The Fence She Finished in His Gloves

The Boys

Tanner was nineteen and Wyatt was twenty. They had worked for Brett for two summers, and they were the kind of boys you hope your daughter brings home: polite, hard to rattle, and not afraid of a long day.

I called them both that night. I told them the truth. Rod was gone, the money was gone, and I could not pay them until Hap Hensley paid us. I said I would understand if they needed to find other work.

Tanner was quiet. Then he said, “Brett paid me in June when the Wilsons were late paying him. Paid me out of his own pocket. I remember that.”

Wyatt said, “What time you want us there?”

“Six thirty,” I said. “We’ll load at the yard.”

“We’ll be there at six,” Wyatt said, and hung up before I could thank him.

The First Morning

It was cold that Monday, the kind of bright October cold where your breath hangs in front of you and the sun comes up over the hills like it is in no hurry at all.

I put on my tan canvas work coat over my sweatshirt, pulled my blonde ponytail through the back of my brown ball cap, and put on Brett’s gloves with the paper towels in the fingers.

The boys were already in the yard when I came out, in hooded sweatshirts and caps, leaning on the tailgate of Wyatt’s pickup.

We loaded the white flatbed with T-posts and wire rolls. We had to make four trips over the course of that job. Tanner drove, because I did not trust myself yet on the pasture roads with that much weight.

The Hensley place is about eleven miles south of town on gravel.

When you come over the last rise, the whole country opens up in front of you, nothing but grass rolling away gold to the edge of the sky, and not one tree until the creek.

The new fence ran north to south along the east side of the pasture. You could see where the finished half stopped.

Five bright wires, tight and shining, and then just a row of brace assemblies standing alone every quarter mile, waiting.

Wyatt walked down the line and looked at it a long time. “Brett set those braces good,” he said. “That’s the hard part. The rest is just work.”

“Just work,” I said.

“Yes ma’am. A lot of it.”