Rocky Mountain High...

Well, I'm off to Colorado so I won't be blogging for a while. I know, all the thousands of people who read this blog will be devestated.
As a parting gift, I'm posting a short story for your enjoyment. Enjoy.

It had been less than thirty hours since the gully-washer that filled the low spot called Crooked Creek and only a few puddles remained. The ground had returned to the light brown shade that revealed no evidence of the rain, as if the water had slipped through its fingers into a hidden, forgotten chasm. Cagney Wolverton bounced in the cab of his 1992 Chevy pickup along a quarter-mile stretch of fence that marked the southernmost boundary of his family’s acreage, dust rising behind him like smoke from rain cloud sacrifices to a jealous, parched Earth.

An early morning phone call from Jess Niberts, his neighbor whose home, two miles south of the fence line, was the closest to the spot, had Cagney jostling Eastward over yucca toward one of those Texas mornings whose clouds and colors quiet the soul and the scenery. A fence was down. Jess had noticed a Wolverton momma and calf wondering along the county road just beyond the fence on his way into town. Cagney had thanked him for the information. Must have been the storm. Neighborly of him to call.

Cagney’s Chevy steed hit a rut and coffee sloshed from the Styrofoam cup he had been cradling carefully. He switched hands with the cup and shook away drops of the steaming elixur without taking his attention off the waking land around him.

Ahead, he could see the section of fence in question, stretched over Crooked Creek well above any height that could normally be called a waterline. Two years ago, Cagney had braided a grid of barbed wire and hung it from the bottom of the fence with a long, horizontal post fixed to its low side. The grid served as a downward extension to the fence in dry weather, and when the water rose, the wooden post served as a float that allowed the creek and small debris to pass beneath it.

Now, the grid was gone and the barrier to which it had been tied had been pulled to the ground for fifty yards on each side of the gully. Reaching the bank of what had been a roaring channel the night before, Cagney spotted the culprit. In a muddy bottom one hundred yards downstream, a mangled wad of wire and cottonwood rose higher than the banks.

The posts on this section of fence were wooden, black and gnarled. Driven into place by Cagney’s father, thirty years before, probably on a similar cloudy morning after much-needed rain had come so fast it had slipped to greener climes before the thankful Earth could take a sip.

Cagney sipped his coffee. There were 30 posts to set, 100 yards of fence to stretch, and a floodgate to build. He looked over his shoulder at the pile of T-posts and spools of wire in the scratched bed of the Chevy and surmised he had enough, barely enough to do the job, but it was going to be a long day.

He dismounted the Chevy and unloaded a few posts, a post driver and come-along. He pocketed a few black metal cylinders – knobs they called them – around which he would wrap the wire once he had attached them to the posts. He could see the escapees just to his east, grazing on the narrow stretch of land between his fence and the county road, their squared frames silhouetted against a salmon-colored horizon. Jess would be back down the road in an hour and had promised to stop and help gather the strays – a task Cagney didn’t want to attempt alone if he didn’t have to.

He walked to the Easternmost post that hadn’t bowed to the weight of the rafting cottonwood with the come-along. He would stretch the wire to the post, then cut it on the downed side. But as he was starting to ratchet the fence taut, he saw two more would-be escapees meandering toward the breach. Most of the herd was at the north end of the pasture, where Cagney had sounded the Chevy’s horn and then dumped one hundred pounds of cake on the ground. This pair must not have heard the horn.

Cagney whistled, walking toward the cattle. He needed to turn them away before they left the property. The whistle didn’t work. Seeing he wouldn’t reach the hapless animals in time, Cagney picked up a rock and took aim. It struck the lead cow in the neck, just behind the right eye and she wheeled and loped away, leading the other with her.

Still got the arm, Cagney thought with a smile. He always had a good arm. As a boy, his father took him along on outings like this one – mending fence or doctoring cattle or cutting pregnant cows from the herd. Between tasks, Cagney would kill time throwing rocks at any target that presented itself – cattle, barrels, tires, birds, other rocks. He dreamed of being a baseball player, taking the mound in a major league park. After high school, some of his coaches said he was good enough play Double A ball, but his father frowned on it. Wanted him to save money and go to college instead. Now, thirteen years later, Cagney wondered if he could still play in the minors. He knew he’d never be a star, but maybe he could be a professional. Few could say that had done so. Maybe he would talk to his wife about it tonight. Maybe he would lease the farmland and chase a little boy’s dream for a few years.

Maybe.

By the time he had set the fourth post, the salmon sun had turned yellow and baked away the clouds. Sweating, Cagney walked back to the Chevy. He pulled it forward, abreast of his progress. From the bed, he retrieved a pair of chaps that encased their wearer’s legs in metal from the knee down. He put them on over his jeans and walked back to the fence, armed now against rattlers who might be sunning themselves in the grass and might not like being interrupted.

