The Fence My Father Built by Linda S. Clare

child. Jim jerked and trembled, his head hung back, exposing a wound in the underside of his piggy neck. “He's bleeding bad,” Tiny said, “he just walked up and fell over.” He laid the animal on the ground and knelt beside him, stroking the pig's snout.
    Tru's eyes were enormous, and he breathed hard. “I heard shots,” he said, nearly yelling as if he was afraid no one would hear him. “It sounded like a gun, Mom, just like on TV. Pop, pop . Like that.”
    Some people are efficient and level-headed in emergencies. They’re the type who will put their hands inside a man's throat that's been slit open by a chain saw, to keep him from bleeding to death until the paramedics arrive. The whole time they calmly tell the victim everything will be all right. UncleTiny fell into a different category. He looked too scared to move, a wax figure of himself. Truman sat next to him and quietly patted his uncle's shoulders now and then.
    Lutie wasn’t so paralyzed. She ran inside and brought out clean towels, as well as a confused Nova still wearing a towel turban. My aunt applied pressure to the bleeding, which was getting worse.
    “Somebody call 911,” Nova said and clasped her hand across her nose and mouth. She sat on the edge of one of the tire planters.
    “Who would do this?” I was stunned. There was no telephone here, a fact that made me feel stranded.
    “I’ll tell you who,” Lutie said, pressing the bloody towel harder. “Linc Jackson, that's who. He's threatened us before. Stood right under the bedroom window while my brother's in there dying. Yelled his fool head off about water.”
    Tiny sighed. “Well, you wouldn’t open the door so what was Linc supposed to do?”
    Lutie glared at her husband. “I wasn’t about to let him in,” she said. Lutie's face flushed, even beneath her deep tan.
    For a second or two I was hypnotized by the situation, fascinated by the deep red shade of swine blood, which I’d never seen before. I wasn’t tempted to stick my hand on a hog's neck, but I did remember the neighbor I’d met just an hour before.
    “I’ll go get the vet,” I said. I started for the van, and then stopped. “This way?” I was getting things mixed up in my mind, and my mental road map suddenly looked upside down.
    “No, that's the other side of the creek,” Lutie answered.
    “Rubin's the vet, right?” The towels were turning crimson now and Lutie's hands were soaked with blood. She gave me a how-do-you-know-him look.
    “We met when I was out walking.” I reached inside the screen door to grab my keys to the van. “Only I’m not sure exactly where he lives.”
    “Quicker to get him by following the slough,” Lutie said, pointing with her free hand. “Just do something quick, honey. I’m praying for a miracle. Maybe Truman here will fetch him.”
    Tru stood up, poised to run. I shoved the keys into my pocket and said, “Come on.” We jogged off in search of Rubin's place; my son mercifully slowed down to accommodate his mother. A couple of minutes later, we reached the top of a small rise. Below, two houses stood opposite each other.
    The one on the right was a ranch-style, with a wraparound porch and some corrals to the side. The other home was a log A-frame, the kind people build themselves from kits. It, too, had corrals and a barn, and it was hard to tell who would live where.
    “Lutie said follow the slough,” I said, panting. Power walking wasn’t anything like running.
    “Let's go that way,” Tru said, not even breathing hard. He may have been a nerdy kid, but his nine-year-old lungs were in great shape. He pointed to the larger of the two houses, the one that probably looked the most familiar to him.
    “I don’t know,” I said, resting my hands on my knees to get a few extra breaths in. “The vet guy I met didn’t sound much like a rancher.” I drew in a few more breaths and puffed them out.
    A glint of sunlight from a distant peak hurt my eyes. I shielded them with