Wyoming Fences by C.B.

Miles and Miles of white, grey, tan, brown, and blue, all lined with perfectly straight, horizontal, steel, barbwire, and wood, the kind of disconcerting materials that exist to trap, hurt, enclose, and imprison. Since the day that I returned home these are the thoughts that have fenced in my attention. I am utterly aware of the situation. I drive 25 miles, 2 to 3 times daily, staring at the sides of this beautifully desolate Wyoming highway. These colors, are my colors, they follow me everywhere. They haunt me, whether I’m in a towering gray and asphalt city, or basking by the sun-filled, blue, white, and yellow stretch of beach that lines the sea. When I am gone, I find myself longing desperately for the air, the desolation, the distant hope of the mountain, the miles and miles of hilled, sage-brush ridden, blue and brown, or white and grey, prairie and sky connection. I, as almost any native, seek for the sight of the beautiful and swift antelope, the cautious and ever-present deer, the dangerous, strong, gliding, and preying eagle, and the ominous and encircling, flesh-hungry turkey vulture. These, and the other animals of this mountained region, are my family; they are the watchful ancestors that have been in my vision since I was first aware that I had any vision at all.
However, since returning home, all that has captured my vision has been the never-ending rows of fence that threaten and entrap me on the dangerous, bloody carcass-ridden, hard, ungiving, lonely, and desolate highway. The fence exists to threaten me and my kind. We cannot stop wondering, worrying, and obsessing. It is haunted by the shadow of a beautiful boy, a kindred spirit, a soul, tortured for God-only-knows what reason.
His mother came to speak at a meeting at our college. She sat; eyes cast downward, hand-wringing, heart breaking, and remembering. Others thought selfishly of personalities that she knew, but most of the students there thought of shared fears and similar plight. Although I too shared these people’s exact same plights and fears, I could think only of my tiny, beautiful, blonde-haired, sonny, children, (both boys,) one in brightly-colored bug boots, butterfly-net, and silly safari hat, and the other in cut off cacky shorts, football shirt, baseball-cap, and flip-flops. More than the fear of what could happen to me, my heart wept for this woman, driven by the sadness and pain of a loss that I could not, and did not want to imagine.
“What do you think that a family like ours should do?” Asked my partner, unusually serious, fear dancing in her beautiful sky-blue eyes, while her hand clenched mine tightly underneath the table.
“You should leave and move somewhere that you’ll be sure to be safe. Somewhere that there are others like you,” Mrs. Shepard’s eyes were serious and her voice was kind but sincere. Through the rest of the meeting my partner squeezed my hand until my fingers turned purple and numb.
The 20-mile drive home from that meeting was hard. We talked of finances, fear, beautiful-murdered boys, bigotry, and moving. We cried and expressed some fear for ourselves, but mostly the paralyzing fear that we shared for our wonderful children. However, we couldn’t move. We were trapped here by something much stronger than fences. We were trapped in Wyoming by the strongest thing that could trap people; money.
“I told you we shouldn’t come back here and now we’re stuck. We’ll never be able to leave this state and support the children. I don’t care what you say: it just isn’t safe for people like us to live here.” Tears created makeup lines, streaking her perfectly applied makeup.
“It isn’t all that bad. This isn’t some foreign and strange place. Wyoming is where we’re from. I’m not sure what’s to blame for what happened to that kid. It’s horrible sad, but that was an isolated case. We’re from here, and we aren’t at all like the people that would do those types of things.”
“No… we just spent our whole lives surrounded and abused by those same people,” silently crying, she turned her face away. I was left, heart-broken, to try to concentrate on the road and not the fences that lined it.
The next summer, I drove 2 hours, to my hometown (another tiny Wyoming town), to spend time with my ailing grandmother. My father, who I usually don’t see, came over and asked me to go for a ride with him. I went. I thought that it would be good to make an effort to try and find a common bond, despite the childhood pain that had erected a barbed-wire fence around my heart. I needed to understand my displacement. I needed to find out why I was plagued with these contrasting feelings of belonging in Wyoming and being a foreigner in my own home.
My father and I drove for a very long time, chattering meaninglessly about hunting, boating, and fishing. We left the highway, many miles outside of town. We drove across the empty, cactused, prairie; lurching over bumps, and climbing over hills that were much too steep. We zigzagged down tiny, almost bone-dry streams, and between small red-rocked canyons, We, unusually happy in each other’s company, wasted away the afternoon. My father followed many fences, stopping occasionally to open a make-shift, barbed-wire gate, or to instantly turn off the truck and, (always a dead shot,) to lean far out the window, rifle in hand, and aim at anything that he saw moving. A loud bang and I turned my head so that I wouldn’t have to see the little puff of dust in the distance before he would prop the rifle up between us and turn the ignition. Finally, after hours of driving, we came to the top of a very large hill. From this high point, I could see a tiny, dilapidated, wooden lean-to in the distance.
“That’s were we’re goin’ girly,” My father smiled, “I think that it’s time that you understood some things about your blood. We aren’t like other people. We’re part of this land. Your Uncles, (my family,) and I are all the same and I think that the problem with you is that you don’t know who you are. I think that this’ll help you.”
“What are you going to show me?” Apprehension filled my stomach with dread.
He began to drive toward the small shack. I could see a broken fence; about six feet from the front of the shack, stretching so far to either side that it disappeared into the horizon.
“Yep….this is what you need to do. When I get upset, or hurt, I drive out here and take care of my pain. This is the only thing that works for me, and I think it would work for you too because my blood is what’s runnin’ through your veins. Anyways, I come out here, (where no one in the world could hear me,) and I scream, and scream, and scream. After that’s all done, I give an animal the face of the person that’s hurt me. I charge them with the crime and decide the appropriate punishment.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You will once we come atop this little hill.” He came to the top of the tiny hill, stopped the truck, opened the squeaky-truck door, and steeped out. He walked to the front of the truck. There he stood, 6 ft. 3 with shaggy beard, flannel shirt, torn jeans, and the build of a quarterback. He opened his arms wide to either side, the rifle still in his right hand and hollered,
“Out here, you’re in charge! You have all of the power! You are the king, the judge, and the jury! This is where I leave all of my pain, and this is the only thing that works.”
As my eyes came into focus, I gasped and tried desperately not to scream. The fence behind my father, for miles and miles in either direction, had heads, decapitated, partially dissected, and stuck on wooden fence poles. Antelope, deer, buzzards, badgers, rabbits, prairie dogs, coyotes, fox, and many others stared accusingly at me through empty, black eye-sockets. Right behind my father, and directly in front of the fence, was a circle, the size of a mini-van, filled with mutilated, headless, decomposing bodies, bones, and limbs, all cut, stabbed, shot, and beaten.
“See,” my father said, “this is who you are, and this is where we belong.”