In Plain Sight

“I mean,” Julie continued, “I don’t even live with my dad. He lives on the other side of the ranch, on the east side, all by himself. My mom lives in a cabin on a creek, and she never talks to my dad. I mean never. I grew up in the big house thinking my grandma was my mother because she took care of me. My mom drinks, I guess. Anyway, so it’s like my grandma is my mother and my uncle Arlen is my father. Uncle Wyatt—he sometimes seems like he’s more my age or my little brother than anything. I’m very fond of my uncle Arlen and my uncle Wyatt, and they’re on our side of the ranch . . .”

Sheridan shook her head. “Julie, this is getting complicated.”

“I know,” Julie said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you, how complicated it is. But I don’t want anybody else around here to know, because it’s embarrassing, you know? At least I hope Grandmother is back soon. Then it will feel more normal.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her car is gone,” Julie said. “We think maybe she took a trip somewhere. We hope she comes back soon. It’s a weird situation, but it would at least be more normal if she came back. She’s a good cook.”

Sheridan felt even more sorry for Julie, how naked she seemed to be, how pathetic she sounded. But Julie’s situation also gave her an odd, cold feeling about her friend that made her feel guilty.

“Oh-oh,” Julie said, pointing over Sheridan’s shoulder. “I see your dad’s truck outside.”

Sheridan turned and looked down the hall. The green Game and Fish truck was out there, and she could see her father’s silhouette, his hat brim bouncing up and down. He was probably talking to someone. Then she could see Julie’s uncle Arlen leaning out of his window, talking back.

“I gotta go,” Sheridan said, relieved that she had an excuse to depart.

“I know, but thanks for hanging with me,” Julie said.

“Always, Julie.”

“That’s why I love you the most,” Julie said, smiling. There was mist in her eyes. “Come out for a sleepover. I’ll show you just how . . . fucked up my family is.”

Sheridan had never heard Julie say “fuck” before, and it startled her. It seemed to startle Julie as well, who covered her mouth with her hand.

6

IT WAS A SECTION OF FENCE OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF nowhere that made J. W. Keeley think, This is not only another world, it’s another goddamned planet.

The fence was there when he woke up. He was parked alongside Wyoming Highway 487 headed north. The Shirley Mountains loomed over the horizon like sleeping reptiles, miles across a moonscape still covered with snow, feeling as if he were absolutely alone on the top of the world. The fence was unique in that it was only a section of a fence, parallel to the highway, but not connected on either end with anything else. It was a tall fence, made of fresh lumber. The morning sun fire-bronzed the planks, made it look as if it was lit up by electricity.

Because it was another planet, and there was no electricity. Or trees. Or power lines. Or anything resembling human presence or activity, except for that section of fence, which was obviously placed there to drive men like Keeley out of his mind, this Wyoming version of Stonehenge, as if to make him think he was hallucinating or seriously hungover.

Right on both counts, he thought. But this fence, he had to go look at it up close, prove to himself that it was real, and try to figure out why it was there.

ON THE BENCH seat of the old Ford pickup next to J. W. Keeley was a scoped rifle with a banana clip. It was a Ruger Mini-14, a carbine that shot .223 rounds. The night before, the coyote hunter at the bar in Medicine Bow told Keeley the rifle was used mainly for killing coyotes and other vermin because the cartridges shot nice and flat. The thirty- round clip was a vestige of the pre-assault rifle law days, back when some federal lawmakers still had spines, the coyote hunter said, back before they all started wearing frilly little skirts and drinking lattes and passing laws against gun owners. In fact, the hunter said he’d spent the day out in the sagebrush between Medicine Bow and Rock River, working a wounded-rabbit call and popping four coyotes, missing a few others. The dead ones were in the back of his truck as he spoke, the hunter said. Their fur was worth $90 for a good pelt, he told Keeley, plus there was a $15 bounty on account of the coyote was considered a predator.

The coyote hunter told Keeley his name was Hoot.

Keeley told Hoot his name was Bill Monroe, hoping Hoot had never heard of the bluegrass picker.

Keeley had said “coyotes” in the way he’d always heard, emphasizing the middle syllable, “kye- oh-tees,” but Hoot had made fun of him, asked him good-naturedly where in the hell he was from, because in the Northern Rockies the creature was pronounced “kye-oat” without that fruity Hollywood flare on the end. Keeley repeated “kye-oat, kye-oat, kye-oat” as he followed the man outside to see the dead animals.

Hoot the Coyote Hunter was a local with a bloodstained Carhartt and a trim goatee. He liked to talk, and told Keeley in the time it took to leave the Virginian Hotel bar and arrive at his pickup that he’d grown up on a ranch near Elmo, graduated from UW with a degree in social work, come back to the area he grew up in to work in the coal mines, which paid a hell of a lot better than social work, bought a small place and got married to a wench named Lisa, lost his job in the coal mine and got divorced, now he drove a school bus and trapped and popped a few coyotes in his spare time.

When Hoot asked, Keeley said he was headed north to Casper to look for work because he’d heard there was plenty there, with the coal-bed methane boom and all.

“Pinedale,” Hoot had said once they were back inside from seeing the dead coyotes while he graciously accepted another double bourbon from Keeley “that’s the place to go for jobs and gas. I hear a man can pull down sixty K just for showing up, seventy K if he can fart and walk at the same time.”

Keeley bought Hoot drinks until the coyote hunter finally lowered his head on the bar and went to sleep. Then Keeley went back outside and stole Hoot’s Mini-14 and an army cartridge box filled with over five hundred rounds.

He had driven north in the dark until he began to imagine he was on the surface of the moon, and realized it