What if the United States expelled a state from the Union?

That’s the question Denver author Dallas Jones explores in his novel, Wyonation, in which political drama meets speculative fiction with a Western flavor.

Jones, a business systems analyst and consultant, is a native of Casper, Wyoming and currently lives in Colorado. Wyonation, his second novel, was a finalist for the 2024 Colorado Authors League Award in the Thriller category.

Jones begins his tale “many years from now.” America has become an enlightened nation where women are able to scale the political ladder and electric cars can self-execute perfect parallel parking.

In the natural range region of Wyonation, poaching is illegal and punishable by death—the region is an autonomous political entity created 17 years earlier, ostensibly to preserve the land and wildlife of the region. But an international crisis unfolds as a poacher, a vacationing Chinese diplomat, aims at a deer and is killed by Wyonation rangers.

Protagonist Grayson Woodley, who oversees one of the wildlife districts in Wyonation, goes to Washington, D.C., to help resolve the crisis after the Chinese protest. After a tense session with officials from the United States and China, he goes to one of his old haunts, a bar called Gerry Manders and meets up with Interior Department analyst Theresa Cicci (pronounced Chi-chi), with whom he has a history, and LeRoy Tang, one of the Chinese representatives.

After several drinks, Woodley and Tang begin to share their personal histories, and Woodley tells Tang the story of how Wyonation came to be, setting the structure of the book in place—the history of Wyonation told in flashbacks alternating with conversations in real time among Woodley and Tang and Woodley’s reacquaintance with Cicci.

The story begins a bit slowly, as it needs a lot of exposition. But Jones picks up the pace, and Wyonation becomes an entertaining if fanciful read.

Woodley grew up on a 3,000-acre ranch owned by his family in Central Wyoming but was working with the state government when Democratic officials in Washington proposed ejecting Wyoming and converting it into another entity. They aimed to accomplish this by amending the U.S. Constitution to require that a state must maintain a population of at least one-seven hundredth of the country’s total population. Failure to do so would result in loss of statehood, and the former state would be declared a natural range region. A new governing body would be established for the territory, at least one-half of which would consist of Native Americans. The drafters of the amendment included this provision as an incentive to several tribes in southern South Dakota to join Wyonation.

Once Wyoming, a conservative state, was dissolved and would lose its representation in D.C., the Democrats would be free to annex Puerto Rico as the 50^th state, maintaining their control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.

Wyoming Gov. Hogan Linsey intends to send Woodley to D.C. to lobby against the amendment, which must be approved by Congress and then ratified by three-fourths of the states. But first, he is assigned to escort Cicci, a young, attractive employee of the U.S. Department of the Interior, on a tour of the state. The two hit it off, even though they’re on opposite sides of the issue, and embark on a passionate affair.

Because the U.S. government intends to evict current residents, force landowners to sell to Native Americans and shut down state agencies and the University of Wyoming, resistance is building in the state. Woodley and Cicci go to a rally that turns violent—Cicci is attacked and, traumatized, returns to D.C. Woodley is injured while defending her and kills her assailant in self-defense. This incident is widely covered in the press and sways voters across the nation. Congress approves the amendment, which is ratified within weeks.

Linsey, Woodley and his colleague Smitty fear that the transition will be marked by more violence as the powers-that-be in Washington toughen the regulations that will govern Wyonation. They give current landholders three years to sell their land to Native Americans.

Fearing that the Feds will send in troops to quell resistance and use violence to enforce the transition, Gov. Linsey charges Woodley and his colleague Smitty to come up with a way to get better compensation for Wyoming citizens. He suggests digging up dirt on key politicos in D.C., but Woodley and Smitty have something else in mind.

I won’t spoil the fun by revealing what they do, but after several twists and turns, their plan succeeds. As the transition proceeds, current residents—individual land and business owners—are allowed to remain and to retain their land and businesses. If there are no heirs for homes, land or businesses, they will revert to Wyonation for redistribution to Native Americans. Corporate land and business owners will have two years to sell their entities and property to Wyonation, and their property will be redistributed to Native Americans.

Woodley becomes part of the new Wyonation government and serves as the first Director of Treasures—Treasures meaning natural resources. Five years later, he becomes a district protector, or ranger, in the Black Hills. But after suffering a broken leg in an ATV rollover, he leaves field work and becomes a district director. Wyonation passes its own constitution and institutes capital punishment for poaching after an epidemic of brucellosis wipes beef off American tables and killing of wild game soars.

The story begins a bit slowly, as it needs a lot of exposition. But Jones picks up the pace, and Wyonation becomes an entertaining if fanciful read.