Down in that hollow was a wooden box about the size of a footlocker, lined with tar paper to keep the damp out. On top of it, sealed in a glass pickle jar, was a leather dog collar with a brass tag. Duke. And a phone number with no area code, the way people wrote them when everybody in town had the same one.
Under the collar was a letter folded small, written in pencil by a kid. I only read the first line. It said, Duke was the best dog in West Virginia and this is his spot forever.
I sat back on my heels for a minute. Then I called the couple out from the house.
Jen and Mark had bought the place that spring from an estate. They stood there looking down at that little concrete vault in the corner of their yard, and Jen put her hand over her mouth. Mark said somebody must have loved that dog something awful.
The letter was signed at the bottom. Bobby Keener, age 11, June 1986.
Jen found him on Facebook that night. Robert Keener, fifty one, a lineman for the power company, living over in Parkersburg. She sent him a message and a photo of the collar.
He called the next morning. He could barely talk.
He said Duke was a shepherd mix his dad brought home from the pound when Bobby was four. That dog walked him to the school bus every morning for seven years and was sitting at the end of the driveway every afternoon when it came back. When Duke died, Bobby was so torn up his dad went out that same night and dug the hole by hand under the big maple. Then his dad poured the cap himself, so no coyote and no plow and no stranger would ever disturb him.
His father told him nobody would ever find Duke there, and for forty years, nobody did.
His dad died in 2019. Bobby said they sold the house after, and the thing that hurt the most was leaving Duke behind.
Jen told him Duke was not going anywhere.
We changed the fence plan that afternoon. Instead of running the back line straight through that corner, I set it to curve around the spot, and Mark asked me to build a little gate into it. I put the concrete cap back exactly the way I found it and patched the edge where I broke through.
Bobby drove over that Saturday with his own son, who is eleven. He stood at that little gate for a long time. Then he walked in and knelt down and put his hand flat on the concrete, the way you would put your hand on a dog.
His boy asked him if Duke was a good dog. Bobby said the best there ever was.
Jen and Mark had a small bronze plate made for the cap. It says Duke, 1979 to 1986, best dog in West Virginia. They asked Bobby to write the words.
They have a puppy now. A shepherd mix from the county shelter. They named him Duke Junior.
Twenty one years I have been setting posts. That is the only fence I ever built with a gate on the inside.