By George Seaton

Gus Klynkee sighed, studied the sagging fence line through the pickup’s cracked windshield. The fence had sighed a bit itself against the nature of winter in the High Plains of north central Colorado—snow, felled aspens and pines rested on and, in places, had snapped the barbed wire; the obvious evidence of the passage of critters over, under and through the fence. Damned elk was where Gus assessed the majority of blame.

He huffed a gray plume against the windshield from the nub of the Camel glowing between his lips. Pushed his SHELL ball cap up a bit, brushed his palm against his three-day growth of stubble, massaged the ache in his neck. Hell, he’d seen them do it. Unlike deer and antelope, elk wouldn’t even try to jump the fence. What’s a fence to a bull elk, anyway? Critter would walk right through it, like it wasn’t even there.

He’d known, even before sipping his first cup of coffee that morning, he’d see more or less of what he always saw this time of year. Fences, like people, were vulnerable to the passage of time, the elements. He wished for less vulnerability. Always the wishing. Didn’t pray on it. He reserved prayers for good harvest, fat calves. Intact fence remained just on the wish list.

He’d grabbed his ball cap and denim coat from hooks to the left of the kitchen door. “C’mon, Joe, get the lead out.”

“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, turned his eyes, hard and gray as iced-over river, 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, remembered the orthodontist.

The orthodontist, like all of them—doctors, lawyers, CEOs, Wall Street traders who had yet to lose their shorts in the downturn—fancied themselves hunters of wild game, at least for four or five days out of the 365, when they headed for the G-K Ranch. Most of them return customers who valued the homey accoutrements offered by Gus and Anna Klynkee. Gus and Anna kept three cabins clean, warm, rid of varmints; all for the purpose of supplementing hay and cow income with east coast dreams never die money from fat cats intent on inventing, or reinforcing their perception of their own manhood by killing wild critters. Elk, deer, some antelope, who lived a good part of their lives in the high scrub meadows of the G—K, were their targets. Gus and Anna Klynkee were happy for the opportunity to take their checks, skin their kills, ship deer and elk racks back east. Where, surely, bold stories, lies mostly, of death and danger would flow over the jingle of ice caressed by single malt Scotch, as one fat cat or another explained the story behind the ten-point rack above the fireplace.

The orthodontist had stubbed his toe exiting the cabin. Joe’d been standing right outside the damned door at the time. The orthodontist reflexively squeezed the trigger of his Ruger in response to the pain in his toe, killing a weathered wooden windmill, a goose twirling wings with the wind Joe’s grandma had stuck in the yard in front of the cabin just for the homey quality of the thing. Joe had slightly, not enough, he thought, for anyone to see, wet his pants that day when the old goose caught the .30-30 slug right between its eyes. Joe had missed the receipt of the slug in his head or chest by an inch or two as he stepped on the cabin’s porch, sent by his grandpa to see if the weekend wonders were ready to hit the trail, kill some critters.

The bevy of doctors, dentists, CEOs would laugh like hell about it all, over a campfire later that night.

Now, there was again that close-in enormous pop that he’d never forget as a lesson learned, encompassing the essence of city folk, an unpredictable lot not to be trusted.

Joe was now fully awake. He’d slept most of the way, lulled by the bounce and sway of the pickup over ruts and gullies, dirt mounds and sagebrush; the prairie and pastures offered up as personalities, not unlike the kitchen floor in the home place, left untended now through generations of the footslog of the Klynkee family. No want or need to fix it, even it out. It was fine just the way it was and would remain.

Joe had finished his chores just before sunup. He’d sipped some hot coffee, ate some eggs, bacon, then followed his grandpa to the barn. They grabbed the fence stretcher, shovel, pliers, wire cutter, pry bar, posthole digger, spade, and threw them in the bed of the pickup. His grandpa then drove the pickup past the corrals, let the old heap idle, and loaded the bed with fence posts, roles of barbed and baling wire, all taken from the hidden acre just south of the corrals. Gus had named that hidden acre The Rest Home, a place set back, out of sight, where the detritus of ranch life had collected through four generations of the Klynkee clan. Never knew when you might need something from it someday. A bolt, a transmission from a 1937 DeSoto, a steering wheel from a 1950 John Deere, rusted role of prickly wire, railroad ties, fence posts cut from fallen or felled trees soaking up old motor oil mixed with creosote in fifty-five gallon drums.

