car sat. She felt as if they'd only walked a very short distance from the house. "Take a look."

She went to the door and tried to open it but the door was locked. She didn't remember locking it. She put her hand in her pocket but there were no keys in there. "Dammit. I lost the keys. They must've fallen out of my pocket when I was trying to cross the corral gate."

He leaned down and swept aside some leaves, and picked up her car keys, handed them to her. She put the key in the lock, with a shaking hand. It wouldn't turn. He put his hand on hers, jiggled it a little, and the door unlocked.

"Tryn start it," he said, quietly.

She put the key in the ignition and turned. There was a click, then nothing.

"Lights on," he said, pointing at the switch.

"I didn't have the lights on!"

He shrugged expressively. "Not much matter, seeins you got a flat tire anyway," he said, indicating with a finger.

"Derl, what's going on here?"

He shrugged. "Come on. Had t'show you car's not goin anywhere first."

"What's happening?"

"Fain Ranch is happenin," he said. "Walk you to the road to Ten Sleep, hitch a ride, you can call someone from there. Don't think I'd try to find your car gain, I wuz you." He started walking.

"Don't you have a car or something? How do you get into town when you need to?"

"I don't go into town much. When I do, I walk. Annie, she's only been to town once. Only once, that once was plenty."

Janine looked up at his back, waited a second, and when he was silent, said, "What did you mean, once was plenty?"

Derl turned to look back at her as he walked. "She got it in her head to run away t'town, was twelve, got on ol' Tornado, that horse you was parlaying with in the corral. Went into town, met a guy. Or, guess, he met her. She's never been the same since, they say."

"Who says?"

"Her mom, O'Brien..."

"When did you meet her?"

"Came to work for Fain Ranch just after that," he said. "She was in a bad way."

Janine felt a dark, rushing sensation. "Derl, what happened to her. When she went into town."

"Feller saw her. First man ever laid eyes on her. Laid more than that. Took her three days to get back home. He rode her pretty hard."

"He... raped her?"

"Yes'm."

"Jesus. She was 12?"

"Yes'm."

"That's horrible."

"Yes it is," Derl said. He coughed. "Feller do that, should be horsewhipped."

"How old is she now?"

Derl turned to look at her again. "How old you say she is?"

"I don't know. 20? 30?"

He nodded. "Both pretty close."

"What is going on, here?"

"Fain Ranch. Let's go."

"Are you sure we're going the right direction?"

Derl stopped, looked at her. "Which direction you reckon the highway is?"

She pointed vaguely to her left, "I thought it was over there, but you know this place better than I do..."

"Over there, sure enough," he turned and started walking that way.

"Where were you taking me before?"

He turned and scratched his chin. "I aim to get you off Fain Ranch. Here. Lemme show you sommit." He walked off about fifteen feet and beckoned to her. She walked up beside him to stand on a rock. Below them, she could see the valley, and near to where they stood, a wrecked car half-submerged in sand, its windows gone, paint stripped to gray metal, the hood sprung and seats torn. She recognized the Colorado license plate on the rear bumper.

"Now, come over here," he said, turning and walking the other direction another twenty feet. She followed in a dreamlike manner, to where he stood on another rock outcropping, facing exactly the opposite way that he had been a moment before. Below them, a hulk lay in the sand, its doors missing, grass growing out of the sand that filled the body. She could imagine that it had once been painted green.

"Now," Derl said, "which way you reckon the highway is?"

Janine started to shake, looking down at the wreck, then turned and grabbed at him, jamming her forehead into his chest. "I'm scared," she whispered.

He jumped, then gently pulled her arms away from him and stepped back. "I put my arms around the last woman I ever gonna put arms around, no offence intended. Highway's this way, you said?" He walked away from the valley.

They walked towards a slight hillslope that turned steep and sandy. He found a rock outcrop they could walk up. They hit fencelines of downed, tumbled barbed wire but where he walked the wire was low and covered. The sun felt hotter and Janine noticed they were well to one side of the hole in the clouds, although around them the clouds had burnt away to smokelike drifts in the air.

Derl broke the silence, said "you got a good sense of direction."

"If I had a good sense of direction, I wouldn't've gotten in here."

He shook his head. "Don't work that way," he said.

"How did you get here?"

He looked at her and shrugged, then looked back at the ground. "Drawn in, guess you'd say."

"Twelve years old?" she whispered.

Derl stopped, turned full towards her, then sat down and looked back towards the ranch house. "Tell you sommit, Janine Pierce," he said. "You read bout them two boys down Laramie, beat the shit outta that poor harmless faggit boy, left him to die? Sayin' it's a hate crime? It ain't no hate crime anymore than's a hate crime to gut-slit a sheep, loop its innards round a peg, set a dog on it to see how far it can run. One of those boys, bout three months after they put him up, his ma's found dead in a field down Albany County. Some guy, or guys, took her, raped her up, let her loose to die in a snowy field February, which she obliged them by doing, leaving no witness, no charges filed, no investigation. Nobody say not much bout it, either. You come from that sorter place, not no hate crime no more than a mad dog is a hate crime."

Janine looked at him, looked at the ground. She sat down and hugged herself.

