CROSSING FENCES

The boy slowed when he hiked past Uncle Albin’s home. Empty and dark, it almost stared at the boy. He shivered.

Fortunately, the house only felt cold when his uncle was in Africa. But when Uncle Albin was home, it felt inviting. Still mysterious, but with a sense of adventure. When Uncle Albin was home, stories filled that house.

Uncle Albin always brought back trinkets and items that begged for stories. Skulls, horns, spears, small bows, clubs, masks, beads, wooden bowls, sharp teeth, claws, the wiry hair from an elephant’s tail. But last season he brought home something unexpected—even for him. He brought home a boy. He brought home Adunya.

Now the house felt empty for different reasons.

Half a mile past Uncle Albin’s the boy had a choice. Continue down the road or cut across Old Man Hill’s property to the pond. He could save ten minutes by cutting across Old Man Hill’s ranch. But Old Man Hill hated trespassers. He hated kids.

The boy would have to cross a barbed wire fence. He looked down the road. He looked up the road. No trucks. Old Man Hill’s house was on the other side of the next hill. Over where the boy could see the tops of trees sprouting with tiny buds. No cattle in sight. The next fence line, back to where Uncle Albin’s property cut into Old Man Hill’s for seventy-five acres, required the boy to cross five hundred yards of open prairie pasture, clumps of grassy weeds, small cacti, and soft ground, almost like sand in places. It was the quickest route to the pond. Otherwise, he had to hike all the way around the small section of Old Man Hill’s ranch and down the dirt two-track road separating his place from the railroad ground.

“Sometimes the hard way is the right way,” his father had said once when the boy complained about the distance around Old Man Hill’s.

What was that supposed to mean?

The boy could be to the pond, fishing in a few minutes. He looked down the road one more time, tossed his pole to the other side, grabbed the fence post, and positioned his shoe on the bottom line of barbed wire. He climbed. He pushed over to the other side, caught his pant leg on a barb, and fell back. His pants tore and his elbow slammed against a flat, pale rock. He jumped to his feet and turned around to make sure nobody saw him.

He snatched up the pole and took a step to run, but stopped himself.

He had done this so many times. Though he had been caught once, he knew he could make it. Yet something held him back. Why? Why did Old Man Hill hate kids crossing his property? He never asked himself that before. He never asked his father that question. He never cared. What harm could possibly come from running across a few hundred yards of pasture?

He rubbed his elbow and stared across the prairie. Adunya wouldn’t hesitate. He didn’t even understand land ownership. Where he came from land belonged to everyone—at least in theory. Adunya never worried about fences.

The boy remembered the time Old Man Hill pulled up to the house with the boy’s father in the passenger seat. His father’s truck had broken down and Old Man Hill gave him a ride home. Didn’t seem like such a mean, crazy old man that day. That day, the boy saw his father shake their neighbor’s hand.

He rubbed his elbow and glanced at his torn pant leg. He looked across the pastured once more before tossing his pole back through the fence.

It wasn’t that much further to walk around.