Waste not, want not was something Joe could do without hearing again from his grandparents, from anybody. But, then, there was a practicality to it all. Don’t have to buy what you’ve already got. Don’t have to buy what you can’t afford.

Joe figured he had seventy, eighty more years ahead of him...not something most twelve-year-old boys thought about. But he’d come to consider the specter of mortality early. The daddy he’d never known was dead. Damned tractor had toppled over, crushing the life out of him. His mamma gone, just gone, because ranch life wasn’t worth it anymore. Never had been, actually, but she did love that hardcase cowboy, Joe’s daddy, and would follow him anywhere, except to death which was the sorry outcome of that situation.

Joe pulled up on the latch, opened the door, mirrored his grandpa’s squint against the rush of sunrise from the east. His grandpa had already started digging up the underground rot of a failed post.

“You helpin’ or takin’ a leisurely south sea cruise to the land of sun-baked women, naked at the tits?”

Joe stepped out of the pickup, smiled, ran his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair. He glanced over his shoulder at the Flattops, eleven miles away, still dusted with snow, still holding an allure wrapped in truths and fables about the Indians, the Colorado Yampa Ute tribe, who favored the area before the white man favored it more.

Joe turned to his grandpa. “Grandpa, them south seas can wait til I’m old and feeble like you. How come we’re doin’ this section, anyways? And, where’s Mitch and Billy?” He pulled the back of his hands across his eyes.

His grandpa stopped digging, rested his hand on the top of the spade. “Well, mister-twelve-year-old-hot-shit-know-it-all, I guess the difference between hay and scrub meadow just ain’t somethin’ taught down at Yampa Elementary. Guess some old and feeble dipshit hardcase needs to explain it all, so you can understand what the hell you’re doin’ when your grandpa takes off for them south seas and sun-ripened women. And, the hired hands is over on the old Reineke spread, fixin’ fence up north.”

“All I asked was...”

“I know what you asked. For the record, if you’re keepin’ score, we fix fence on this section ‘cause, come next week, we’re floodin’ this hay meadow,” he pointed down, exaggeratedly raising and lowering his index finger in front of Joe’s face. “Then, we’re turnin’ the herd out into the high meadow, into them Aspen groves, pine forest, til this here section is growed, cut and put up. Point is, we don’t want Mister Hill’s cows comin’ into this meadow as it grows. Besides, a man’s straight and true fence line says somethin’ about that man, says somethin’ about family, too. Me, my daddy, his daddy before him, all of us...”

“I know,” Joe said, stepping close, smiling, grabbing his grandpa’s gloved hand. “I know what we’re doin’. I know why we’re doin’ it.”

Both studied the other, grandfather to grandson, grandson to grandfather. Both understanding truths caressed by the tight circuit of family. His grandpa smiled.

Joe looked east, squinted. “Mister Hill and his boy comin’ this year?”

Gus glanced east, toward Finger Rock. “Said he would. That’s the arrangement, anyways.”

“I see ‘em,” Joe said, pointing.

Gus looked again. Saw his neighbor. “Yeah. That’s them.” He turned back to the work at hand. “Gimme one a them posts behind you.”

“Yessir,” Joe said, watching Mister Hill and his boy, Mark, inch closer, become larger, as their red Ford pickup slowly chugged to the fence line.

Consummating an understanding between Gus and Mister Hill, neither remembered when that understanding had first occurred. But it remained irrevocable. They had shaken on it at one time. Such was the understanding of men who had come to value the truth of themselves, honed by lives lived on the land, seeing hay harvest teeter between good and bad, the caprice of seasons, the loss of children before their time, the unending single-minded plod of cows upon the good earth.

