Holding court in the Central Pastime, Burns's lively hometown tavern, the city's former mayor Len Vohs made just one request of the Guardian.

"Please be kind to us. Things have been difficult here for a while."

Vohs is genial and gentle, but his request is firm and sincere. He's clearly not sure how much more the district can take.

It's not just the Bundy Bunch's occupation of the ranch he is referring to – the standoff is just a symptom of the underlying difficulties that have led some locals to give them and other militias a hearing.

Like much of eastern Oregon, Burns and Harney County have long been in economic and demographic decline, and the future only promises more hardships. Staying may mean going down with a sinking ship, and Vohs is one of a long list of local politicians who've tried in vain to reverse the long-term trends affecting the region.

But local resources are limited. The outside world often forgets that the inland west is even there, leading some to turn to savior figures – such as the Bundys – who offer simplistic and bizarre solutions to entrenched problems.

Harney County's lavish natural beauty only makes the cruelties visited on the town more difficult to bear; it's the kind of western landscape makes your heart swell.

At this time of year, the high desert plateau that occupies the northern part of the county's 10,000 square miles is filled to the horizon with snow-clotted sagebrush. A few scattered, flat-topped buttes are the only relief in the vast expanse of Harney Basin, which bottoms out in a pair of lakes, Malheur and Harney. The former gives a name and a rationale for the national wildlife refuge now being occupied by the Bundy militia, whose leader, Ammon Bundy, has repeatedly called the reserve a "tool of tyranny".