Pops–Cima relationship

The Pops–Cima relationship is a father-daughter bond tested and made visible by their flight from the ranch during social collapse. Their survival depends on shared movement, complementary skills, and an unspoken attentiveness that persists from the dangerous journey into the canyon to their later encounter with the devastation of Grand Junction. The relationship is not presented as a refuge from the catastrophe; it is the means by which they face it together.

Flight from the Ranch

When conditions around the ranch became untenable, Pops and Cima decided to leave together in the middle of the night. They loaded a gooseneck cattle trailer, towed a smaller trailer for the four-wheeler, and brought a dozen cattle, roughly as many sheep, two saddled horses, two Australian shepherds, and provisions. The scale of the departure makes their bond practical as well as intimate: they were not simply escaping with what they could carry, but attempting to preserve animals, equipment, and the means to keep living.

The route out immediately tested that plan. In the fifteen miles to the creek road, Pops fought through three barricaded ambushes and later shot three attackers in the cedar hills. He had expected violence and was able to carry out those actions, but the cost reached into the family’s travelling stock: one horse and two sheep were shot inside the trailer. The losses also made it harder to pass as ordinary travelers the following morning. The danger was not an abstraction they could leave behind at the ranch; it marked their animals and the appearance of their escape.

A Shared Division of Labor

Once they reached the canyon route, Pops rode horseback while Cima drove the ATV, towing a small trailer of gear and supplies. Cima would have preferred to ride, but she was uncomfortable on four-wheelers. Pops, by contrast, was skilled at hazing and herding livestock from the saddle, and the dogs were used to taking orders from him there. Their roles therefore followed different abilities rather than a simple division between protector and protected: Pops managed the animals and the route on horseback, while Cima drove the vehicle carrying supplies.

Their care for the canyon’s concealment was another joint part of the escape. The next morning they walked back downstream, and Pops used dynamite to destroy the ford that crossed the creek. The crossing became impassable except on foot or horseback, and then only at low water. They also swept their tracks and thoroughly obliterated them for two miles before leaving the rough road for the creek trail. That work took all day; two days later, rain further obscured their passage. The account emphasizes Pops’s actions, but the concealment belongs to their shared effort to make the move durable and keep the ranch’s route from being easily followed.

Witnessing What They Left Behind

Cima later tells Hig about the departure and its circumstances over the course of three weeks. That history gives Hig a measure of why Grand Junction affects her so sharply when they fly over it. The city had been part of ordinary family life: they went there for major shopping, including Costco, auto parts, and farm equipment, and sometimes for a weekend movie when the theater in Delta, Colorado, did not interest them. Their flight from the ranch had taken place before Cima saw the full collapse. The wrecked city brings the lost ordinary world into view all at once.

Cima vomits at the sight, pushes open the side window, and gets sick against the glass, but the plane still reeks. Hig hands her the water bottle kept between the seats and looks toward Pops, mindful that the smell or view might set him off too. Pops remains composed, holding a lamb in his lap with one hand on its shoulder as he leans toward the window and takes in the devastation. The gesture joins steadiness with tenderness: even while facing the destroyed place they once visited as a family, he keeps physical contact with a vulnerable animal. For Cima, the ruined city confirms the loss of a familiar life; for Pops, the same view vindicates their decision to flee while also making its terrible cost visible.

Care Beyond the Escape

The relationship continues to register through bodily gestures during their arrival at the damaged settlement. When Hig sees that Bangley’s house has been shot and burned, Pops is immediately upright and alert on his pack; Cima presses Hig’s thigh and cannot keep away from the window. Their reactions differ, but both are responsive to the danger around them, and Pops’s alertness places him once again in the role of a watchful companion without separating him from the group.

Cima also acts on her own purpose after landing. She wants to visit the families as soon as she arrives with Pops, takes her medic bag, and approaches them across the DMZ. Their response is wary at first, but she crosses the boundary and raises a bruised hand. This moment extends the history of shared survival into a wider form of care: Pops and Cima have escaped together, yet Cima’s medical work carries their arrival beyond their own safety. The evidence does not reduce their bond to dependence. Pops’s experience and vigilance matter, while Cima brings her own judgment and purpose to the people they encounter. Their closeness is conveyed through the decisions, labor, and attention that allow them to keep moving together.