The Fence My Father Built

by Linda S. Clare

  The man stood up and strode over to our booth. “Welcome to Murkee,” he said and extended his hand. “Just passing through?”

  “No, not exactly,” I said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Muri.” I shook his hand but felt myself recoil. “And these are my children, Nova and Truman.”

  “Since the new highway went through we don’t get that many tourists,” he said. “You got to get off the beaten path to find us, right Dove?”

  The waitress nodded. “Way off the path. You got that right, Linc. Unless you’re out hunting fossils, that is.”

  He laughed. “Where are my manners? I meant to say I’m Lincoln Jackson. I know just about everything that goes on around here.”

  Nova's head popped up from her sulking. “Tell us how to get back to Portland.”

  I gasped. “Nova! I’m sorry, Mr. Jackson. We’ve gotten lost a number of times today, and we’re a little road weary.” I hoped my eyes weren’t puffy.

  He waved his hand. “Call me Linc, please. And I don’t blame—Nova, is it—for being wary of our little town. The sidewalks do roll up pretty early. Not much action here, I’m afraid.”

  “Linc, then.” I nudged Nova under the table.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Dove broke in. “It's even worse when there's a rodeo over in Prineville. Then we’re lucky to serve lunch to the rattlers and jackrabbits.” She chuckled at her small joke, and her uniform swished when she moved her arms.

  Tru perked up. “Rattlers? Are there rattlesnakes out here?” He pushed up his glasses. Nova rolled her eyes.

  Linc patted Tru's arm. “Sure there's snakes, little guy. You ever hold a snake?”

  “No, but I want to.” Tru sat up taller.

  Linc leaned on the back of our booth. “How about roping? You ever roped a steer?”

  Tru shook his head. “Like a cowboy?”

  Linc laughed. “Shore, pardner. I can teach you all you need to know.” Linc brought over his black Stetson and handed it to Tru. “Go ahead, son, try it on.”

  Tru looked at me for approval, then plunked on the hat. It nearly swallowed his head. “How do I look?”

  “Like a doofus,” Nova said. “Like this town. Who’d name a town Murkee, anyway?”

  I sighed. “Nova, please.”

  Tru returned the hat, and Linc smoothed the brim. “No offense taken, ma’am,” Linc said. “I don’t rightly understand it myself, young lady. But my Great-grandmother Ida had the idea. And she insisted on Murkee. She said it sounded like some Indian word.”

  “So this whole area was settled by your family?” I didn’t want to sound nosy, but I was intrigued. I smiled, relieved that these rural folks were so friendly.

  Apparently, Dove had been eavesdropping. She came over with our check and said, “Linc here owns just about everything in these parts. Everything but the church and a couple of parcels next to his place.”

  Tru's eyes got bigger again. “You mean you own the whole town?” He dribbled ketchup down the front of his t-shirt, but I resisted the urge to wipe it off.

  Linc seemed to consider Tru's question. “Well, son, I guess so. And when I get access to that creek I’ll be a lot happier.” Dove shot him a look and resumed scrubbing down tables.

  “Why do you need a creek?” Tru looked puzzled. “Does it have lots of fish or something?” He stuffed the last of his french fries into his mouth.

  “Tru, use your napkin,” I said. I grabbed my purse and dug out money for our lunch, plus a nice tip. “And don’t ask so many questions.” This was getting embarrassing.

  “No problem, ma’am,” Linc said. “Let's just say one of my neighbors has been difficult.” He sighed. “Then he up and died before we could see eye to eye.”

  Tru practically shouted, “My grandpa died too! Last week! But I never met him. I just heard about him.”

  “Sorry to hear that, son.” Linc's expression changed, and suddenly, he seemed guarded.

  The wind picked up outside, rattling the windows and door. Clouds sped past the restaurant like a stampede, as if they knew there was something wrong here. I shuddered at the thought of getting lost again before the sun set. Now I was anxious to get on with it. Even in death Joseph Pond would complicate my life.

  “Mr. Jackson, we’re not in Murkee to stay,” I said. “But my father, Joseph Pond, passed away recently. We’ll be here long enough to set his affairs in order. Maybe you could direct me to his property?” I smoothed a stray hair.

