Part 2: A Bullet Reveals the First Cracks in Our Marriage
The first deputy asked whether Jared and I had been arguing. Detective McLean, who arrived later wearing a canvas jacket, asked whether my husband had ever threatened me, struck me, or handled a firearm during an argument. I answered no each time, watching him write in a small notebook.
“He’s careful with guns,” I insisted. “And he wasn’t home when it happened.”
McLean looked up. “Where was he?”
“At the range. They had a competition that evening.”
I explained about the ridge, the steel targets, and the strange sound I’d heard. He listened without interrupting, although he reminded me that the range was more than a mile away.
That evening, a surgeon numbed the skin behind my ear and removed the metal fragment through a small incision. I heard it click against a specimen cup. It was smaller than my pinky nail, copper-colored on one side and flattened on the other, with dull gray marks across its crushed surface.
Detective McLean sealed it into an evidence bag.
I kept staring at the little object.
For seven days, I’d carried it beneath my skin while driving fifty-two children to and from school.
Dr. Ramos told me my skull had stopped it. A slightly different impact could have killed me, and the persistent symptoms had made further medical evaluation urgent. He instructed me not to drive until I was cleared.
Jared and Lorene arrived that night around ten. My husband rushed to my bedside, placing trembling hands against my cheeks.
“Cheyenne. Oh, God. Cheyenne.”
Lorene stood behind him gripping her purse. “You took a taxi? Do you know what the hospital is going to charge us?”
A deputy had already visited our house to check on the girls. Detective McLean escorted Jared into the hallway, where I heard him insist that forty people could confirm he’d been working.
Then Jared said something peculiar.
“Nobody could shoot that far over the ridge. You’d have to be firing practically into the sky.”
I couldn’t remember the detective suggesting otherwise.
I went home Sunday afternoon with pain medication and instructions to rest. Jared made tea, entertained the girls, repaired a loose porch step, and watched me with an attentiveness that might once have made me feel cherished.
On Monday evening, he sat beside the couch.
“Did they figure out what kind of bullet it was?”
“They sent it to the crime lab.”
He rubbed his palms against his jeans. “Just curious.”
Wednesday, Detective McLean called.
The laboratory had identified a 6.5-millimeter rifle projectile consistent with ammunition used in long-distance shooting. Marks on its flattened surface suggested it had struck hard steel before hitting me.
McLean had visited Big Sky Precision Range. Witt showed him the safety berms and permits, then suggested that an irresponsible hunter shooting at prairie dogs might have caused the injury.
“The lab findings don’t fit that explanation very well,” McLean told me. “And we’ve found earlier complaints.”
I wanted to see those complaints for myself.
The next afternoon, wearing a ball cap over my bandage, I walked to our nearest neighbor’s ranch. He showed me a ragged hole near the roof of his horse trailer, made the previous July. He’d reported it, but the county employee who inspected it had suggested a hunter was responsible.
Three properties down, a young father brought out a pill bottle containing another flattened bullet. It had punched through his garden shed roof in March and struck a wheelbarrow. His wife showed me an email from the county acknowledging their complaint and saying it had been forwarded to the appropriate agency.
“Then they sent it back where it started,” she said.
I photographed everything.
The county commission office told me the range operated under a conditional use permit issued in 2009 and expanded in 2024. Safety concerns were supposedly law enforcement’s responsibility; previous inquiries had produced no conclusive evidence against the facility.
I returned home exhausted, with dust on my shoes and photographs on my phone.
That night, Lorene sat across from me at the kitchen table.
“You’re going to destroy Jared’s livelihood,” she said. “You’ve been walking around telling people your husband shot you.”
“I’ve been asking where the bullet came from.”
“Nobody meant to hurt you.”
I looked at her. “Is that supposed to make it harmless?”
She straightened the tablecloth. “Witt paid eleven thousand dollars for my rehabilitation when insurance wouldn’t. He gave Jared a career. We owe that man more than you understand.”
Jared stood in the hallway, having apparently heard the conversation. His mother looked toward him, waiting for support.
He said nothing.
At two that morning, I went outside in my socks and opened my husband’s truck.
Jared kept a spiral notebook in the door pocket. Every shooting competition had a detailed record of relay times and unusual incidents, written in his precise block lettering.
I found September 12.
The entries ended with Relay 7 at 7:02 p.m.
The next page had been torn out, leaving little paper teeth in the spiral binding.
I took a photograph, closed the notebook, and went back inside.
Beside me in bed, Jared slept with one hand resting on the empty space between us.
Part 3: Missing Records and a Dangerous Map Expose Hidden Loyalties
Detective McLean studied my photograph the following Monday. “A missing page is suspicious,” he said, “but a defense attorney can offer a dozen innocent explanations.”
“Jared doesn’t tear pages out of records. He starts a new notebook when he makes mistakes.”
McLean tapped the photograph. “Then we need more than this.”
He’d requested a county review of the range’s long-distance permit, but the process could take months. I hired a personal injury attorney in Billings, who accepted my case on contingency and brought in an independent range safety consultant from Bozeman.
The consultant spent two days examining our property, the ridge, and the shooting facility. Ten days later, he showed us a map marked with a broad red fan extending outward from the steel targets.