“Don’t want to use that baling wire, if we don’t have to. Snip about two feet of that roll of prickly wire, Joe. Use them wire cutters. You got your gloves on?”

Joe’s grandpa had hooked one end of the fence stretcher on the severed end of the barbed wire, already fastened to the new fence post he’d secured into the ground. Mister Hill had grabbed the other end of the torn wire, hooked it in to the business end of the stretcher, ratcheted it tight. They waited for Joe to hand over the splice piece. When he did, Gus and Mister Hill twisted the ends of the splice wire into the existing, used pliers to secure the tie, gradually eased the fence stretcher’s hold, and watched the posts on either end for give. Seeing none, they moved on, repeating their task as needed.

“You boys get busy on the stays, them floaters,” Gus said. “Got pieces of aspen in the truck. Use them staples.”

The boys, same age, each grabbed an armful of three-foot lengths of aspen, a bag full of rounded staples. They bent down, one of either side of the fence, placed the aspen posts vertical against the taught wire. They used their pliers and a hammer to secure the posts to each of the four strands, both knowing their purpose was to assure that no damned calf was able to slip through the gaps in the wire if the stays held true. Such was their primary responsibility as boys. Later on, they’d move up the chain to actually replacing posts, stretching wire. They understood their contribution to the effort mattered. As they worked, they gabbed about the prospect of returning to school after spring vacation, shared plans for the summer ahead.

“You stop that fidgetin’, Gus.” Anna Klynkee seasoned a pot roast, had fired up the oven. “And that cough a yours needs tending. Need to see a doctor.”

Gus sat at the kitchen table, sipped coffee, drummed his fingers. “Damned doctors ain’t gonna know more an I do. Think I’ll ride the fence. Where’s Joe?”

“In his room, I suppose. And, you do need to see a doctor.”

“Ah, hell...” Gus stood up, walked through the hallway, and opened Joe’s door. “Wanna ride fence?”

Joe turned from his homework, scooted his chair from his pint-sized desk. “Sure. We takin’ the truck or the horses?”

“Horses,” Gus turned, walked back to the kitchen. “You saddle up Flapjack. I’ll get Clementine,” he said, knowing Joe was at his heels.

“Supper in a couple hours or so,” Anna said, not looking up from her task, knowing her men, the center of her life, would probably not return until nightfall. She was used to such things. She’d keep the food warm, sip coffee until they returned.

Fall had come to the G-K, turning aspen groves into bouquets. The sun lingered just above the Flattops, bathing the hay meadow stubble in a golden sheen. The 5,000 acres of the G-K was readying to hunker for the winter.

“Let’s head up the hill,” Gus said, reining the bay mare south. Joe followed, scratching Flapjack’s withers as the chestnut gelding blew, farted, shook its head. Joe read the signs of a horse happy to be moving.

After they’d crossed the hay meadow, Gus sided up to a gate, bent down and unlatched it, shoved it open. Beyond the gate was a tire-rutted trail, leading up to the high meadows where aspen and pine hovered over puffs of sagebrush, wild grass now gone brown. Joe reined Flapjack tight, knew the five-year-old gelding was probably working on a notion to bolt, get out front of the old mare.

“How many city folks comin’ to hunt?” Joe’d had the question in his mind for a while, wondered if the orthodontist would return.

“A number of ‘em,” Gus said. “That damned dentist ain’t comin’ back, though. I seen the spot on your jeans that day, Joe. Prob’ly woulda done the same myself. Told him he wasn’t welcome no more.”

Joe was silent. Had placed the incident at the back of his mind, an embarrassment he’d thought was his alone.

“Times past,” Gus said, pausing to cough, spit, “the family would gather about Memorial Day. Nephews, nieces, cousins, hell, about forty of our kin would come from points east and west to help with fixing fence. Your grandma would barbeque for three days prior. A family time. Everybody knowing the worth of taught fence. But, hell, last couple years the family has begun to snipe like crows, all wonderin’ whose got the inside track on inheritin’ the G-K, all figurin’ I’m on my last legs. Worth millions now, Joe. But, them millions don’t even skim the surface of the worth of it all. Seems family is just broke apart by avarice.”

