My Father Brought a Locksmith to Sell the Ranch I Bought
Vance looked at her for three seconds, then nodded once. He picked up the green paper and walked toward the copy machine behind the teller counter.
I looked out the window. The sky over Craig was the color of lead. A few flakes of dry snow were beginning to fall, swirling in the draft between the bank and the grocery store next door.
“He used my own money to try and buy the land next to me,” I said.
“He wanted the whole ridge,” Rachel said. “If Evan had the adjacent parcel, they could have claimed the water rights on your side. They would have controlled the entry road.”
“And when Evan’s bid failed because the bank realized his credit was gone, the bank sent the foreclosure notice,” I said.
“They sent it to the guarantor’s address on the file,” Rachel said. “Which Arthur had listed as your gate.”
We waited another hour in the glass office while the fax machine in the corner clicked and whined. Thomas Vance did not speak to us again. He handed Rachel the copies in a brown envelope and stood by his door until we walked out.
