Cheyenne

Cheyenne, Wyoming, is the home of Hawthorne Abendsen, the author of the banned alternate-history novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and the destination of Juliana Frink's desperate journey. It is the place where the novel's central riddle—whether the world of the book is mere fantasy or a vision of a truer reality—is confronted and, for Juliana, resolved. The city functions as a quiet, ordinary stage for an extraordinary revelation, a stark contrast to the fortress-like High Castle of rumor and the violent events that precede her arrival.

Location and Setting

Cheyenne is a city in the Rocky Mountain States, a region that exists in the uneasy buffer zone between the Japanese-dominated Pacific States of America and the Nazi-influenced United States. It is described as a place where Abendsen, an ex-Marine wounded in the war, has chosen to live and work. The city is the setting for the Abendsen home, a single-story stucco house with a garden of climbing roses and a child's tricycle in the driveway, a far cry from the paranoid fortress—the High Castle—that the book's cover and rumors describe. This domestic, unguarded reality is the first surprise for Juliana when she arrives.

Juliana's Arrival and the Abendsen Home

Juliana Frink reaches Cheyenne at one o'clock in the afternoon, after a harrowing drive from Denver where she killed the SD agent Joe Cinnadella. She first stops to buy newspapers and reads of the fatal slashing, learning that the police have not identified her correctly. She then checks into a motel, finishes reading The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, and prepares for her visit. That evening, she takes a taxi to the Abendsen house, which is lit up and filled with the sound of music and voices—a party is in progress. The house is ordinary and well-maintained, contradicting the legend of the High Castle. She is greeted by the Abendsens' teenage son and then by Caroline Abendsen, who recognizes Juliana from her phone call the night before.

The Revelation of the Oracle

Inside, Juliana meets Hawthorne Abendsen, a tall, dark-haired man in an expensive suit. She presses him on how he wrote his book, asking directly if he used the I Ching. After initial evasion, Caroline Abendsen reveals the truth: Hawthorne made thousands of choices for the novel by consulting the oracle, using the lines to determine the historic period, subject, characters, and plot. The oracle even predicted the book's great success. Juliana then insists on asking the oracle a question herself: why it wrote The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Using Hawthorne's coins, she casts the hexagram Chung Fu, or Inner Truth. When she declares that the hexagram means the book is true—that Germany and Japan really lost the war—Hawthorne is shaken. He angrily asks if she means his book is true, and she confirms it. He closes the volumes and says nothing, unable to fully accept the revelation she has brought.

Aftermath and Significance

Juliana leaves the party, having disrupted the evening with her truth. Hawthorne, though unsettled, thanks her for what she did in Denver and refuses her advice to carry a weapon, saying he can lean on the oracle if he gets edgy. Caroline Abendsen is upset, finding Juliana's presence and the truth she brought to be terribly disruptive. Juliana walks away from the house, searching for a cab to take her back to her motel. Cheyenne, in the end, is not the site of a violent assassination but of a quiet, philosophical confrontation. It is the place where the novel's central conceit—that the world of the Axis victory is a false reality—is spoken aloud and, for one person, believed. The city becomes the threshold between the world of the novel and the world the novel imagines, a place where the truth, as terrible as death, is finally faced.