Broken Fence

He opened the large doors slowly. The scent of straw and manure that once tore forth gustily merely crawled out of the wide barn. The hard packed dirt floor which was once scuffed and traveled seemed level and plain. The light ambled down from the skylight like the silk-wrapped ghost of Christmas past, its youthful face and flowing gown illuminating eight barren stalls in pale tones. Were it even the movie script ray of golden sunlight, it would still show the same blank floors, vacant hooks, dusty shovels and crumbling paints in varying colors. Eddies of dust swirled on the far side of the barn from the door's motion, and added a dull, burnt suffocation to the faint odors of the room. With careful, wavering footsteps the man set his soft-soled shoes into the space. He paused after a few steps, looking about with timid distraction, gaze never settled long; his gaze shifted, as if he thought in shame and fatigue that each disused tool and mote of dust knew some sin of his making. His red rimmed eyes at last fell upon the one other creature in this gray world, a black quarter horse, taking momentary rest from its slow existence of pawing at dirt and hay. It's rumbling snorts were dampened in the heavy air of the space. He stepped the rest of the way, soft brown shoes padding more slowly with each footfall.

"Hey there Shadow." His voice was deep but hoarse, as though played over an ancient radio. He reached out and gently stroked the horse's dark coat, hand beginning to tremble as he touched the coarse hair and felt the rise and fall of the horse's massive flank. Shadow snorted again, and opened his great marble eyes, bright and steady where the man's were tired, drifting. He could not look into those eyes for long. He continued in the tone of a man making awkward small talk to a stranger, stroking the animal, stark contrast to its girth and muscled youth.

"I'm sorry you've been shut in here. Still haven't fixed the fence since that tree fell. Not that you’d run off."

"I guess James- well, things have slowed down around here."

"I hated selling the others off ... I just couldn't do it any longer. And he didn't know when he'd be ... when he'd get ... well, he figured he'd take a while." His stroking grew more sporadic, his gaze eyes more distant, fixing on an invisible horizon.

The man laughed a little, a faint sob catching in the same breath, "You know, he used to write about those Arabians and the breeders he met and such, and how much and the deals he had waiting once his tour ended. I didn't read that part of the letters; didn't want to make you feel bad. Kind of silly really, but there it is."

The man glanced into Shadow's eyes, and then looked down at his own crinkled hand as it moved back and forth on the horse's slowly heaving flank.

"He hated deserts, you know. Put a bold face on, talking about Arabians and ancient Sumeria, but he didn't feel right about that place. I could hear it in his voice; it wasn't just the heat or the ... his job, you know ... its the whole place. He loves Oregon almost as much as he loves you, Shadow."

The man looked into young, living eyes, tears welling in his own gray-blue orbs; he could have sworn the beast was forgiving him.

"Christ, it’s me who hates the desert. He was crushed when we left Utah-- that was before you came along. He really does love it here though. He wrote a lot about taking the three of us to the coast when he -- gets -- back. But I don't know anymore. It's on the news every day now, and thinking about it ... maybe someplace without sand, you know Shadow?"

With the pace of a man approaching the gallows, he leaned his venous hands onto the stall gate tears welling like snow mountain streams down his rocky, weathered face. The gray morning light warmed as clouds broke briefly around the sun, the bright rectangle of the skylight glowing on the ground behind the man's soft brown shoes, a hint of feeble fire brushing his hunched shoulders before returning the room to pallor and shadow. Unseeing, the man watched instead a long black gun leaning against the wall next to him. A spider had once wound its home in the shadow of the gun, leaving behind only a faint scaffolding of its abode.

"I can't stop reading the letters. My eyes are getting sore, Shadow. Everything's getting so sore ..."

He reached out and grasped the cool barrel in one hand, dragging the weapon's butt from the ground with great effort. Leveling its black length with his other hand, and shaking more violently then before the man placed the barrel atop the stall gate, leaning heavily as though some force beyond gravity pulled the jet surface to the half-rotting wood of the stall. The horse met the new, vacant eye briefly, but returned its brown eye to the old man. Tears were again streaming down his cragged face, gray-blue rain clouds meeting Shadow’s calm gaze.

"Christ, Shadow ... there was another one last week. But this time ... Trucks flipped and blasted to hell, smoke everywhere. There were pictures on the news. I saw- that was where they took him and they went and showed it to me on the news, Shadow. The whole country saw it, and no-body-- they don't need to know what it means. But I do."

His mouth contorted around unspoken words, lips and brow twisting between the shaken breaths and tears.

"I couldn't fix the damn fence, Shadow."

The sound tore through the barn, rebounding off vacant barn walls and through dull air like a drum in a symphony hall. Another sound followed after a minute or two, more fleeting, dampened by the heavy air--a strangled beat.

Startled neighbors threw open windows and began hollering questions and demands. Eventually, a siren, too, sundered the gray air with an insistent whine. Doors slammed concisely, blue-uniforms stepping out to don black jackets or rub exposed forearms. Camera clicks and flashes soon filled the musty barn, disturbing the dim requiem scene. A burnt tinge hung in the air. The stall door was thrown open, casting a shadow into the fragments of disused straw that flickered from the intruding strobes. In the fresher straw beyond the gate lay the crumpled black horse, eyes half-closed—serene but empty. Slumped at the knees over its long body was the elderly man, a photograph fallen near his left hand atop the horse's flank, and the black butt of a shotgun protruding from under his thin frame and wet clothes—black against a gray and brown world. His eyes were wide, empty.