A Two Thousand Dollar Nebraska Land Purchase Leads to a Federal Fraud Case
I unscrewed the mounting bracket, my fingers stiffening in the chill, and brought the small black box down. I sat on the stool by the workbench and used the key Reynolds had given me to open the side compartment.
The green indicator light was dead, but the small digital screen showed that the memory card was full. I slid the card out and laid it on the clean surface of my grandfather’s old steel toolbox.
Through the open double doors of the shed, the two hundred acres of my farm lay silent under the stars. There were no black Teslas idling on the county road, and no surveyors standing on the ridge with their red plastic tape.
I looked at the yellowed deed from nineteen sixty-seven that I had kept in my pocket all afternoon, its folded edges soft and worn from being handled so many times. It was just a piece of paper, but it was clean now, free of the fake liens and the forged signatures that had threatened to tear it away.
I put the deed back into my breast pocket, next to the white envelope Henry had given me.
