I stepped out of Tina’s truck parked outside the strip mall. I looked around, amazed to be back in civilization after only two hours of bouncing along on the old two-lane highway.
“Come on, we’ll start in this store,” Tina said, pointing to the first place I would need to go to buy supplies.
She’d been very eager to help me get set up for living at the ranch, and even offered to take me into town to buy supplies.
I still hadn’t seen the inside of the house, so I wasn’t sure what items were still in place. Anything from cooking utensils to bed linens could be there, for all I knew. Still, there were things I was going to need, like a satellite phone that Tina had suggested and—as much as I disliked the thought—a gun.
“I’ve lived for almost all of my life in the heart of a big city,” I’d argued when Tina said she would take me to the store then teach me how to shoot. “I didn’t need a gun then, and I certainly don’t want one now.”
“The police aren’t going to come running when a coyote is trying to drag down your horse with you on it. It’s too dangerous to leave things to chance. Let’s at least get you something effective but easy, and then hope you never need it, okay?”
If it had been anyone else but Tina, I would have kept fighting.
There was something about Tina’s manner that made you want to be accommodating. Maybe it was her easy-going personality or her genuine love of living on the ranch.
Either way, she was giving up an entire weekend day to help me get what I needed for country life.
Why ask someone for advice if you don’t plan to listen to it?
We left the hunting shop with a .22 rifle for me. It was easy to load, easy to secure, and didn’t have too much of a kick when fired. Sure, it wasn’t going to bring down any rhinos, but it would certainly make a coyote or a mountain lion think twice about coming any further.
Tina had pointed to some practice targets and grabbed those for my basket, urging me to tack them to a tree stump and practice in my spare time.
From the same store, I also picked up a few extra changes of clothes, some bear mace, and a second pair of boots so I’d have something to wear if my one pair got wet. Then, it was on to the mall’s electronics store, where Tina flirted and finagled with the college-aged boy behind the counter until she got me the best possible discount on a satellite phone.
“Won’t you miss the internet at the ranch?” she asked me. “I heard you were a computer coder.”
“No, I won’t,” I replied. “I need to disconnect from the online world. That’s one of the main reasons I’m moving out here.”
“You know,” Tina said, her expression changing a little. “I don’t want to pry, but how are you going to earn an income? I mean, I’m assuming you’re not a lottery winner or anything. You could do a little home-based internet business helping some of the ranchers out here with their computers and stuff.”
I nodded.
“It’s not a completely horrible idea and I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “As for income, I sold a fair amount of my stock to use as the down payment. I started working years ago for a tiny startup tech company. The company grew like crazy and the stock prices shot up. The company offered me a buyout. Basically, a large severance package and my salary for several months. I got the feeling it was a first come, first serve kind of deal. If I didn’t take the buyout now, I might be hit with a layoff later with less benefits.”
Tina frowned.
“Damn! That sounds stressful. It sounds like you did the right thing rather than hanging around.”
I shrugged.
“I hope so. I also have a real estate agent working on selling my condo back in Seattle. I bought a home in a rough neighborhood years ago, back when no one wanted to live there. Now, the area’s built up and my ugly condo is appraised at a much higher value than I paid. Eventually I’ll fly back there to pick up or sell my car and my personal possessions. I’m coming out here for the simple life, to get my head on straight and just enjoy the peace.”
“You came to the right place for peace and quiet, most of the time, that is. Every so often we get a good bit of excitement, like tornados or wildlife problems, and this state has had its fair share of wildfires that tend to go on for a couple of weeks. But most days, it’s just going to be you and the big, blue Wyoming sky.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” I said, my smile reaching all the way to my eyes, purposely glossing over everything that Tina had just listed.
I wasn’t going to think about tornados or wild animals, not when I had a freshly signed deed to my own piece of the country still wrapped in its folder in the side pocket of my purse.
We checked out at the electronics store and had one last important stop to make, to the grocery store to stock up on food for my new home. I bought a huge cooler and stocked it with dry ice.
“There should be some chickens running around on your place. You can get eggs from them,” she told me.
We packed up my supplies in the back of Tina’s truck and spent the rest of the day running errands and goofing off in town. I bought Tina lunch at a nice restaurant and ordered extra desserts to go for later.
It felt weird knowing that it would be the last time I saw this much civilization for a while.
Weird and good.