“It isn’t a diary.”
“Listen carefully.”
Harold stepped closer.
“Your grandfather is dead.”
Everett flinched.
“He had plenty of years to make whatever claim you think he had.”
Everett said nothing.
“He didn’t.”
Nothing.
“So stop trying to create trouble he never wanted.”
That line struck harder than Harold understood.
Because Everett had wondered the same thing.
If Caleb believed the boundary was wrong, why had he remained quiet?
Maybe Harold was right.
Maybe the notebook was only an old man’s suspicion.
Harold saw doubt.
He pressed.
“Pull the sticks.”
Everett looked toward the line.
“No, sir.”
The ranch hands went silent.
Harold stared.
“What did you say?”
Everett swallowed.
His hands were shaking.
“No, sir.”
Harold stepped within three feet.
“You’re on my ground.”
“Then let a surveyor prove it.”
Harold’s face changed.
“Boy—”
Everett tightened his grip on the notebook.
“If I’m wrong, I’ll pull every one.”
Harold stared.
“And if you’re right?”
Everett had not planned that far.
He answered anyway.
“Then they stay.”
Harold turned toward the pickup.
Before leaving, he said:
“Your mother needs to get control of you.”
Everett watched the truck disappear.
Then sat in the mud.
His knees felt weak.
He was not brave.
He had simply run out of sentences he could live with saying.
Rachel found him there an hour later.
She climbed down the bank in work boots and an old denim jacket.
Everett looked guilty.
She sat beside him.
“Harold came to the house.”
“I figured.”
“He said you told him no.”
“Yes.”