“Bull.”
“I know that now.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred.”
“You took five hundred dollars to spy on me?”
“Not spy.”
She stared.
“Monitor?”
Roy winced.
“Sounds worse when you say it.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That the pasture was failing.”
“He has eyes.”
“Hay numbers.”
Clara’s anger rose.
“You told him how much hay I had?”
“He asked.”
“And you answered.”
Roy rubbed his face.
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“Your well sounded bad.”
“Jesus, Roy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Did you tell him my bank situation?”
“No.”
“Anything about Section 12 before yesterday?”
“No.”
“Did he ask?”
Roy hesitated.
That was enough.
“What?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether you ever used the north pasture for anything.”
“Then?”
“Whether Luke ever drilled there.”
Clara’s stomach tightened.
“What did you say?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“He asked if you still had Miriam’s old papers.”
Clara stared.
Roy’s face changed as understanding finally reached him.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I thought he wanted land.”
“He does.”
“But not for grass.”
“No.”
Roy looked genuinely sick.
“I’ll give the five hundred back.”
“To me?”
“To him.”
“No.”
Clara shook her head.
“Keep it.”
“What?”
“Why?”
“Because if he paid you once, he might contact you again.”
Roy understood.
“You want me to lie?”
“I want you to listen.”
A slow smile appeared.
“That I can do.”
“Please don’t enjoy this.”
“Impossible.”
Three days later, Roy called.
“Come over.”
“Why?”
“He called.”
Clara drove to Roy’s.
Nell came too.
Roy had recorded nothing because Nebraska consent laws and legal details made him nervous after Clara told him not to improvise.
But he wrote the conversation down immediately afterward.
Dwight had asked whether Clara reopened the spring line.
Whether county officials visited.
Whether she found “the original right.”
Clara circled those words.
“What original right?”
Roy shrugged.
“Exactly.”
Nell pulled a folded document from her handbag.
“My contract.”
They spread it across Roy’s kitchen table.
Water interests.
Easements.
Access.
Then Nell produced the deed transferring her north forty.
At the bottom: