Most of the 50 states having been designed as political units rather than the geographical ones John Wesley Powell vainly urged Congress to consider in the case of the Western territories, there’s no particular reason why southeastern Wyoming should be much more than the place where Nebraska, Colorado, and the Cowboy State fit together. And in fact, it isn’t. The difference between this corner of Wyoming and the rest of the state is climatic, topographical, geological, and . . . other. “You know,” a young man dressed in the regulation university student uniform (T-shirt and shorts, sandals, backpack, and ballcap) was telling the owner of The Grand Newsstand in Laramie, “Wyoming could be the best place in America if it just had more Hispanics, more blacks and Asians. This state has grave social problems, in my opinion—all these violent rednecks, carrying guns. I read an article in the Economist recently and man, the guy that wrote it really ripped this state apart.” A San Francisco kid, I guessed, with a C+ average who got turned down at Berkeley. In the coffee shops, restaurants, and politer bars around town a frequent topic of conversation is “the locals,” “the rednecks.” “I’m scared of them,” a female transplant from Manhattan’s Upper East Side confided to me after venturing as far into the wilds as Woods Landing, 26 perilous miles southwest of the University of Wyoming campus, God —is this what I have to listen to for the next eight months? It’s a sickness, a disease epidemic throughout modern-day America where mass euphoria uncomfortably overlies mass hysteria, like an unstable crust above a seething lava mass. Fortunately, there’s still the real Wyoming to escape to, only a few hours’ drive beyond the beckoning western horizon.

The bear population—black, brown, and grizzly—in the northwestern corner of the state is expanding and restless these days, like the human one. Confrontations between the two grow more common every summer. Besides the .41 Magnum Ruger Blackhawk six-shooter I always carry on mv hip in the backcountry, I brought along the .338 Winchester Magnum rifle I use for elk hunting, equipped with open sights for shooting at close-range in an emergency. The heavy gun in its leather scabbard is bulky under the off saddleskirt and pulls the rigging sideways without a careful counterbalance on the near side, but better safe than sorry (even if that means 20 years in prison and a hundred-thousand-dollar fine for killing an animal the federal government considers more valuable than you are). I threw the horsepacks in the bed of the pickup and drove across town and the Union Pacific tracks to West Laramie, where I backed up to the trailer and loaded the horses. Then we hit the road at 65 miles an hour for Dubois, 295 miles away.

Arlington, Elk Mountain, Rawlins, Lamont, Muddy Gap, Jeffrey City, Lander. The country got higher and drier, more rugged and eroded, one deformed geological structure piled on another, a sweeping immensity of shadow, shape, texture, and color—the way I remembered it, the way I like it. Rednecks too, hurtling toward me in pickup trucks and flatbeds at a combined speed of 145 miles an hour, the spare tire bolted to a stud mounted in front of the grille between the headlights, a couple of rifles in the gunrack, plastic water barrels tied off behind the cab, a stubby broom stuck in the posthole ahead of the tailgate; God bless them everyone! Fort Washakie, Crowheart, Burris: The Wind River Indian Reservation, home to the Arapahoe and Shoshone tribes whom the government threw together in a forced relationship many years ago, ignoring—if it ever knew—that the two had despised each other for untold generations before that. And finally Dubois, squeezed between the Wind River and Absaroka Ranges in the valley of the upper Wind River, where Norma awaited me in a 300- square foot house with a ten-gallon gin-and-tonic in her hand.

Over supper at what used to be the Yellowstone Garage restaurant before it moved to Jackson in search of Harrison Ford, James Wolfensohn (president of the World Bank), and the Rockefellers, we debated entering the Absarokas by the Dunoir Valley, Turpin Meadows, or Bonneville Pass. Bonneville won out, partly for the reason that the option coincided with the arrival of a bottle of Pinot Grigio to go with the mixed green salad and pesto linguine. (In the summer season, anyway, Dubois is now a New West town, and we’d be eating Dinty Moore beef stew, Nalley’s chili, and tuna fish for the next four days.) The trail, after descending the east side of the pass to Dundee Meadows, follows the West Fork of the Dunoir downstream as far almost as the forest boundary before crossing over to the East Fork, from there upriver to Shoshone Pass and across it, then drops off into a narrow valley at the headwaters of the South Fork of the Shoshone River, identified on the seven-and-a-half-minute topographic map as Bliss Meadows.

“Let’s go there,” I said. “Bliss Meadows sounds auspicious for my return to the mountains after two years.”

“Probably it’s just a meadow like all the rest,” Norma said. “Every one of them is beautiful, though.”

“Don’t forget to take your bear spray with you,” the waitress advised as she refilled our glasses.

“Not a chance,” I promised her. “We follow Fish & Wildlife Service procedure exactly. In ease of an attack. Norma sprays the bear, reducing it to a quivering ball of furry Jell-O. Then I fill it full of lead from my trusty .41 Mag., dig a big hole, and bury the damn thing.”

As with most cavalry operations, this one got off to a late start owing to logistical problems. It was 4:30 when we rode out from the trailhead and past five when we arrived at Bonneville Pass, three miles away and 2,000 feet higher, and made camp in a grove of Douglas fir where the trail, after climbing through a long, gently ascending meadow, plunges steeply downhill by switchbacks through thick forests cut by deep ravines. Pulling the packs from the gelding I noticed him staring across the park to the treeline, where an elegant bowed form, something like a Homeric harp in appearance, appeared to rest in the grass beside a young tree. The form turned itself slowly, becoming a massive set of paddles: I caught them in the rifle scope and recognized a trophy bull moose bedded in the lush summer grass, placidly ruminating as he watched us pitch camp and his cow, emerging from the woods behind him, grazed among outcroppings of alpine rock.