"Like my story? Here's another. Up Lovell, only doctor in town, only doctor in four towns, bout 1956, has an unusual exam fer young good-lookin' girls, which directly resulted in forty pregnancy in Bighorn County alone. Doctor does this for twenty two years. His patients get married, tell they husbands, tell they mommas and daddies, tell they sisters bout what happunt, and those very same husbands, mommas and daddies send they other daughters to the very same doctor, twenty two years. Till he get careless, mess with one Emma Fancher, nee Fitzgerald, he not thinkin' any fifteen year old Emma married, he stay away from married ones, and that night Billy Fancher and his brother Jert Fancher, and his boss at Asarco, Gib Milner, come lookin' for doctor with baseball bats, done what they thought they had to, called ambulance and police. Doctor charged with n convicted of one count of sexual assault on the person of Emma Fancher, gets 6 years in Rock Springs, where he stabbed to death with a sharpened toothbrush owned by one Cal Blevins, a crack-smokin' gandy dancer for the UP, for having refused Cal's homosexual advances. He hadn't touched a married woman I believe he'd still be in business up there nobody sayin' a thing otherwise."

"Why... what would possess someone to do something like that?"

"When's just you n the wind n about six hundred thousand square miles of nothin' much but grass, some people tend to have a differnt sense of fun," Derl said quietly. He stood and walked off, leaving her to follow behind him. As he walked, he leaned to pick up stones, looking at them and discarding most of them, slipping a couple into the pocket of his vest. They walked beside an irrigation ditch and he pointed silently; she saw a blue heron standing in the shadow of a cottonwood, staring at them. She counted three red-tail hawks and one Swainson's hawk gliding overhead.

They came to a scraggly dirt road, and a short distance later, to the paved road leading to Ten Sleep. As they walked up to the black ribbon, the heat pushing Janine's hair back, Derl said, "car comin'" and moments later a pickup shimmered into view through the heat distortion and headed towards them. Derl stuck out his hand, the pickup slowed, window rolling down as it approached. Janine looked in to see an older man, white hat, white hair, white moustache; his eyes looked to Derl, who said, "town," then flicked to Janine, ran slowly down her body and back up, then back to Derl. He jerked his head backwards, and Derl and Janine climbed into the back of the pickup. A lank Blue Heeler skittered from a corner f the bed over to them, wagging its tail, then sniffed at Derl and yelped, running to the edge of the bed and hiding behind Janine. She scratched it behind the ears and it crouched on all fours as the pickup accellerated, leaving a plume of dust kicked up from the shoulder. In one corner of the cab's back window was a bumpersticker saying in red letters, "To hell with the whales, save the 'Cowboy'" and in the other, in red and blue on a white background, the more laconic, "Don't want none? DON'T START NONE."

Derl looked over at her, shouted over the roar of the air, "Ryan's gon to be none too pleast with you losing the car you barely afford n bein gone three days no phone call."

"How did you know my husband's name? How did you know my name? I haven't been gone any three days."

"Yus you have, n' I listened to the wind when you wuz tryin' to wrangle that corral gate. Wind say a lot."

"There wasn't any wind," she said.

"Always wind at Fain Ranch. Here," he handed her a black shiny piece of obsidian. "You got a choice, you give this to him he leave you lone bout the car, you keep it nobody never bother you for a very, very long time." She put the stone in her pocket. He sat back, tipped his hat down over his face, and sat motionless for the ride into Ten Sleep.

When the truck stopped, they climbed out over the side, stepping onto the tire then onto the hub. The dog cowered away from Derl, the driver waved, honked, and drove away, and they were standing in front of a building, windows boarded, with the wind driving Coke cans like bells down the street.

"Suggest you take that $75 in your back pocket and get 'long to that Greyhound over yonder," Derl said, nodding behind her. She turned to see the bus, sitting in front of another nondescript, boarded-up building. She looked sharply at Derl, who shrugged. He walked over to the bus and she followed him.

"Nice to make your acquaintance," he said. "Think the bus 'bout to start." He looked over and coughed. "I said, I think bus 'bout to start," and she heard the diesel kick over. "More like it," he said. "You treat yourself careful."

"How old were you?"

He looked at her. "When?"

"That day in Ten Sleep?"

"Bout nineteen."

"When was that? How many years ago?"

"Bus boardin'," he said. "You just go 'head get on."

She turned and walked up on to the bus, found a seat, noticed that the bus was nearly empty. The driver said nothing. She sat down and opened the window. Derl was standing there beside the bus and looked up at her.

"How long ago?"

He bit his lower lip briefly, frowning, and said, "Nineteen o eight."

"Eighty years? I don't believe you."

He shrugged.

"How long are you going to stay there?"

"Why should I leave?"

"Derl, why do you stay?"

He thought a long moment, then said, "three square a day of the best food man ever et, n' a clean bed n' a warm roof."

"And your little sexpot conquest each night?"

"Huh," Derl said, scratching his throat. "I hain't touched Annie sunce Ten Sleep. Tried that again she'd pull my spine through my bunghole this time."

"So why do you stay? Are you trying to pay off some debt for what you did?"

"If a guy can pay off a debt like I got, which I'm not thinkin he can, I done paid it a long time go."

"So..."

He looked up at her. "Love Annie t' death," he whispered, paused, then, "and I got a job. Ranch hand. I help with strays, try 'n keep the fencelines up. You travel safe now, Janine Pierce. I think you will."

The Greyhound started forward with a jolt, air-conditioning cold against her face. Over her shoulder, she watched Derl walk out along the dusty road, in no particular direction.