Chapter 2: Paper Weapons on the Ridge

The air in my old cabin still smelled of pine and woodsmoke, a comforting scent that felt like a challenge to the sterile, official papers spread across my kitchen table. Outside, the last light of the Montana sun bled across the 120 acres I called home, land Evelyn had loved.

I picked up the foreclosure injunction, my thumb tracing the embossed seal. It demanded $450,000.

Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

A syndicate debt, the paperwork vaguely suggested, tied to the very land I stood on. Arthur Krenshaw hadn’t just made a bet; he’d started a war with legal threats.

My eyes scanned the dense text, paragraphs of legalese attempting to justify the seizure of my property. Evelyn’s ranch.

Then I saw it. The signature line.

Evelyn Halloway.

My hands stilled, the paper crinkling under my grip. It was a crude forgery, but undeniably her name.

A jolt ran through me, colder than the mountain spring. The date printed beneath the signature was even worse: three weeks before her death, 15 years ago.

She had been too sick to sign anything then, barely able to lift a glass of water.

This wasn’t just Arthur trying to win a petty feud. This was something far more desperate. He wasn’t after my pride; he was after the timber, the land itself, to settle some old score of his own.

A shadow fell across my window, then a soft knock.

I looked up, the papers still in my hand. It was too late for visitors, too early for anything good.