My Father Brought a Locksmith to Sell the Ranch I Bought
He picked up the manila folder and slid it into his desk drawer.
“Keep your gates locked,” he said. “And do not go out there alone if you see headlights.”
The wind off the western ridge was blowing fine, dry snow across the road, filling the tire tracks as soon as they were made. I stood at the main gate with my phone in my gloved hand.
The new padlock was cold, the steel gray and heavy. I had wrapped the chain three times around the cedar post, securing it with a hardened steel latch that could not be cut with standard bolt cutters.
I opened the security application on my phone screen.
The image from the well house camera was clear, showing the gate and the five-hundred-yard stretch of road leading up to the county highway. A small red box flickered around my own boots on the screen, indicating the motion sensor had locked onto me.
“Testing,” I said aloud.
The tiny speaker on the camera housing gave a short, metallic squeak. My voice came back to me through the cold air, thin and hollow.
