Chapter 4 - The Signed Parchment
The sunflower seeds went into the dark loam with gentle thumb-presses, Callie’s red rubber boots sinking slightly into the turned earth. Every three inches, she whispered something to the little striped kernels—a child’s blessing, or maybe a secret warning to the clay that had swallowed her whole just seventy-two hours earlier.
"They'll grow tall, right, Mama?" Callie looked up, wiping a streak of dust across her forehead with the sleeve of her coat. "Taller than the boys?"
"Taller than the fence line, baby," Aaron answered before I could. He was kneeling beside her with a gallon jug of pond water, carefully pouring a thin, steady stream along the furrow. "Taller than any truck that drives down that blacktop."
We finished the row just as the mail truck’s rusted exhaust rattled over the cattle guard. Old Man Higgins didn’t bother with the mailbox today; he drove straight up our gravel turnaround, braked with a squeal, and leaned across his bench seat.
"Sign for it, Crystal," Higgins said, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose and thrusting a yellow certified-mail slip out the window. "Court runner brought it down from Guthrie an hour ago. Sheriff’s boy said to make sure it got put directly in your hands."
My fingers were stiff from the damp soil, but I signed the slip without trembling. The envelope was thick legal vellum, embossed with the gold seal of the Logan County Clerk.
Inside was the quitclaim deed.
Arlin Eubanks’s signature crawled across the bottom line like barbed wire: jagged, furious, but unmistakably his. Attached was a cashier's check drawn on the First Farmers Bank of Mulhall for forty-four thousand dollars, endorsed directly to my business escrow. The memo line read only: *Settlement in full.*
"He signed," Aaron murmured, peering over my shoulder.
"He had no choice," I said, folding the document into my flannel pocket. "Arlin lives on his pride. He’d burn down forty acres before he’d let the county commissioners whisper about him forging court dockets."
We thought that was the end of the morning’s reckoning. We were wrong.
Before Higgins’s dust cloud had even drifted over the rye field, another vehicle roared down the road. It wasn't Arlin’s smooth Lincoln. It was Rhonda’s silver Suburban, coming in hot, tires howling against the asphalt as she took the ninety-degree turn into our lane without braking.
Callie immediately dropped her spade. She didn't cry; she just scrambled behind Aaron’s legs, locking her arms around his knee.
Rhonda didn't wait to turn off the engine. The driver-side door flew open, hitting the decorative iron railing of our walkway with a sickening *clang*. She marched down the steps into the dirt, her face blotched with furious purple patches, her peroxide-blonde hair pulled back so tight her eyes looked stretched.
"You thief!" Rhonda shrieked, pointing a French-manicured claw at my chest. "You conniving, miserable little bitch! What did you do to Daddy?"
Aaron stepped forward, putting his broad chest between Rhonda and our daughter. "Lower your voice, Rhonda. You're trespassing."
"Trespassing on what? This family’s blood!" She lunged sideways, trying to peer around Aaron at Callie. "Daddy just walked into the farmhouse shaking like a leaf, cancelled the boys' youth-pastor camp tuition, and told me he had to sign away the south five! What kind of lies did you threaten him with, Crystal?"
"No lies," I said evenly, walking past Aaron until I was two feet from my sister. I smelled cheap perfume and stale cigarettes on her collar. "I showed him the soil survey and the forged signatures on the culvert permits. He paid what he owed for the damage, and he signed over the five acres he stole three years ago."
Rhonda let out a wild, barking laugh. "He gave you my boys' inheritance! Those five acres were supposed to be Mason and Hunter’s four-wheeler trails! You think because your brat got a little mud on her knees that you get to strip our father clean?"
"A little mud?" I whispered.
The air between us went deadly cold.
"Your sons held my daughter by the ankles, Rhonda," I said, every word measured and sharp as a planer blade. "They dragged her thirty yards through wet clay, shoved her face into a drainage trench, and sat on her back until her fingernails tore trying to claw up air. If you ever call that 'a little mud' again, I won't call the building inspector. I’ll call Child Protective Services and have deputies pull Mason and Hunter out of your custody before nightfall."
Rhonda recoiled as if I’d thrown lye in her face. Her chest heaved, her mouth opening and closing like a stranded carp.
"You wouldn't," she breathed.
"Try me," I replied. "Now get in your truck, drive back through that gate, and never bring your family onto my land again. If those tires touch this gravel after today, Aaron and I will press criminal trespass charges."
Rhonda glared at me with pure, unadulterated venom. She looked down at Callie, who was peeking around Aaron’s thigh, and then spat onto the fresh black dirt where the seeds lay buried.
May you like
"This isn't over, Crystal," Rhonda hissed. "Daddy might be afraid of your paperwork, but I’m not. You're going to pay for every cent you took from my boys."
She spun around, stomped back to the idling Suburban, and slammed the door with enough force to rattle the glass. As she threw it in reverse, her rear tires tore through the edge of our newly leveled sod, slinging wet chunks of dirt across the driveway before speeding away into the horizon.
