My Father Brought a Locksmith to Sell the Ranch I Bought
I looked at the forged signature on the bank document. The snow was beginning to settle in the creases of the paper, small white grains that did not melt.
Four days after we stood in that freezing bank parking lot, I found the chain on my front gate hanging loose.
It was nine in the morning on the second of February, and the sun was a thin, white disk behind the high clouds. The heavy steel chain I had wrapped around the cedar post was dangling in the dirt, its links covered in a fine layer of frost.
I stopped my truck ten feet back, leaving the engine running while I stepped out into the mountain air.
My boots crunched on the frozen gravel of the driveway. I walked to the post and lifted the cold chain, my bare fingers sticking slightly to the metal.
The padlock was gone from the link. I looked down into the snow beside the tire tracks and saw a glint of yellow metal.