Gus reined Clementine, coughed again.

Joe saw him spit blood, wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

Gus clicked his tongue against his cheek, got Clementine moving.

“Thing is, Joe,” Gus continued, “just like them hunters, the family has lost sight of the G-K as anything other than a pleasure trip...somethin’ havin’ meaning only in the worth of their own egos...and their pocketbooks. You understand that, Joe?”

“Sure, grandpa.” Joe reined Flapjack alongside Clementine. They had reached the top of the hill that overlooked the southernmost hay pasture spread below their pause. Gus pulled a flask from his coat pocket, unscrewed the top, sipped.

They studied the pasture below. Neither spoke. Flapjack blew again, anxious to get moving. Clementine, older, perhaps wiser, simply lowered her head and pulled up brown grass, and munched.

Gus put the flask back in his pocket, again clicked his tongue against his cheek, nudged Clementine with his heels. “Fence line down here, between this scrub and the hay meadow, is lookin’ a little sad.”

Joe didn’t have to urge Flapjack to move. He eased back in the saddle, leaned his weight against the cantle as Flapjack followed the old mare down the hill.

They rode the fence line west between the base of the wild scrub and the hay meadow that defined the southern perimeter of the G-K.

“She’ll need work come spring,” Gus said, coughed again, this time grabbing the red hankie from his back pocket and wiping his mouth.

“Grandpa, you alright?”

“Sure am.” Gus put the hankie back in his pocket. “Soothin’ to just see the line of fence. Sure, needs fixin’, but still...”

Gus coughed hard, bent over and grabbed the saddle horn, turned his head and spit, felt the drool slide from his mouth. He started to grab his hankie again, felt the pain of something heavy, hard in his chest, alongside the left of his body. He leaned over, kept hold of the saddle horn with his right hand. “Joe,” his voice ragged, “take my reins.”

“Grandpa,” Joe said, reining Flapjack up close to the mare. He grabbed the reins from his grandpa, slipped them over the mare’s head, and looked back. “Grandpa, what’s the matter? We need to stop?”

“No, no stoppin’. Just get us home.” Gus’s voice seemed to come from an ancient, dark place that Joe knew he’d probably find in nightmares the rest of his life.

The family came, paid their respects, sat anxious through the services for the later reading of the will. Most were uncomfortable with Anna Klynkee, the matriarch of the family, sitting in the first pew with her arm around the black-haired boy, so unlike themselves.

They gathered at the home place, heard Gus Klynkee’s words read by the rumpled old lawyer who’d come from Oak Creek to reveal last wishes Gus had given his signature to a month before.

“All my earthly belongings, the ranch and everything upon it, divided equally, I bequest to my precious wife, Anna, and my grandbaby, my friend, my son’s son, Joseph Gustav Klynkee.” The old attorney paused, peered over the tops of his reading glasses, saw disappointment, even anger in the eyes of most of those gathered. He continued. “To the rest of my family, I bequest a wish that they someday find a sense of themselves that gives no quarter to mendacity and greed.”

To the stone-cold silence in the living room of the home place, Anna Klynkee stood, turned to her relations. “Next spring, I want to fix the fence around the plot in the aspen grove, up above the hay meadow, where we’ll bury Gus’s ashes. His forebears are there already. I figure a good fence, taught and true, would be a fitting thing to do in Gus’s memory. I hope you all will come and help.”

Another spring, Joe and the hired help, Mitch and Billy, busied themselves with the scrutiny of cows dropping calves, helping with the births when needed, valuing the look and spunk of the calves as they found their feet for the first time. Anna hovered in the background, aware of the responsibility left to her from her husband, appreciating the work of her hired help, her grandson, Joe. She viewed the births of calves as a thing of wonder, just for its simplicity in the whole scheme of things encompassed by the G-K.