This was bear country already. When, a little before dusk, the mare lifted her nose from the grass and stood with her ears forward, rigid and trembling on the picket line, I checked the rifle and rested it against a tree within reach of where we sat drinking red wine by the fire. While Norma incinerated the remains of our supper and, using hot water and soap, carefully removed every trace of food from the cook pots and pans, I brought the horses and tied them apart at opposite ends of the grove, horses are always happy to let you know when a bear approaches camp. We sat up late to enjoy the full moon blanching the high peaks and illuminating the surrounding park and turned in finally with the loaded rifle between us and the unholstered revolver by my head.

On the switchbacks next morning the mare’s load shifted, the saddle turned with Norma still in it, and a minor wreck was forestalled only by the presence of mind of the horse, who stood patiently with her head lowered while we loosened the billet strap and heaved the saddle with the heavy pack attached to it into place again. Riding on we heard elk crashing off in the timber and found fresh bear scat in the trail. I am less nervous about a bear encounter as such than of Saab Star under me should we meet one on the trail: hi fact, I think I’d rather be riding the bear.

At the foot of die pass we picked up the West Fork of the Dunoir and followed it south through a series of descending meadows linked by patches of forest in a long valley overlooked by the Pinnacles to the west and Coffin Butte on the eastern side. The horses barreled ahead like a Western freight, bringing us after only an hour’s ride to the trail fork where we turned east along Falls Trail to the Dunoir’s East Fork. Though fat and soft still from two years in New Mexico, the horses humped their way up the steeps as steadily as if they were made of iron rather than just flesh and blood, then took their wind back on the long level section of trail crossing beneath the reddish- gray breccia head of Coffin Butte towering above the forested bench. We had just passed the secondary trail up to Watkins Lake when the gelding started between my knees, halted abruptly, and put his ears forward. Expecting the worst, I turned him quickly in the trail to face the mare, dismounted, and handed the reins to Norma.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“He saw something, or winded it. I’m going ahead to find out what.”

The rifle slipped easily from the sweat-softened scabbard. I chambered a round and started forward, holding the gun at my hip and moving slowly, looking from side to side up the trail. The horse had too much familiarity with elk to be spooked by one. Something brown showed behind a log 30 yards ahead. I brought the rifle up to scope it and heard a mewing cry from the woods beyond. It was answered by another, and suddenly the forest was filled with fleeing bodies showing reddish tan in the sunlight falling between the deep green trees. I counted eight cows and three calves, including the one that jumped from back of the log, before the rattling knock of hooves striking against down timber died away in the forest and the wilderness was silent again in the hot piney stillness of afternoon.

We made camp in a meadow beside a feeder creek, at a distance of a couple of hundred yards from East Fork. The ground was partly marshy, with rich graze for the horses, and there were signs of a seasonal elk camp, among them a spiked crosspole inside the treeline set high enough to hang a big bull out of reach of marauding grizzlies. I tied a rock to one end of a length of nylon cord and the bear bag, containing the supplies we wouldn’t need for supper, at the other. It took several tries to pitch the rock over the crosspole, but the fourth or fifth made it. I heaved the bag high, tied the rope off to a young fir tree, and returned to camp for the cocktail hour. Seated on a log beside the fire, we drank Jim Beam and water and ate smoked oysters from a tin while the horses grazed hungrily, lifting their feet with a sucking sound from the marsh, and the rocky parapets around burned red with the evening sun. “That’s Shoshone Pass up there,” I told Norma. “It doesn’t look all that interesting, does it?”

“Mostly it’s just forest. Bliss Meadows still sounds intriguing, though.”

Old Griz would walk ten miles for an oily, stinking can smelling of smoked oysters—and has. I threw the thing on the fire to burn out while Norma spooned chili into a pot and placed the first tortilla in the frypan to brown. When supper was ready I poured more Beam, and we ate seated on the ground with our backs against the log to watch the moonrise. We had finished washing up from supper and settled ourselves for a last toddy as, from the direction of Shoshone Pass, a howl arose, deep and bodied and powerful, entirely unlike the coyote’s cracked falsetto. I looked at Norma.

“It’s a wolf,” I said. I’d never heard one out-of-doors before, but the sound was unmistakable.

“That could be. This is an experimental release area in here.”

There’s a reason why wolves were exterminated from this country by the 1920’s or 50’s, and I believe that ranchers are justified in wanting to shoot them. Even so, hearing one in the wild was an awesome thing, compared with which the coyote howl is as unimpressive as a toy poodle puppy yapping in a Madison Avenue pet shop.

Through binoculars, I had a closer look at Shoshone Pass in the morning and concluded there was nothing much to be seen up there. Also, something warned me not to push my luck on this return trip to the Wyoming wilderness. I’d had moose and elk and coyote and wolves, which was happiness enough: Bliss, if it existed at all, would be overkill. We made a day ride into the canyons opening to the meadow, and next day struck camp and packed out. In Dubois we went for supper at Cavallo Creek again where we ate Black Forest mushrooms over pasta and drank another bottle of Pinot Grigio, served by the same waitress who had seen us off four days before on our trip. She asked if we’d had a bear encounter, and if we had made it over Shoshone Pass. I told her no; maybe next year. The girl made a face at me, prettily.

“You know,” she said, “I didn’t want to say anything, but me and my ex-fiancé hiked in to Bliss Meadows last summer. It was, like, a disappointment. There’s really nothing much up there to see.”