  Linc's pleasant demeanor had vanished. His jaw now worked from side to side, and the light in his eyes had turned to sparks.

  “Chief Joseph's place isn’t hard to find,” Linc said. “First eyesore you come to, that's the one.” He laughed, but it was a hard laugh. He went back to the counter and straddled the stool.

  “Eyesore?” I said aloud. I wondered why he had called my father Chief.

  Dove shook her head and gazed up at the ceiling. “Lord, here we go again,” she said. “There's a lot of stuff in the yard: bicycle parts, old cars, and that ridiculous fence.”

  Nova jabbed me with her elbow. “Mom,” she hissed. “Let's just go.”

  “No, I want to hear more,” I said. “What did you say about a fence?”

  Linc interrupted. “She's talking about that idiotic fence out there. It's, well, you’ll have to see for yourself.”

  The bells on the café door jingled, and another man walked in. He was the opposite of Linc in terms of first impressions. Instead of western attire, he wore a flannel shirt and baggy, worn jeans. A short graying ponytail trailed out the back of his ball cap. He sat at the counter, and I wondered what he was doing in the middle of nowhere.

  “Hey Good-looking,” he said to Dove.

  “Good-looking my foot, Doc. The usual?” Dove grinned when he nodded. She slid behind the counter, poured coffee, and set the cup and saucer in front of him. “It’ll be a few minutes for your order.”

  The man called Doc smiled. “No problem.” He was Linc's opposite. His tanned face was easy and relaxed. I liked that, but I quickly reminded myself how foolish I could be about men: giving in, saying yes, and stumbling in, when I ought to be running for my life.

  Dove came over to the booth, slapped the check in front of me, and I snapped to attention with a small gasp. She was careful to keep her back to Linc.

  “Honey,” she whispered to me. “Linc's your next-door neighbor. And he can be a bear, if you get my drift.”

  I stared at Linc, looking for bear-like signs. Doc wasn’t overly friendly with Linc, either, but he did nod his head. Doc's cell phone rang, and he spoke into it in hushed tones, which I appreciated. I was trying to teach Nova a cell phone wasn’t the most important accessory on earth.

  “Hold the sandwich,” Doc said. “Gotta run, Dove. Sorry.” He dug around in his jeans pocket.

  Dove waved him off. “Get going, Doc. No charge for a measly cup of coffee.”

  “Thanks, Good-looking.” He winked at Dove and rushed outside.

  Dove went to the counter, removed Doc's cup, and then turned back to me. “Head straight out to the first gravel road,” she said, tossing the dirty dishes into a rubber dishpan, “till you get to the yellow gas company sign.”

  Linc nursed his coffee. “If you go past the creek, you’ve gone too far,” he called across the room, and Dove nodded. His gaze locked on me. I felt more and more uncomfortable, but I wasn’t about to let him intimidate me.

  “So we’re neighbors.” I stood up and approached him. “I’m Joseph Pond's biological daughter. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding.”

  Linc looked surprised, but then his eyes narrowed. “Biological, eh? What's that supposed to mean?” He stood up. “You must be the big city girl Lutie's been carrying on about, come to show the country bumpkins a thing or two.”

  Dove clattered a stack of dishes into the plastic tub.

  I stood up taller and cleared my throat. “I’m a librarian, not an attorney.”

  He rose and reached into
his jeans pocket, plunked down a dollar bill, and shook a toothpick from the container. “Well, Miss Librarian, if Lutie thinks I’ll back down all because some smart girl from Portland steps in, she's got another think coming.”

  “That's not why I’m here,” I said. “I only want to get things straightened out for my aunt and uncle. That's what my father wanted.”

  Linc paused and turned to face me. “You think you know your old man?” His neck muscles were beginning to bulge, and he pointed at me with his index finger. “I reckon you’re about to find out more than you ever wanted to know.”

  I couldn’t find an answer to that one. Nova and Tru kept giving me anxious looks. “We’ll talk soon, Mr. Jackson,” I said finally. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

  “Yeah.” Linc threw another bill on the stack. “Here's a little something extra, Dove.” He tossed the toothpick into the trash can and picked up his western hat.

