The Week We Sheared Mom’s 140 Ewes

Fenton

Fenton Pike is seventy-three and ran sheep on the bench above my mother’s place for fifty years.

He sold the last of his flock when his knees gave out, but he never sold anything else. His shed is a museum of every tool a sheepman ever needed.

I called him Saturday morning. He listened to the whole thing without saying anything, which is how Fenton listens. When I finished, he cleared his throat.

“Tomorrow after church,” he said. “Have your mother’s coffee on.”

He came at one o’clock Sunday afternoon, still in his church shirt, pulling a stock trailer stacked high with steel panels.

On the seat beside him was a coffee can, and in the coffee can was his old handpiece, wrapped in a clean rag.

He set the can in my hands like he was handing me a baby. “She runs a little warm,” he said.

“Oil her every hour. I put new combs and cutters in the bottom of the can. Should be enough for the week if you keep sand out of them.”

Then he walked down to the pens without another word and started looking them over.

He was right that they needed help. Since Mom got sick, the pens had been patched with baling twine and good intentions.

Cody had not been wrong about that part. That is what made the rest of it work so well.

Fenton spent the afternoon setting panels. I helped where he let me.

By the time the sun was getting low, he had built a catch pen right up against a little holding pen, with a gate that swung toward the spot where I would lay the board.

“Shear them outside on the plywood,” he said, wiping his hands. “Barn’s too dark and too hot. You’ll want the breeze. And the light. Your eyes aren’t twenty anymore.”

“Thank you, Fenton.”

He looked at me then, for the first time all afternoon, really looked. “Keep your back flat,” he said, “or you won’t last till Wednesday.”

He never said one word about Cody. Not that day and not all week. He didn’t have to.