“This is the potential ricochet danger zone,” he explained.
The shaded area crossed the ridge and reached our house, the clothesline, our neighbor’s horse trailer, and the young couple’s garden shed. His report identified improperly angled steel targets and a safety berm approximately four feet too short for the course’s configuration. Standard protective equipment could have substantially reduced the risk.
My attorney forwarded everything to the county, and the commission scheduled an expedited hearing for October 1.
The evening before, Witt arrived at our front door carrying a white envelope. He sat at my kitchen table while Jared stood beside the refrigerator and Lorene watched from the doorway.
Inside the envelope was a five-thousand-dollar check and a two-page agreement.
“Medical expenses,” Witt said pleasantly. “You’ve had a rough time, Cheyenne.”
I read the second page twice. It released Big Sky Precision Range and its owner from all claims connected to September 12.
“This means I can’t sue you.”
“It means we can put an unfortunate accident behind us.”
I pushed the papers toward him. “No.”
Witt looked at my husband. “Jared works for me. I’d hate for a misunderstanding to affect everybody’s future.”
Lorene stepped forward. “Think about the girls. Five thousand dollars would help.”
Witt left the envelope behind. After he drove away, I asked Jared whether he knew something he hadn’t told the detective.
He stared at the check.
“People make mistakes, Cheyenne.”
“Who made one?”
He walked into the bedroom without answering.
I carried the envelope to the county courthouse the next afternoon. My neighbors filled several seats; Lorene sat with Witt’s supporters, and Jared chose a chair near the back door.
Witt’s attorney spoke about the range’s spotless history and economic importance. My lawyer submitted the consultant’s map, photographs, earlier complaints, and evidence recovered from the neighbors’ properties.
When the commission chair invited me forward, I held up my hospital scan.
“This is my skull,” I told the commissioners. “That white spot is a bullet that was inside my head for seven days.”
I placed the five-thousand-dollar check on the podium beside it.
“Last night, I was offered this money to give up my claims. I’m returning it.”
The chairman adjusted his glasses and looked toward the back of the room.
“Mr. Potter, you supervised the September twelfth competition. Would you answer a question?”
Jared stood.
Lorene caught his sleeve, but he gently pulled away.
Part 4: My Husband Tells the Truth and Loses Our Trust
Jared walked to the microphone with his eyes fixed on the floor.
The chairman asked, “To your knowledge, did any round leave the designated range area during the September twelfth competition?”
“Yes, sir.”
Witt’s attorney shifted forward.
Jared gripped the microphone stand. “Around seven-fifteen, a shooter on lane four struck the edge of steel plate nine. I heard the impact. Then I heard the round travel over the berm toward the ridge.”
I watched my husband struggle to swallow.
“I recorded it in my log. When I got home and saw Cheyenne’s injury, I knew what probably happened.”
“Where is that record?” the chairman asked.
“I tore it out.”
Somewhere behind us, Lorene whispered his name.
Jared continued. “I told my mother that night. I told Witt the next morning. We decided not to report it because the county might shut down the long-distance course, and I could lose my job.”
He finally looked at me.
“I convinced myself she’d be fine.”
I remembered him holding my hand at dinner, promising to take me to a doctor. His mother had watched me count ibuprofen tablets while both of them knew a bullet might be lodged beneath my skin.
“You watched me get sicker,” I said quietly.
He lowered his eyes. “I know.”
That afternoon, the commissioners unanimously suspended the long-distance course’s permit until approved safety modifications were completed. The rest of the facility could continue operating.
Nobody went to jail. The criminal investigation did not establish an intentional shooting, but the documented safety failures and concealed incident became central to our civil claim.
Witt fired Jared the following morning.
Before Christmas, the range’s insurer settled our lawsuit. My medical bills, the taxi fare, related expenses, and additional damages were covered. Our neighbors received compensation for their damaged property, too.
Jared found work driving a gravel truck in Laurel.
Lorene moved back into her own house and eventually installed a stair lift. She sent birthday cards to the girls but never called me.
A week after the hearing, I packed our daughters’ clothes and moved into my sister’s home in Billings.
Jared helped carry the suitcases.
At the door, he asked, “Do you think you’ll ever be able to trust me again?”
I looked at the man I’d loved for thirteen years.
“I don’t know.”
That was the only answer I could give him.
He visits the girls regularly now, and sometimes we share Sunday dinner. He’s learning to answer difficult questions without looking toward his mother or worrying about what another man might think. I hope he continues, whether our marriage survives or not.
I’m back behind the wheel of Route 11, with fifty-two children arguing about music and waving at cattle beyond the fences. My headaches have eased, though a small scar remains behind my right ear.
On my sister’s refrigerator, beneath a cow-shaped magnet, hangs the hospital scan showing the tiny white shape against my skull. Next to it is my laminated school bus route map.
One reminds me how close I came to losing my life because people I trusted decided their security mattered more than my safety.
The other reminds me that I still have somewhere to go.
And every morning, when I turn the ignition key, I’m the one who decides which road to take.
The End .
All characters and events in this story are fictional, created for storytelling and entertainment purposes. Thank you sincerely for reading. Your feedback and support are invaluable and motivate me to continue sharing more stories with you.
