The Complaint Arrived With A Claim Against My Old Purchase

The process server came at seven forty, while my oatmeal still steamed.

He asked my name, handed me a packet, and wished me a good morning. He sounded as if he knew how little that helped.

Alder Bend had sued the trust and me. The complaint said I had secretly taken a company opportunity. It asked the court to stop us from blocking the merger and to force a transfer of the parcel.

Sterling's sworn statement called my demand an attempt to cause immediate rail failure.

I put the packet in a clean grocery bag so the oatmeal would not mark it.

Mara read it at her office.

"You have the old disclosure letter?"

"And the envelope it came back in."

Fifteen years earlier, I had mailed the board a notice before buying the parcel. The board had returned a signed copy. Its minutes said the company declined the land and had no objection to my trust buying it.

I had saved the envelope because the stamp had a train on it.

For once, a small habit had paid its keep.

Mara copied both sides. The old board secretary still lived in Havre. With my permission, Mara called her. She agreed to sign a statement about the meeting and her own records.

"No one can promise how a judge will rule," Mara said. "But this answers the story they swore to."

We filed our response that afternoon. We also asked for a temporary order against transferring the trust's parcel or assigning the access agreement without consent.

The proposed order said rail use under the existing agreement would continue.

I read that sentence twice before I signed my statement.

"Put it in plain sight," I said.

While we worked, Della called from home. Sterling had given her a warning for discussing company operations with the buyer.

"The meeting he attended?" I asked.

"The very one. Apparently the siding should have grown back while I was upstairs."

She had asked for the warning in writing. He had provided it.

Mara asked Della to send a copy and keep doing her job. She also told the workers that anyone with an employment claim could get separate advice. Owning the parcel did not make me their lawyer.

By sunset, all twenty-four benefit schedules had reached her office. Nobody had accepted the $1,200 release.

One man, Art Bellis from maintenance, called me twice.

"My wife's medicine is $640 a month," he said. "I can't gamble with this."

"I know."

"Do you?"

I looked at my lawyer's bill on the table.

"I know I can't promise you a result. But your old letter is still a real paper. Don't let them buy it back cheap because you're scared."

He was quiet for a while.

"I'll wait for the hearing," he said.

The hearing was set for Friday morning, five days before closing. Mara asked me to wear whatever made me comfortable and answer only what I was asked.

I chose my clean work shirt.

I had worn a suit when my daughter graduated. This felt different. They had called my work a waste, then used my old work papers to claim rights they did not have. I wanted the judge to see the man who had actually walked that track.

On Thursday, Evelyn Kline called Mara. The buyer had asked for an independent review of the ownership and severance records. Evelyn had hired an outside accountant, with the board's other directors backing her.

Sterling had voted against it.

"They found the rent account," Mara told me.

"Was it hiding?"

"Under track access expense. In perfectly ordinary English."

The accountant had traced fifteen years of checks to the trust. The current finance files also held Leon's ownership statements and a copy of the agreement.

That did not prove who had read what. It did prove the papers had been there to read.

I spent the evening sorting my scale records. Sterling's complaint included a claim that my work had become unreliable. I matched each service ticket to its test result and each warning to its repair order.

The last ticket warned about snow under the east platform. No failure had occurred. I had found the risk before a customer lost money.

That was the point of my job.

I put the brass bob beside the stack. Under lamplight, the dents in its side looked deep enough to hold shadows.

At nine, Mara sent one more document, followed by a call.

It was an officer's certificate from the closing file. Sterling had signed it the day after our meeting.

It said all required landowner approvals had been obtained.

"Check the attached consent," Mara said.

The attachment bore my signature. Above it was permission to spread fresh ballast, dated eleven years earlier.