WHERE THE SKY BEGINS - CHEYNNE'S STORY - Anita Waggoner

Cheyenne had never heard silence like this before. Not in Seattle, not in Vegas, and certainly not in the courtroom where her divorce was finalized. This silence was different, clean, steady, and wide open. It pressed against her ears like a soft hand, inviting her to listen not just to the land, but to herself.

She stood on the porch of the weathered bunkhouse, boots planted in red dirt, the Oklahoma wind curling her blonde hair into tangles she no longer tried to tame. Behind her, the screen door creaked on rusted hinges; ahead, a small herd of bulls kicked dust into the golden light of evening. Monster Mash a mean-looking and thick-shouldered black bull locked eyes with her. He didn’t snort, didn’t paw the ground. Just stared. Like he saw something in her she wasn’t sure existed anymore.

Freedom, Oklahoma. It sounded like a joke when Katie first said it out loud. “A town called Freedom? You sure it’s not just a metaphor?” But here she was, Cheyenne, city girl turned accidental cowgirl, starting over on a forgotten patch of land with a man she barely knew but already understood too well.

Rowdy had been distant all day. Quiet since sunrise, when they’d hauled fencing into the back pasture. She could feel the weight he carried, could taste it in the way he muttered to his horse or avoided her gaze during coffee. He was grieving something he wouldn’t name.

And maybe she was too.

Her phone buzzed inside the house. She ignored it. If it was her ex-husband, he’d get the silence he always feared. If it was her former life, it could wait.

Rowdy finally walked up from the barn, hat tipped low, dust trailing him like a second shadow.

“Storm’s coming,” he said, more to the horizon than to her.

Cheyenne nodded. “Let it. I’m not made of sugar.”

That made him smile, if just a flicker. “You’re something else.”

“I’m trying to be.”

They stood side by side, watching the dark clouds roll over the land like an old quilt pulled across a tired body.

“I didn’t come here to save you, Rowdy,” she said, her voice almost swallowed by wind. “I came here to save myself.”

He turned, really looked at her this time. “Then you’re in the right place. This land doesn’t lie. And it doesn’t coddle.”

“Good. I’m done being coddled.”

Lightning cracked in the distance. Somewhere, a screen door slammed. The bulls began to move, unsettled by the shift in air.

But Cheyenne stood still, rooted now not in fear or regret, but in purpose.

She’d left behind a world of noise, of expectations, of roles she no longer wanted to play. Out here, she wasn’t somebody’s wife. She wasn’t defined by office titles or divorce papers or manicured suburbs.

She was simply Cheyenne. And Freedom was where her story began.