I walked back to the farmhouse alone while the three of them sat in their stands. It was full light by then, a clear, cold November morning. The frost was going silver on the cornstalks, and shots were echoing all over the township.
I sat at Grandpa’s kitchen table with my coffee and the green ledger and that forged lease spread out in front of me. Then I called Patricia Haugen at home, on a Saturday at 7:15 in the morning. She answered on the second ring.
“He forged my name, Patricia,” I said. “On a hunting lease. And he’s been taking cash for three years.”
Patricia was quiet for a moment. “Do you have the document?”
“I’m holding it.”
“Don’t fold it again. Put it in a plastic sleeve. Don’t let anyone else handle it.” Her voice was calm, but I could hear the edge in it. “What you’re describing is serious, Amy. Signing someone else’s name to a document to get money is forgery under Wisconsin law. It’s a felony. Taking money by pretending to have rights you don’t have can be theft by fraud. That’s a matter for the district attorney if you want to report it.”
“I don’t know if I want to send Brad to prison,” I said. “I just want this to stop.”
“That’s your decision,” Patricia said. “Nobody gets to make it for you. But you should know that Kurt and his friends have their own claims. They’re the ones he took the money from. They can sue him in small claims court to get their twelve thousand back. In Wisconsin, small claims handles cases up to ten thousand dollars per claim, so they’d each file separately, or split it. Or they can go to the DA themselves.”
“What about the trespassing? This morning?”
“Kurt and his friends didn’t know. They thought they had permission. Did they leave when you told them to?”
“Immediately.”
“Then I’d let that go. They were victims too.” She paused. “Brad’s a different story. If Brad sets one foot on that property after receiving your certified letter, that’s trespass, and he knew it. Call the sheriff or the conservation warden. Don’t confront him yourself.”
“Do you think he’ll come?”
“I think a man who forges his ex-wife’s signature on a lease doesn’t like being caught,” Patricia said. “Keep your phone on you.”
She was right.
At 2:40 that afternoon, Brad’s red Ram pickup came down County Road H too fast, skidded on the gravel, and stopped at my gate. He got out and stood there with the engine running and the door open.
I was on the porch. I watched him read the orange sign on the gate post: PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING – NO HUNTING.
He put his hand on the gate latch.
Then a green Department of Natural Resources truck came around the bend from the other direction and pulled in behind him.
The conservation warden was a lanky man in his fifties named Ray Lindqvist. He’d been the warden in Dunn County for twenty-two years, and he’d known my grandfather well. Earl Nygaard had called him that morning after he heard about the dawn visitors from his hired man, who’d been out checking fence and seen the flashlights.
Ray got out of his truck slowly, adjusting his hat.
“Afternoon, Brad,” he said.
Brad turned. His hand came off the gate latch.
“Ray. Hey. Just stopping by to see Amy.”
“Uh-huh.” Ray walked up and looked at the orange sign on the gate post, then at me on the porch, then back at Brad. “Amy tells me she sent you a certified letter in August revoking any permission you had to be on this property.”
Brad’s easy smile flickered. “That’s a misunderstanding. Amy and I have an arrangement about the hunting.”
“Do you?” Ray reached into his jacket pocket and took out a folded piece of paper in a clear plastic sleeve. Patricia had told me to give it to the warden, so I had, that morning. “This the arrangement?”
Brad saw the lease and went white.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Kurt Ostrowski gave it to Amy at five-thirty this morning, standing out there in the cornfield,” Ray said. “Kurt also called me this afternoon. So did Mike Pruett. They both gave me statements.” He folded his arms. “Brad, I’ve known Amy since she was carrying her granddad’s thermos up that ridge, and I’ve seen her signature on a dozen landowner forms. That’s not it.”
Brad looked at me on the porch. For the first time in all the years I’d known him, his calm cracked. His face went red and twisted.
“Amy, come on. You’re going to do this? Over some deer?”
“It was never about the deer, Brad,” I said. “It was always about the ridge.”
“I built those stands! I put work into that land!”
“I tore your stands down in October,” I said. “One of them had duct tape holding a rung. Twelve feet up. You let Kurt climb that.”
Brad opened his mouth, then closed it.
Ray took out a citation book.
“Brad, I’m writing you a citation for trespass, because you’re standing at this gate with your hand on the latch after written notice. The county attorney will decide about the rest. I’m forwarding this lease and the statements to the district attorney’s office on Monday.” He tore off the ticket. “And I’m giving you a friendly piece of advice: get back in your truck, and don’t come back to this property. Next time, I won’t be the one who shows up. It’ll be a deputy.”
Brad took the ticket. He looked at it, then at me, and for a second I thought he was going to say something. Maybe something cruel, or maybe, God help me, something like sorry.
He didn’t say anything. He got into his truck, backed out onto County Road H, and drove away.
Ray watched him go. Then he walked up the porch steps and took off his hat.
“Your granddad would’ve had me out here at six this morning,” he said. “Arvid didn’t wait on anything.”
“I know,” I said. “He’d have walked down to that gate himself.”
Ray smiled. “In that coat.”
I looked down. I was still wearing Grandpa’s tan canvas coat with the sleeves rolled up twice.
