Fall 1982

Four riders cross the cattle guard and access the past on a crushed limestone gravel road just off U.S. Highway 377. On either side of the cattle guard, stately rock columns solemnly anchor the iron support bar from which is suspended the V [BAR] H sign. It’s been 30 years. A rundown one-man bunkhouse is nestled off to one side. The ranch house stands, surrounded by a low rock fence topped with wire, its spiked posts buried in concrete. Tangled ivy has woven an intricate labyrinth over stone walls. I hear footsteps on the sprawling concrete porch, where countless games of Ping-Pong™ were played and kids jumped over the thigh-high limestone wall onto the ground below. The corrals, stables, and water tanks languish in the winter of their life.