Uh huh. Thank you, MrsSmith.
As mentioned earlier, there's nothing out here worth anybody stealing.
There's a main highway (Chadron east to Sioux City; U.S. Highway 20) two miles north of here. This is the only house around, for miles and miles. There's a very large yard-light that can be seen from the highway, and other than the moon and stars at night, that's the only thing visible.
Of course, it's two miles on a one-and-a-half-lane road.....
During the summer, along the river, about a football field's length away from here, sometimes people stop to camp, as it's an isolated area. The property caretaker, who calls me "young man" when he's sober and calls me "boss" when he's drunk (he usually calls me "boss"), is rather, uh, protective, and so when he comes from town out to this place every day, if somebody's out there, he checks it out; who they are, what they are, what their plans are. (This is private property, after all.)
During the summer, many people have camped there, but no one's ever approached the house. I suspect, correctly or incorrectly, that the caretaker warns them there's a madman living here.
Most of the people who come here, have a reason to come here--obviously, since it's not a stop on their way somewhere else. Both the neighbor (who lives six miles away) and the caretaker store some of their agricultural stuff here, and they're always coming to work on that. Across the road, just on the other side of the William Rivers Pitt, there's a large spread owned by the biggest cattleman around, and his ranch-hands, when working there, drop in to take a break, or iced water, or use the sanitary facilities.
It varies according to the weather and the time of the year, but a good guess is that a minimum--a minimum--of half a dozen or so people stop by every day, between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.
There's been a few days the past six years when it's been like Grand Central Terminal here.
As for nocturnal visitors, maybe, I dunno, about one or two a month. If the weather's bad, they're usually ordinary people seeking shelter. If the weather's good, such as in summer, they're usually drunks or meth-heads.
I'm hardly the strongest person around, but I know how to handle screwed-up drunks and meth-heads; dealing with difficult people has always been one of my
fortes; if I weren't deaf, I imagine I would be an excellent retail clerk for dealing with troublesome customers.
I long ago--decades ago, when I was still a kid--accepted the stark fact that a deaf person can, really, have no privacy. The only privacy I have is the fifteen or so minutes a day behind the locked door of the bathroom; other than that, I've always been wide open to unexpected people.
I could, I suppose, lock the door, but that runs the risk of my not knowing someone is here. It needs pointed out that news of every single death in my family had to be conveyed to me in person (I get really tense whenever seeing a law-enforcement guy coming with his hat in his hand rather than on his head), among other news of interest. It has to be given to me in person, unless one wants to write a letter and mail it. I was probably the last person in America to learn of 9-11, because it wasn't until noon that someone thought I should know about it, and came here.
If the door had been locked.....
So I run risks. If I were a single woman, or an ancient personage, or mentally-handicapped in some way, I wouldn't live here. But being none of the above, the risks for me are rather, uh, minimal.