Day came when it was time to fix the fence surrounding the family cemetery. Anna prepared food, stocked up on beer and wine, figured the whiskey drinkers would bring their own.

Joe, now thirteen, fired up the old pickup, drove to The Rest Home, threw the implements and supplies necessary for the task at hand into the back of the truck. He glanced at the small marble headstone on the passenger seat, shifted on the four-wheel-drive and inched up the incline to the aspen grove. There he saw his grandma alone, sitting on a felled stump, her hands clutching the silver box, his grandpa’s ashes within. He got out of the truck and walked to her.

“Maybe just you and me, Joe.” Anna placed the box on the ground, stood up, and waited for Joe to come to her.

Joe wrapped his arms around his grandma. “Grandpa would a prob’ly wanted it that way. We can get it done, grandma.”

They both turned with the sound of motors revving to climb the incline. They saw three pickups, a couple ATV’s behind, all chugging up the hillside.

Joe saw the red pickup leading the others. Mister Hill and his boy, Mark, were the first in line. The others Joe recognized as neighboring ranchers, and just folks from Yampa, Oak Creek, Kremmling, Heeney, and Topanas, who’d known Gus Klynkee for longer than Joe’d lived on this earth. His grandma broke their embrace, stepped toward the vehicles fanning out and stopping in the open space just the other side of the grove. She greeted them all as they stepped out of their trucks, climbed off their ATVs.

When she came to Mister Hill, she stopped short of him, took in the sight of him and his son standing next to each other. She felt her eyes give-up the hold she’d had on her emotions since Gus had passed. She sobbed freely for the first time since the death.

Mister Hill stepped to her, wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Me and Gus had an agreement, Anna. We’re here to honor that.”

Joe moved up to where his grandma and Mister Hill were standing. He smiled at Mark. “Thanks for coming.”

Mark reached his hand out, grabbed Joe’s and, as they shook, Joe, like his grandma, caved in to the emotion. He began to sob. Mark stepped closer, kept his hand clasped in Joe’s, wrapped his other arm around Joe’s shoulders, said nothing, pulled Joe close.

Joe turned the old pickup, backed up a bit nearer to the fence line. He’d pulled the back strap taught on his grandpa’s SHELL hat, felt it caress his head as a blessing of sorts. He opened the door, stood out of the truck, and looked west, toward the Flattops, still topped with snow, still whispering the secrets of the Ute. He then turned east, saw the sunrise, saw the ruined fence between the hay meadow and Mister Hill’s spread. Damned elk, he thought. He then smiled with the specter of it all, wondered if his grandpa was smiling down on the springtide of seasons, on the promise of another beginning for the G-K; fat calves and good harvest.

Joe pulled the spade from the back of the truck, started digging around the base of a failed post. He heard the engine whine first, looked east, saw the red pickup crossing the Hill’s meadow.

“Told Mitch and Billy to head over to the south pasture,” Joe told Mister Hill and his boy, Mark. “That fence was the last thing grandpa worried about, somethin’ he saw as needin’ a fix. Grandma’s gonna hire another hand to help out when I go back to school.”

Mister Hill looked at Joe, the SHELL ball cap, the denim jacket hanging loose with the sleeves rolled up to the wrist. “Well then,” he said, paused a moment, “I guess we ought to get movin’ on this fence.”

“Grandpa said he’d shook on it once, on your agreement that he’d meet up here with you and do the mendin’. Think we oughta do that again. Me and you. Mark, too.”

Mister Hill stepped to the fence line, reached his hand over. “Good thought, Joe.”

They shook hands. Joe then grabbed Mark’s hand.

“Okay,” Joe said. “Mark, you come over on this side, cut the splice wire. Me and your daddy’ll take care of the posts and fence stretcher. We’ll do the floaters last.”

Mister Hill smiled, nodded. “You heard what the man said, Mark.”

