Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “1998 August”

Killer Fences of the New West

Column by Hal Walter

Fences – August 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

AT FIRST it just looked like a rock anchoring the _barbed-wire fence, the same way that rocks anchor ramshackle barbed-wire fences all over the West. But then I thought I saw it move.

There was a band of beef cows and calves milling around, and it occurred to me that a calf might be caught in the wire. As I drew closer it moved again and I saw that it was indeed a calf — a spotted elk calf — hanging by its front leg, twisted in the wire. The moo-cows ran away as I approached, but the elk calf lay still, breathing with great labor.