时值五月，我刚从小憩中醒来，蜷缩在山艾树丛旁，学着我的狗儿的睡姿，
It’s May and I’ve just awakened from a nap, curled against sagebrush the way my dog taught
可以避风。头顶上，一道冷锋正拉扯着我头顶巨大的天幕，昏暗中，一颗冰雹砸
me to sleep—sheltered from wind.
A front is pulling the huge sky over me, and from the dark a
中了我的头。我正赶着两千只羊穿越怀俄明州的一片荒地，五十英里的路，要走
hailstone has hit me on the head.
I’m trailing a band of two thousand sheep across a stretch of
五天，炎炎烈日，羊群躲在阴凉处，天不凉下来不挪步。现在因为暴风雨的缘故，
Wyoming badlands, a fifty-mile trip that takes five days because sheep shade up in hot sun and
羊群聚集在一起，兴奋地奔跑起来，像水一样流过干旱的土地，冲进沟壑，又涌
won’t budge until it’s cool.
Bunched together now, and excited into a run by the storm, they drift
上崎岖不平的高原，高原是这个州的基本地貌。
across dry land, tumbling into draws like water and surge out again onto the rugged, choppy
“怀俄明”源于印第安语，意为“在大平原上”，但平原其实是山谷，干
plateaus that are the building blocks of this state.
旱的大山谷，面积一千六百平方英里，地平线在四周向上弯曲，形成山脉，使得
The name Wyoming comes from an Indian word meaning “at the great plains,” but the plains
广袤无垠的景象有了一种庇护的感觉。
are really valleys, great arid valleys, sixteen hundred square miles, with the horizon bending up on
这里的冬天持续六个月。盛行西北风将雪堆往东边吹去，新一轮暴风雪又形
all sides, into mountain ranges.
This gives the vastness a sheltering look.
成了新雪堆。
Winter lasts six months here.
Prevailing winds spill snowdrifts to the east, and new storms
白茫茫的雪有时让人目眩，甚至恶心。
Winter lasts six months here.
Prevailing winds spill snowdrifts to the east, and new storms
在零下二十、三十甚至四十
Winter lasts six months here.
Prevailing winds spill snowdrifts to the east, and new storms
度时，不仅你的车无法运转，你的身心亦是如此。
from the northwest replenish them.
This white bulk is sometimes dizzying, even nauseating, to
周遭变得像个坚硬的地牢。
from the northwest replenish them.
This white bulk is sometimes dizzying, even nauseating, to
冬
from the northwest replenish them.
This white bulk is sometimes dizzying, even nauseating, to
天，我骑着马，寻找一头初生牛犊，牛仔裤被冻在了马鞍上。在一片冷寂中，我
look at.
At twenty, thirty, and forty degrees below zero, not only does your car not work, but
感觉自己像是天地间的第一个人，抑或最后一个。
neither do your mind and body.
The landscape hardens into a dungeon of space.
During the winter,
今天，太阳出来了，天空中只有几朵云在翻腾。东边，羊群已经自行出发了，
while I was riding to find a new calf, my jeans froze to the saddle, and in the silence that such cold
河滩逐阶向上，呈现出一座座被侵蚀的红土台地，台顶被百万年的流水磨平；其
creates I felt like the first person on earth, or the last.
后，一排雄伟的峭壁拔地而起，一万英尺高，形成大角山脉。潮汐图案镌刻在地
Today the sun is out—only a few clouds billowing.
In the east, where the sheep have started
面上，仿佛是曾经覆盖这个州的海洋留下的。峡谷如银河般蜿蜒，向下延伸，与
off without me, the benchland tilts up in a series of eroded red-earthed mesas, planed flat on top
前面的平地相接。
by a million years of water; behind them, a bold line of muscular scarps rears up ten thousand feet
在这视野开阔、绵延百里的地方生活和工作，时常不辨背景和前景。我请一
to become the Big Horn Mountains.
A tidal pattern is engraved into the ground, as if left by the sea