The Good Year, 1951

“The fence at Sweetwater Draw was down again. Degarrin found it on a Tuesday morning in late April, riding the east line with Toby and a young hand named Esteban who had been on the crew since fall and was shaping up well enough that Degarrin had stopped watching him out of the corner of his eye. Three posts were leaning, the wire sagged to the ground in a gap wide enough to walk a horse through, and the tracks around it told the story. Cattle had come through from the Sweetwater pasture into the Antelope Hills section, which was being rested. Six or eight head, from the sign. Degarrin sat his horse and looked at the gap and did not say anything for a while. "Cedar post," Toby said. "Rotted at the base."”

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