  Nova muttered, “Hick.” I elbowed her in the back.

  “I’ll look for the sign then,” I said as cheerfully as I could. Linc Jackson yanked open the door of the café, and the cluster of little brass bells jingled frantically on the doorknob.

  He threw his next remark over one shoulder. “Have a nice day.” The door whooshed shut, and a pungent sorrow swept me along with the aroma of lilacs and french fries.

  On our way out the bells sounded again, whispering something I couldn’t quite hear.

  2

  My father's place was right off the road near the gas company's warning sign, just like Dove had promised. What she hadn’t told me was that the fence had been built from old oven doors. The pink- and aqua-enameled ones, their windows glazed over and dark, probably dated from the fifties. Here and there a white one interrupted the rainbow of color, with a gray-speckled door thrown in for good measure. The oven-door fence stood like a row of teeth, a big smile either welcoming or warning away intruders, standing guard over a creek that was at least six feet across. Hanging from one of the oven doors, a Native American dream catcher, complete with feathers and beads, winked in the sun.

  Nova immediately pronounced the yard a junk heap; it was piled six feet high in places and flanked by the remains of at least two old cars. The broken-down, green and white single-wide mobile home, with room additions sticking out in all directions, looked more like a child's homemade fort than a place to live.

  Some of the additions were taller than others; made of thin sheet metal, they leaned at dangerous angles. Others were built from ugly grooved paneling, the dark kind you might see in a man's den. A couple of tires were full of dirt and dead petunias, and an empty green bathtub sat near a wooden shed. Several wind chimes, with cherubs and angels blowing heavenly trumpets, tinkled near the trailer door.

  Truman's eyes got big, perhaps with the possibilities of dismantling old bicycles and lawn mowers that lay before us. I clutched the steering wheel, wondering why I’d ever thought coming here was a good idea. Two figures from the house approached us.

  I pried my skin from the vinyl seat of the van, and the three of us climbed out into the open yard. This was it, I thought. Murkee wasn’t going to be bursting with cowboys like Linc Jackson. It was going to be about middle-aged ranchers with oversized silver belt buckles and dirty fingernails, whose wives, with names like Peg and Dotty, would know the names of all the wildflowers and can fruit preserves in one-hundred-degree weather.

  The man whom I guessed was my Uncle Tiny stopped a few feet from us, waved, and grinned. He was at least six foot four, dressed in an undershirt and baggy jeans that looked as if they might fall to the ground at any time. No silver belt buckle though. Everything about him was round and smooth: shoulders, multiple chins, and a waistline that explained the need for his red suspenders. A shock of black hair hung in one eye. The gray-haired woman, clothesline thin, wasn’t as shy. She walked right up to the van and slapped the sliding door.

  “Will you look at this?” she said, wiping her palms across the thighs of her faded jeans. “Will you look … at … this?” I guessed she was speaking to the air, asking for unseen approval. She turned her head, stared at me, and repeated herself.

  I looked back toward the engine compartment of the VW, half expecting it to be on fire. “I’m Muri,” I began in a higher voice than I would have liked, “and these are my children, Nova and Truman. You must be my Aunt Lutie.”

  I waited for her to speak. My first thought was “bag lady.” Aunt Lutie looked about sixty, stringy and tough. Her arms stuck out of her blouse at odd angles, skewed like rabbit ears atop a console TV. I decided she must have cataracts.

  “So.” Aunt Lutie said this as if she were pronouncing someone dead. I caught Nova pursing her lips and rolling her eyes, which told me volumes. She wanted her tongue pierced, and she thought my aunt was strange? I felt like saying, “Sorry ma’am, there's been some mistake.”

  “You’re Joseph's girl, Muri?”

  Before I could answer Lutie laughed with a wide-open throaty sound.

  Nova looked even more horrified. Tru was too busy checking out the pile of junk to notice. Suddenly, I wished I’d had the foresight to come out here alone first, before dragging my family and my entire life out of civilization.

  “Did you get my note?” Once again I felt the annoying eye twitch that no one else can detect. Part of me was afraid to be rejected, and the rest of me would rather be abducted by aliens than stay here. The skin on the backs of my hands felt taut and dry. I fidgeted with my fingers, hoping my new relatives wouldn’t swallow us whole. Then Tiny stuck out his hammy hand.

