Not because she intended to pay.
But because she needed to find out what her father had known.
Chapter 2: The Ranch Behind the Cottonwoods
The ranch house stood in a shallow valley surrounded by cottonwood trees, grain bins, old machinery sheds, and fences that seemed to disappear into the horizon.
It was a two-story farmhouse built of pale wood, with a deep front porch, a red metal roof, and windows that rattled during strong thunderstorms.
The original house had been smaller.
Her grandfather had built the first three rooms before the Second World War ended. Her father added the kitchen, two bedrooms, and a proper bathroom after the ranch began making enough money to justify improvements.
Her husband rebuilt the porch one summer when their children were young.
She had painted it twice since he died.
Every board contained a memory.
Every repaired hinge reminded her of somebody she loved.
And every road leading away from the house eventually joined the dirt lane the banker now claimed he could close.
The woman parked beside the equipment shed and remained in the truck.
For several minutes, she watched dust settle over the hood.
Then she opened the glove compartment and removed her father's old pocketknife.
Its wooden handle was worn smooth.
He had carried it every day.
After his death, she had kept it in the truck, using it to cut twine, open feed sacks, and trim damaged rope.
She held it now without opening the blade.
Her father had been dead for thirty-one years.
Her husband had been gone for nine.
Most of the people who remembered the road's beginning were buried in the little cemetery outside town.
And the man threatening to close it had not even been born when her father poured the first gravel.
She felt suddenly, terribly old.
Then a pickup horn sounded.
Her foreman pulled into the yard.
He was a seventy-two-year-old ranch hand with broad shoulders, deeply lined cheeks, and a white mustache that had yellowed slightly from years of strong coffee.
He had worked on the ranch since his late teens.
He climbed out slowly.
"There's orange flags all down the north road."
She nodded.
"I saw."
"What's going on?"
"Bank says we don't have a right to use it."
He stared.
Then laughed.
She did not.
His smile disappeared.
"You're serious?"
"Six hundred and forty dollars to keep driving on it."
The foreman removed his hat.
"That's the dumbest thing I've heard all year."
"He's threatening to barricade it."
The foreman's expression changed.
"That road's in the old easement."
She looked up sharply.
"You remember that?"
"Of course."
"Where's the paperwork?"
He rubbed his chin.
"Your daddy had maps."
"I know."
"He kept them in the office."
"I've looked through that office a hundred times."
"Not everything."
She watched him.
"What does that mean?"
The foreman looked toward the house.
"Your daddy didn't trust banks. Not much."
She gave a bitter laugh.
"Apparently he had good reasons."
"He kept copies of important things in strange places."
"How strange?"
The foreman thought for a moment.