Sipping coffee at the kitchen table with his grandma, Joe scratched his head, drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

“What’s on your mind, Joe?”

Joe hesitated a moment, stopped his drumming, looked at his grandma’s eyes. “Them hunters that come up here in the fall. I been thinkin’ we tell them we ain’t open for huntin’ no more. I think if we get some fishermen rentin’ them cabins, maybe some hikers, you know, folks that just want to get the feel of the land, is what we ought to do. Don’t really need them hunters no more.”

Anna Klynkee looked across the table, studied Joe’s eyes, those deeply brown eyes that appeared as pools of something kind, a gentleness that she’d seldom seen since that day Gus Klynkee had offered her a future, a lifetime by his side on the G-K. “Okay, we can do that. We’ll lose some money at first. But, we’ll make do.”

Joe smiled. “Thanks, grandma.”

“Joe, I’ve got something to tell you. Might be a little hard to hear it. But, it’s gotta be said. It’s about your mother and your grandpa, too.”

Joe folded his hands on the table, quit the drumming, stared at his grandma. “Okay.”

“Well, I got this letter yesterday.” She pulled an envelope from the pocket of her apron and placed it on the table. “It’s from your mother. She heard about your grandpa dyin’, and, of course, she offers condolences...to us both. But, somethin’ we, your grandpa and I, never told you, but I think you’re old enough now to hear it, was that we worked for years to find your mother ever since she took off, ever since she left you here after your daddy died. Somethin’ else you prob’ly don’t know is your grandpa, at first, wanted to give you up.”

Joe lowered his head, stared at his hands.

His grandma reached across the table, put her fingers under his chin, raised his head, then covered his hands with her own. “He was out of his mind with the loss of your daddy, Joe. Can’t blame him. He was angry at God, at your daddy for dyin’, at your mamma. He was even angry with me for a time. He saw you as a reminder that your daddy had picked a woman he hadn’t approved of, Joe. But, after his anger passed, after he was able to grieve the death of your daddy, he saw you as somethin’ your daddy had given to him; a precious gift. And you were a gift, Joe. You wasn’t even a year old when your mamma left. Goodness, she was only just barely eighteen at the time. So, we figured we’d find a way to make you our son, in a legal sense. And, we started lookin’ for your mamma. She’d have to give you up, ‘fore we could adopt you. And we found her. She signed the papers just before your second birthday. Now, this letter from your mother is meant more for you than me. She says she never stopped loving you, Joe. But, she went and got a new life, a new husband. She has two children now. Lives in Denver. Has a good life there. But, back then, well... She did what she thought was best...for both her and you. So,” she raised her hands from Joe’s, grabbed the letter, held it out, “I ‘spose you ought to read it. Keep it for your lifetime as something of your past, where you come from.”

Joe unfolded his hands, gently grasped the letter, stared a moment at his grandma’s eyes. He nodded, stood from the table, walked down the hallway to his room, and closed the door. He sat on his bed and looked at the handwriting on the envelope, the blue ink, the little flowery turn to some of the letters. He teared up, tore the envelope in half, and then in half again, tossed it in the trashcan next to his little desk.

“Joe,” his grandma stood outside his door, “you alright.”

Joe pulled the sleeves of his shirt across his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine, grandma.”

She opened his door, stepped to his bed and sat down next to him. She put her arm around his shoulders, looked for the envelope, saw the torn edges in the wastebasket, knew she’d later retrieve the letter, Scotch tape it back together, and put it up in the box she kept on the top shelf of her bedroom closet.

“Grandma,” Joe placed his arm around her waist, “I think I wanna be called Gus from now on. That is my middle name given by my daddy. That okay?”

Anna Klynkee turned, looked at those eyes staring back at her, those eyes she’d never really get enough of, never tire of letting herself get lost in. “That’s fittin’, Joe,” she said, her voice breaking a bit. “Gus fits you fine. Your grandpa would be proud.”

They sat on the bed for a while, neither speaking, both listening to the creaks and moans of the home place.