Chapter 23 - Smoke on the Ridge
The gravel logging road wound upward through the coastal range like an uncoiling rope of crushed river rock. The dense timber on either side rose seventy feet into the low gray sky, blocking out the daylight until the world was reduced to deep shades of emerald, charcoal, and wet bark.
Cassidy sat in the passenger seat of Martha’s four-wheel-drive truck, watching the wipers clear sheets of water from the windshield. Behind them, the county sheriff’s cruiser and a second utility truck carrying two private timber wardens maintained a discreet fifty-yard interval.
"Clara never married," Martha said as she wrestled the heavy steering wheel through a washboard curve. "When Arthur took the family savings to launch his doomed schemes back in Chicago, Clara told the family that the Vance men were parasites dressed in three-piece suits. Arthur called her an unnatural spinster and swore he’d see her starve. So Clara came out here, bought three tax liens with five hundred dollars borrowed from a timber surveyor, and built an empire out of fallen Douglas firs."
"Did she ever try to contact us?" Cassidy asked, looking at the wild ferns brushing against the truck’s fenders.
"She kept tabs on you," Martha answered, glancing over with sharp, assessing eyes. "She had an investigator check in on Elmridge Way every eighteen months. She watched you pay your mother’s dental bills when you were nineteen. She watched you pay off Donald’s DUI settlements. She watched you hand over eighteen hundred and forty-five dollars every single month to keep that suburban prison from going to the auction block."
Cassidy felt a tightening in her throat. "Why didn't she stop it? Why didn't she reach out then?"
"Because if she handed you a million dollars while you were still Arthur's prisoner, Arthur would have devoured it," Martha said bluntly. "You had to break your own chains, Cassidy. If you hadn't walked out that front door on Thanksgiving, if you hadn't let that house crash down on their heads, Clara’s will had a fallback clause: the entire estate was slated to be turned into a state elk reserve. You only inherited this land because you proved you knew how to survive being starved."
The road leveled out onto a high saddle of land. Ahead, the dark wall of the forest abruptly peeled back, opening into a broad clearing of roughly fifteen acres. In the center of the muddy plateau stood the old Holloway lodge—a sturdy structure of blackened cedar logs with a sprawling corrugated tin roof.
Plumes of dirty gray smoke rose from an improvised metal chimney pipe protruding from one of the lodge's lower windows. Parked haphazardly around the front porch were two rusted travel trailers, an untagged flatbed trailer loaded with disassembled commercial machinery, and a gleaming, brand-new midnight-blue heavy-duty pickup truck.
Cassidy recognized the truck instantly. The temporary dealer tag was still taped inside the rear window. It was the truck Arthur had signed for three weeks before the eviction—the one Cassidy had refused to co-sign.
"There he is," Martha muttered, slowing the vehicle to a crawl at the edge of the timberline. "Living like a king on borrowed blood."
On the covered porch of the lodge, a man stood leaned against a supporting pillar, holding a mug of steaming coffee. He was thick-set, his dark hair thinning at the crown, wearing an expensive down jacket that looked absurdly clean against the backdrop of mud and rust.
Donald.
Even from fifty yards away, Cassidy could see the casual, unearned arrogance in his posture. He stood there gazing out over the misty valley with the proprietary smugness of a conqueror, oblivious to the fact that the road beneath his boots did not belong to the state, the forest service, or his doting father.
The cruiser behind Martha’s truck flicked on its low amber running lights, the tires grinding to a halt in the loose stone.
"Do we wait for the sheriff to make approach?" Martha asked, her hand resting on the console.
Cassidy reached into her bag, picked up the thick manila envelope containing the registered trust conveyance, and opened the truck door.
May you like
"No," Cassidy said, stepping down into the cold Pacific mud, her boots sinking half an inch into the wet gravel. "I've waited ten years to serve this bill."
---