The chaps flapped against his thighs as he worked and reminded him of his clandestine career in rodeo. It had lasted one summer. It was never the rodeo lifestyle or the competition that drew him to the arenas on Friday nights in his early teens. It was the experience of doing something dangerous, and doing it without his parents’ knowledge. He rode saddle bronc, partly because the junior division didn’t allow bull riding and partly because he had his own saddle, which gave him an advantage.

While he could manage to smuggle the saddle in and out of the tack house on rodeo nights, he couldn’t hide the broken arm a bronc gave him near the summer’s end. His parents were offended but understanding, and more open to the idea of a rodeo career than Cagney expected. But the injury and his parents’ blessing seemed to take the thrill from hiding under the lights of the arena, and he soon abandoned the pursuit. While he drove the next post, Cagney wondered if he would still enjoy the thrill of riding a wild animal. Maybe even a bull. Maybe he would take a hand in the Jaycee’s annual amateur rodeo next year.

Maybe.

By noon, the strays were in. Cagney thanked Jess for his helped and bounced back toward the fence. On the way, he looked over his herd. There were two cows who would calve soon. He could tell by the way they walked – slowly and unevenly – and the way they grazed – rapaciously. He wondered how the cow’s body knew that it needed the extra fuel for the coming birth. Wondered how even a dumb animal could instinctively plan ahead. He used to ask those questions, but he grew dissatisfied with the answers. “That’s just the way it works.” “That’s the way God designed it.”

Surely, the design and the designer were reliable. But Cagney wanted to understand that on which he relied. He knew that the more he learned about the cattle, or the crops, or the computer software his father used to keep track of their business, the more successful his herd, harvest and family could be. He studied doggedly in college, but college had been short-lived. Two years at a junior college had cost his family more than tuition. It cost them time that Cagney could be helping his father. They hired another hand, but his wages and the payments for school mounted quickly. As strongly as Cagney believed in the importance of education, he believed more strongly in the importance of family, and fulfilling responsibility. The Good Book said it’s a man’s duty to take care of his family. He earned an Associates Certificate in agronomy before he quit.

Unloading the last few posts from the Chevy, Cagney thought he might return to school some day. Maybe he could take night classes once the kids were in school. Maybe he could finish his degree. Maybe he could learn what makes a cow hungrier two days before she calves.

Maybe.

The last post seemed the hardest to drive. On the higher east bank of the gully, the water had only smeared the top level of soil before running to join the current below. The earth was unforgiving and his hands rattled with every vertical stroke of the T-post driver.

The sun, which had woken, warmed and dried the pasture while he worked, now turned malevolent. It parched Cagney’s throat and coated his shirt and the brim of his hat with sweat. Clicking the come-along, he stretched the wire until it moaned and twisted in a taut lament. His father had taught him how to stretch fence. Now, too weak to do most of the work, he spent his days in town at the coffee shop and his evenings doting on his grandchildren. Cagney winced at the thought of his father’s weakening. For Cagney, fatherhood meant strength. His father was never weak in frame, in fortitude or in faith. He was a leader that his son, and his community, followed instinctively.

Cagney wondered if his son would see the same strength in him. Would Jess Nibers? Or the other men in town? Maybe, he thought, he would show up to a few more Lion’s Club meetings. Maybe he would be mayor some day and carry on his father’s legacy. Then maybe a state representative, and make his father proud.

Maybe.

Before it reached the horizon, the sun found a patch of cloud and seemed to split it open with rays of unimaginable force. Cagney had driven the last post and stretched the last wire. He was in the gully now, twisting wire around two of the downed wooden posts that he would use as the bottom of his flood gate. With the last twist of pliers, the new grid was finished. Cagney stood and wiped his brow. Before he attached the gate, he paused and surveyed his work. He ducked under the fence and walked up the gully bank on the other side, looking at his land and his work from the outside. The new fence was set firm. It was good work from this perspective – work that he could be proud of.

The sun appeared below the patch of clouds and turned the drying brown landscape to gold. Ragged edges of yucca flowers turned to silk and sent streamers of silver into the light. Balls of cottonwood coasted past like floating festival lights.

Cagney lingered outside his farm. He turned and faced the road to which his cattle had escaped – the road that led to town and beyond it. To dreams awaiting chase. To adventures unembarked. For a moment, the world was quiet in quandary.

As slowly as sunrise, a smile broke onto his face. Cagney took one last look up the road, then turned with purpose and stepped inside the fence.

When he got home that night, maybe he would hug his wife once more than she expected. Maybe he would give his young son his first baseball lesson. Maybe he would thank his father for teaching him how to mend fence.

Certainly.