The Scent of Distant Family

Set against the backdrop of a remote location in the throes of rapid development, Nik Delaney leaves a respected career in wildlife biology to return home to Wyoming. In the Rocky Mountain winter, every relationship Nik has wears even thinner as she cares for her aging father, faces a crumbling marriage, and parents Finn, the son of her antagonistic brother. Then Zolo, her foster dog, runs away.

Nik’s search for Zolo in the vast and unforgiving landscape introduces her to the eccentric residents of the high sagebrush, including a rancher trying to run an ecolodge in oil country and a displaced herd of wild mustangs led by a mare called Tess. Zolo and Tess learn to rely on each other to thrive, but even with her father’s life at stake, Nik resists relying on the desert’s scattered community.

This story of loyalty and deception in western Wyoming expands our sense of who we choose to consider family.

sid sibo cofounded an animal shelter and lives in western Wyoming with more than thirty rescued companion animals. sibo earned the Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award, and selections of sibo’s work are included in Best Small Fictions 2022, Reader Centered Writing, and Maine Character Energy, and have been published in Orca, Cutthroat, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Evocations, and Fourth River.