Crybaby Ranch by Tina Welling

close. Why do you ask?”
    â€œJust wondered. It’s a tough time for the wildlife right now. But each day will get easier.”
    Â 
    Tonight, I sit on the floor by my discount oil lamp and leaf through catalogs I found discarded at the post office today while signing the waiting list for a box.
    Outside, a vehicle approaches, gunning upslope, crunching gravel, and I rush to a front window. I share the dirt road with the former owner of the cabin, whose ranch lies a quarter of a mile beyond me. I’m anxious to ask him about who used to live here and why he’s sold the place so fast and cheap.
    A long-bodied Suburban careens past with its headlights off. The night is dark and moonless. Imagine having lived in one place so long you could find your way home with your eyes closed. He must know every bump and curve.
    Nope. Wrong. Branches screech along metal, a tire bounces hard once and shock absorbers thump. Rock scrapes the underside of the car frame. I hurry outside when the car begins skidding, but before I get any farther than the porch, the brake lights go off and the Suburban continues up the invisible road. I wait on the porch for any further sounds indicating trouble up the road; then I return inside the cabin.
    I flip the light switch by habit in the bathroom, forgetting I won’t be able to get the electricity hooked up until I call on Monday. To my surprise a dinky forty-watt above the sink comes on. I test all the switches and my oil-lit cabin blooms into a rusty glow. I feel suddenly industrious, as if the sun came up instead of the electricity on. Despite the late hour, I plug in the refrigerator, then fool with the hot-water heater. Soon the tick of metal expanding assures me the water heater is working, and I scrub down the bathroom, ceiling to curling linoleum floor. By the time I’ve finished, I have just enough hot water for a shallow bath.
    With my sleeping bag unrolled on the musty square of thin gray carpet that lies before a mustier sofa of the same color, I fall asleep to spooky sounds inside and out: coyotes whooping like pirates, logs creaking, geese honking as they practice instrument flight in the dark and, nearer by, the tapping of toenails scuttling across hard surfaces—mice, I’ll bet.

seven
    I ’ve got a carload of furniture and household supplies I found at yard sales today. My best find is a kitchen table and chairs—only three chairs, but that’s what made it affordable. Wood of some sort, pocked and scarred, but graced with curvy lines. My plan is to paint the table and chairs with Rit dye. Smeary, watery shades of coral, lime green, rose, turquoise. Every slat and leg a different color. I read about it once somewhere. If it looks like I think it will—like old milk paint rubbed on by happy Gypsies—I’ll seal it with polyurethane and do something similar with the jelly cupboard.
    Since I parked on the north side and came in the back door with my secondhand junk, I don’t see the note tucked into a tear in my front door screen until I decide to strip the table and chairs on the front porch. I’m invited to a cookout. Tomorrow at four. Please come so we can welcome you to the neighborhood. Chloe Hanes, Old Trace Ranch. Neighborhood? Old Trace is six miles away, though we do share an exit road off the highway.
    I remember: This is Wyoming. Second-largest state in the lower forty-eight, with the least population of any. Six miles makes us neighbors. Going to a party alone in a strange place takes a lot more courage than going out to dinner alone back home, but if I go, I can imagine Dr. Whitely being proud.
    If the wood is wet, I recall having read, and allowed to dry for fifteen minutes before applying the dye, the colors will be softer and the grain will show through. By the time I surface into awareness again, the sun is behind the tallest spruce, cooling the yard, and I am faint with hunger. While I wait for a Swanson’s