Chapter 5: The Notched Brass

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This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series Tied Up and Dumped Into a Raging Western River by Her Greedy Ex-Fiancé to Steal Her $4 Million Riverfront Ranch, a 19-Year-Old Native Girl Is Rescued by the Giant Black Bear She Raised in Secret

Tied Up and Dumped Into a Raging Western River by Her Greedy Ex-Fiancé to Steal Her $4 Million Riverfront Ranch, a 19-Year-Old Native Girl Is Rescued by the Giant Black Bear She Raised in Secret

Chapter 1: The Edge of Blackwater Gorge

Chapter 3: The Sanctuary’s Title

Chapter 8: The Press Conference

Chapter 10: The Financial Collapse

Back at the cabin, I laid the yellow folder on my sturdy oak table. Maku watched from his spot by the hearth, sensing the shift in my demeanor. Leo sat beside me, carefully coloring a picture of Maku while I cautiously opened the folder. It was even thicker than it looked, stuffed with various maps, deeds, and official-looking documents.

My gaze immediately went to the top document: a detailed land survey, dated just weeks ago. It outlined the proposed resort’s boundaries, and my stomach clenched as I saw how it encroached on my family’s land, pushing far beyond the lines I knew to be true. Tyler hadn’t just tried to evict me; he was trying to steal a huge chunk of my property.

Then, my eyes landed on something small, almost invisible, drawn in tiny, precise detail on the map. A “Property Marker: BRASS, NOTCHED.” It was placed exactly where his proposed boundary cut deep into my sanctuary.

A cold certainty settled over me. This marker was familiar.

I grabbed the worn deed to my own land, the one I’d inherited from my father, and laid it next to Tyler’s “new” survey. The original survey clearly showed a different marker, further west, a plain iron pin. But the brass one…

My breath caught. I thought of Maku. Years ago, when he was just a clumsy cub, he’d played near the old property markers on the western edge of our land. He’d gotten curious, nosing at them.

A small, almost faded scar on the palm of my hand suddenly pulsed. It was a crescent-shaped mark, an old memory. When Maku was a cub, he had swiped playfully at my hand, his claws still sharp despite their size. He had snagged a piece of brass I was carrying—a small, notched tag my father used to mark trees. I remembered the tag then. It had been lost that day, near the old boundary.

I snatched up one of the more detailed close-up maps from Tyler’s folder. Sure enough, the brass marker had a small, distinctive notch on its upper rim, exactly where Maku’s claw had scraped it. It was the same tag. Tyler hadn’t just moved a marker; he’d used *my* father’s *lost* marker to fraudulently redefine the boundary. This wasn’t just encroachment. This was clear, irrefutable evidence of a fabricated boundary, directly tying him to illegally moving federal property markers.

Leo’s bright yellow folder now felt like a lead ingot.