  “I guess that makes me your uncle,” he said, grinning wide and easy. “Antonio Ramirez, but everyone calls me Tiny. Glad you made it.” He reached up and tugged briefly on his hat's brim. There was a certain grace to his movement, a smoothness matched only by the sound of his voice that was low and sure but not threatening.

  Truman must have noticed this, because he pushed past Nova into the yard. Normally, my son wouldn’t speak to a complete stranger. Not only had I drilled him on “stranger danger,” he was usually shy and took longer than most kids to warm up to people. But he didn’t dye his hair with Kool-Aid or refuse to go to church. The only thing I worried about was that he’d go blind staring at a computer screen, in spite of those new glasses.

  “You got a lot of cool junk over there,” he said to Tiny, pointing to a pile of rusty bike wheels and sprockets. “What do you do with it?”

  “Sometimes I make new bikes out of the spare parts.”

  “What happens to the bikes then?”

  “You never know who's going to need a bike.” Tiny looked a little embarrassed, while Aunt Lutie snorted and tossed back her thin hair, which hung loose and reached just below her bony shoulders.

  “Blessed fool's given one to just about every kid around,” she said, but I thought I saw her smile at him. “Can’t say no.” She clasped her hands together briefly and said, “Give me strength, Lord.”

  From around the corner, squeals and grunts rang out. Several potbellied pigs, the kind people say make good pets and are smarter than dogs, rushed through a small gap beside a shed. They snuffled the ground and jostled each other until they circled Tiny, their snouts turned to the sky.

  Tiny spoke to them by name in a high, affected voice. “Now, Jim, you can’t push Gordo out of the way like that,” he said. “Is it dinnertime already? Dave, you wait your turn.”

  “Excuse me,” he said to us from the middle of the pig gang. “My pigs can tell time.” He turned, and they followed him noisily around the corner of the fence. This situation was all too weird for a city girl like me.

  We must have looked just as weird to my aunt. With her good eye, Lutie stared at Nova and raised her hands in the direction of heaven. “Lord, send us all the angels,” she said and laughed. I felt like crying.

  She pointed at Nova's piercing near the upper part of her ear lobe. “That thing hurt you much?” Nova flinched, but Lutie smiled at her anyway.
r />   “Whatever.” My daughter had refined her rudeness to this one word; I wanted to tape her pretty mouth shut. Not long ago she’d been optimistic and obedient and still wore her fine ash-blonde hair in ponytail holders and asked for bedtime stories from the original Wizard of Oz books. I’d taken her to church, and it was her idea to be baptized in front of the entire congregation.

  Even when she was Tru's age she’d smiled a lot and refused to give up her prized stuffed monkey, which she had kept on her bed since she was three. Back then she didn’t care if her preteen friends knew about the stuffed animal or her faith. She’d proudly worn a What Would Jesus Do? bracelet.

  But sometime during the last few years, she’d thrown her bracelet into a drawer, saying Jesus made life too hard. Her pride turned into bitterness, for which I blamed myself. My Nova had become rigid with anger, a cat backed into a corner.

  I was about to defend her, brag about her high grade-point average and talent for designing clothing, when my aunt spoke to me. “Don’t worry, honey, she’ll grow up eventually, God love her. She's got real family now.”

  By this time Nova's already pale skin had blanched, and I was getting a headache from the smell of swine and gasoline fumes. Once again Truman saved the day.

  “Can I go watch Uncle Tiny feed those pigs?” he said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Nova volunteered, and they escaped to wherever the grunts came from. I never thought I’d see the Queen of Cool move so fast to keep company with farm animals.

  Lutie was looking more like Popeye every moment. A lump formed in my throat. I’d always celebrated diversity along with the rest of my educated friends, but I couldn’t be this woman's niece. It just wasn’t possible.

  Lutie smiled and stuck out her scarecrow arms to hug me. “You look so much like Joseph,” she whispered. At first I held my breath, because Mother and my stepfather, Benjamin, were never given to signs of affection. Then I relaxed and was surprised when she smelled soothing and mild, like chamomile tea.