This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from the New Yorker.

I'm Deputy Treesman fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Thomas McWayne read his story, not here you don't,

from the October 18th, 2021 issue of the magazine.

McWayne has published more than a dozen books of fiction, including the story collections

of Gallatin Canyon, Pro Fair, and Cloudbursts collected in new stories which came out in 2018.

Now here's Thomas McWayne.

Not here you don't.

Kerry was out of likely places to cross.

The five strand ranch fence was on the county line,

Rand South and would guide him to the canyon in the wild grasslands beyond.

He could go all the way to coalmine rim in a view dropping into the Boulder Valley.

Due south, he could see the National Forest, the bare stones, and burned tree stubs from the last big forest fire.

After the fire, a priest who loved hike had phoned 19th century wolf traps chained to trees.

The flames and smoke had towered 40,000 feet into the air, a firestorm containing its own weather,

lightning a loft, smoke that could be seen on satellite in Wisconsin.

The foreground was grassland, but it had been heavily grazed.

In the middle of this expanse, a stockade, where sheep were gathered at night to protect them from bearers and coyotes, he collapsed.

The homestead where Kerry's dad had grown up,

and where Kerry himself had spent his earliest years was in a narrow canyon perpendicular to the prevailing winds,

barely far enough below the snowline to be habitable.

Around his waist and a hastily purchased Walmart fanny pack,

...