If I were to be asked what stories I've written are my favorites, I would not hesitate to firstly name "The Cow," and "Fixing Fence."
I wrote these stories several years ago, after visiting the Yampa Valley in South Routt County, northwestern Colorado. More specifically, I visited a friend's family's ranch in order to see exactly what went into the task of fixing fence, something that my friend knew a bit about. While there, we traveled the ranch in an SUV, and saw the particular images that I later placed within these two stories.
I've self-published these stories at Amazon, the link is here.
Let me give you a taste of both:
THE COW
The
forever wind huffed from the north and west, goosing a response from lodgepole
pine, fir, spruce and newly leafed aspens that surrounded the bone yard.
Brought with it an odor of the land, of spring, the aromas of pine and horse
and cow shit.
Jack
turned his head and once again studied the old cow. He’d known this cow. Passed
into manhood knowing this cow. She’d dropped some fine calves, fat and sassy.
But there was something else about her, something since he was eighteen that
had caught his eye, his interest. She was independent, usually kept herself and
her calves apart from the herd. Went her own way, he thought. She’d never bawl
when they took her calves from her for branding and tagging, castrating if
needed. She’d just stand off by herself, listen to her calf scream for her
proximity, watch the process as though such a thing was an inevitability she
could do nothing about.
He
never had to check her ear tag to know who she was. She was known.
Jack
finished his smoke, snubbed the thing out on the sole of his boot and breathed
deep of the land, sighed, and turned to the cow.
After
untying the rope he’d secured around the cow’s head and forelegs, he threw the
rope in the back of the pickup, turned, stepped to her body, sat to his
haunches and took off his glove. He placed his hand on her white face, gently
stroked her. “You were a good ol’ cow,” he said. He pulled his hat back down on
his forehead, stood up and drove the Dodge back to the home place.
FIXING FENCE
“Fence
ain’t gonna fix itself.” Gus pulled the pickup alongside the sagged fence, cut
the ignition, and let the truck glide to a stop. He waited for a response from
his grandson, Joe. When none came, he turned, saw Joe’s chin resting on his
chest, deep breaths, even a little snore. Kid would sleep through a train
wreck. He studied the boy for a moment. Joe’s black hair, eyes the color of
almonds behind the now closed lids, the slightly brown skin, all of it coming
from the boy’s mother, a Greek beauty, the daughter of a sheep rancher from
Craig who’d captured his son’s heart. The first instance of a Klynkee not
marrying into a German line, Gus now, as he’d done a thousand times, looked for
some little hint of his son in the boy’s face. Maybe his nose, Gus thought. He
shook his head. Maybe his heart. Gus stepped out of the truck, paused a moment
and turned his eyes, hard and gray as iced-over river water, toward the
sunrise, his squint defining his face as crinkled paper, deep set lines earned
from sixty years of worry about the lives and deaths of cows since he was ten.
He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his still full head of purely
white hair. Put his hat back on, coughed, spit. Saw blood on the ground. Pulled
his red hankie from his back pocket and wiped his mouth. He nodded his head,
knew the prognosis.
"No sir, fences just don't up and fix themselves!"
After
he said the words again, Gus slammed the door. The sound jerked Joe halfway out
of the few winks he was catching since climbing in and slumping down into the
passenger side of the battered pickup. Coming awake now, the jolt of the door
slamming sounded like a rifle shot, fired close. Too close. Joe slid up, kept
his eyes closed and remembered the orthodontist.
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