Booksellers write new chapter in Wyoming

SWEETWATER STATION, Wyo. — In the fading afternoon light, the barnyard is turning raucous: the chickens are clucking, peacocks are pacing and sheep are bawling, making the llama a bit nervous. The donkey just works his gums as though chawing on a plug of tobacco.

Polly Hinds and Lynda German stand beaming amid the chaos, their old blue tractor in the background, framed by an endless expanse of prairie sky. For the two literary outliers, it is the end of another precious day on their unlikely experiment in the middle of Wyoming's nowhere.

Their hands filthy from chores, the two veteran booksellers carry armloads of hard-bound volumes, careful not to dirty the historical tomes and two Zane Grey works of fiction, "The Last Ranger" and "Last of the Great Scouts." The words scrawled in red on a storage shed explain the contrast: "BOOKS FOR SALE."

Thirteen years ago, the pair fled Denver following a bizarre altercation with police, looking for a quieter life. They found it here on a deserted ranch 40 miles from the nearest store, where the only violence comes from two marauding moose that sometimes break their windows in search of food.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-wyoming-book-store-20131125,0,4938241.story