Eaton, Idaho
Eaton, Idaho heard the news secondhand. It came from sly side of the mouth voices. They were the shrill voices of the lobbyist, fine-tuned to dismantle and discredit. They were handsomely paid to drown out the horrors of massive hydraulic fracking. Those patriotic,...
Diamond, Oregon
Diamond, Oregon sat up straight and paid attention. Maybe it was too late. But a few stubborn voices convinced the rest there was still time. The lobbyists for the oil companies could still be neutered. The politicians who took their contributions could still be...
Capulin, New Mexico
Capulin, New Mexico knew a thing or two about deceit. Not that it was a deceitful place. Maybe it looked too innocent, all that purity hung over the town like an unblemished sky. It often seemed as if the town went about its business against an intricate Hollywood...
Elk Springs, Colorado
Elk Springs, Colorado isn’t far from the headwaters of Twelve Mile Gulch. The gulch drains north toward the Yampa River, which runs more or less undisturbed by dams or diversions for 250 miles through northwestern Colorado. John C. Frémont explored the river in 1843. ...
Melstone, Montana
Melstone, Montana didn’t need a scientist to confirm summers lasted longer and stayed hotter. Nobody in town needed to read supporting documents for the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. All they needed was cheaper solar panels and wind turbines. Cheaper...
The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory
The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory fascinated her. Dorothy read about their research on conifer seedlings and how they grow back after a forest fire. The scientists found that seedlings of Lodgepole Pine, Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir have historically been able...
Meeker, Colorado
Meeker, Colorado stirred and yawned and watched the black sky turn salmon. So did Dorothy, in her room in the little house off Kanan Dume Road. The last she heard from her attorney in Houston, nothing had been resolved. The judge was still in a coma and the court...
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada lived up to its billing. Excesses invariably outdid themselves. The bitter wind blowing down from the Great Basin never failed to whip the Strip. She got a job at the Flamingo emptying slot machines. Her shift started at three in the morning. She...
Forks, Washington
Forks, Washington intrigued them all. The wind stirred up just before daybreak. They all knew the big gusts were coming. This didn’t make it any easier. Something Epictetus handed down about our actions determined by our impressions. That was the tough part, the...
Oakridge, Oregon
Oakridge, Oregon danced through the night, lost in festivities so unlikely the mountain lions stayed up late to watch. During their first week hiding out on Kanan Dume Road, if there had been a contest for most composed fugitive, Cecile would have captured every vote....
Monticello, Utah
Monticello, Utah meanders with the charm of an eccentric explorer. They’re different now, the explorers in Monticello, Utah and everywhere else. Lewis and Clark, Carson and Fremont, they leave stirring legacies but not many descendants. Today’s explorers rarely take...
Copeland, Idaho
Copeland, Idaho never knew why. Cecile was stumped. She struggled to understand why she hadn’t been able to turn them against each other, why one brother hadn’t killed the other. This was hardly a longshot. Brothers had been killing each other forever. If Romulus...
Mancos, Colorado
Mancos, Colorado stacked cordwood and readied for winter. Some of the old men around Montezuma County began to put on extra layers of anger, determined to stay warm. They felt the chill of the change. They reeled off all the ways they were boxed in and how their...
Clovis, New Mexico
Clovis, New Mexico had a hunch something was amiss. Too many old men awash in too much anger. These men couldn’t have cared less about fracking. Ask why, and they would tell you they wouldn’t be around to pay the price of all the poisoning. What mattered right now...
Littlefield, Arizona
Littlefield, Arizona showed up late for work. Cecile knew more men would be sent to kill her. They would drift in on the same poisoned wind that blew through Littlefield, Arizona and they would show up soon. The time between attacks was collapsing. At first, she...
Princeton, Oregon
Princeton, Oregon trembled. Evil was returning, racing back on a night train from Reno. Cecile pulled herself up over a boulder and went down the canyon toward Caroline’s house. Dim daybreak dropped vague shadows across the gray chaparral. She saw some of life’s...
Wolf Point, Montana
Wolf Point, Montana flung off tough questions. Cecile revisited her own nagging question. Was she doomed to plod through life as a solo act? This absence of clarity bothered her. Right now, to stay alive, she needed the safety that accompanied solitude. To take on...
Cordero, Nevada
Cordero, Nevada bent back in the desert’s ragged wind. Down in the Santa Monica Mountains, the two men Cecile watched coming up the canyon stopped and spoke to one another. They couldn’t have seen it coming and they couldn’t have done anything about it. When they fell...
