Page 81 of Omega’s Fold

I put the kettle on.

The phone rings.

The sound is loud enough in the quiet that I am at the counter with the receiver in my hand before I have thought about it.

“Wyatt Briggs.”

“Wyatt. Yvonne Mears. I’m sorry to call so early. I had a call last night,” she says. “Late. From a buyer’s agent I have not heard from before. Out of Denver. They want to come and see the place this morning. I told them earliest I could do was eleven and they said fine. They’re part of a big conglomerate so they’re not interested in the house, just the land.”

I know what that means. One more giant corporation buying up land. It’s been happening for decades. Small ranches like mine just don’t manage forever, not in the world today. Soon all the land in the world is going to be owned by one big corporation, or at least that is how it feels.

“What kind of offer are we looking at?”

She tells me.

It’s a reasonable number. It’s almost exactly what I owe the bank. It’s not what I think the place is worth or what it would have been worth before the Linden Group rolled into town.

“I know it is not what you wanted. But this is the kind of offer that does not come twice. I want to be straight with you about that. They will not be coming back if you say no this morning. I know how these buyers work.”

She hangs up.

I stand at the counter with the receiver still in my hand. The kettle has come to the boil. It clicks off.

Julian’s voice from the doorway, low. “Who was that?”

I turn. He is in the kitchen doorway in last night’s pants and a t-shirt I have not seen, his hair still on end, his eyes still soft from sleep. His feet are bare on the boards. He has come down the stairs without me hearing him.

“There’s a buyer.”

He does not move from the doorway. He looks at me and he waits.

“They want to see the place at eleven,” I say.

“Is it a Linden buyer?”

I had not thought of that.

I put the receiver back in the cradle. I put both hands flat on the counter. The kettle has gone quiet. The fridge is humming behind me. Outside the window the first light is starting to come up over the ridge and the pumps are doing what the pumps do.

“They’ve moved fast,” he says. “I’m guessing they’re going to try to buy before this all goes public.”

I don’t want to take an offer from the Linden Group. I also don’t want to turn it down and end up in a worse position.

Julian lets me think. He goes to the kettle. He picks it up and feels the side of it and decides it is still hot enough, and he takes two mugs off the rack and he makes coffee. He puts mine in front of me and he keeps his in his hand and he stands at the counter beside me.

If I take it I am off the bank’s books by Christmas. We move into the apartment above Halsey’s cousin’s place in Eastfield. Caleb finishes school there. Matthew starts at a new school in January. The baby comes in the spring and we have a roof over our heads and money in the account and I walk away from the place clean.

I drink the coffee. He waits. The kitchen is starting to get light through the window.

I put the mug down.

“I’m not taking it.”

I pick the receiver up. I dial Yvonne. She picks up on the second ring and I tell her no, and she does not argue with me, which surprises me.

Julian goes back up the stairs. I get my jacket off the hook.

The yard is cold. Frost has come down in the night and the grass crunches under my boots. Biscuit comes out from under the porch with her one good ear up and follows me to the gate of the middle pasture without being asked. Julian comes out of the house with my old field jacket over the t-shirt because his is still in the car and I have not offered him one. He is wearing the boots he wore in August, the city ones, which were the wrong boots in August and are the wrong boots now. He does not complain.