The Licensing Office Printed A Payee I Had Never Approved

"What company?" I asked.

On the other end, a keyboard went quiet.

"Sandglass Field Services," Anika said. "Were you expecting a different answer?"

"I was expecting no sales."

She did not gasp or fill the space with kind sounds.

"Then we should review the file together. I can meet you at our regional office this afternoon. Bring identification and your original agreement."

I took personal time from the lab. I told my supervisor I had a contract problem. For once, I did not make it smaller by calling it a little problem.

The office sat beyond a row of grain bins west of Minot. Wind dragged loose snow from an old roadside drift across the pavement.

Anika met me with a folder and a cup of plain coffee.

She was forty-four, Nepali American, and the crop-licensing administrator whose name appeared on our first set of papers. Her dark braid rested over one shoulder. She wore a brown cardigan with a repaired cuff.

"You asked about reporting rights at the signing," she said.

"You remember that?"

"You also asked what counted as a returned unit. The answer was on page six."

I opened my red folder.

"It still is."

She gave one small nod, as if we had agreed on the weather.

Then she placed five reports on the table.

The first showed $96,000 in royalties for 2023.

The next showed $168,000 for 2024.

Then $228,000 for 2025.

The three completed quarters of 2026 came to $144,000.

I added the figures on the back of the envelope from my lunch bag.

"Six hundred thirty-six thousand dollars."

"Yes," she said. "Those are royalties paid. The sales figures are in the next column."

I had spent the summer patching the same work shoes with glue.

Sabine had told me there was no room in our budget for replacements until winter.

"Where did this go?"

Anika turned over a payment sheet.

Sandglass Field Services LLC.

The contact name was Leon Dumas.

I knew Leon. Sabine had brought him to our kitchen two winters earlier.

"Our tax adviser," she had said. "Let him worry about the complicated things."

He had worn polished boots and told me my small repair receipts were not worth keeping.

I had kept them anyway.

"He's our tax man," I said.

"He is listed here as the company's managing member. Your wife is the other member."

Anika let me read the page.

"Did you agree to transfer your royalty interest?"

"No."

"Did you sign this?"

She put a one-page assignment in front of me.

My name stood at the bottom in blue script. It looked like my signature because it was my signature, down to the little break in the first E.

"That came from another page," I said.

"Which page?"

"I don't know yet. But I didn't sign this one."

Anika wrote down my exact words.

"I need to be clear," she said. "I cannot decide a signature dispute. Our counsel will review it. I can provide the records you are entitled to receive."

"Could Sabine stop you?"

"No. You each retained that right."

There it was. A sentence I had read at our basement desk now had a person sitting behind it.

"Why did your office accept this?"

For the first time, she looked unhappy.

"It was processed by operations while I was on leave. I should have caught it in the later file review. I didn't. That will be part of our review too."

She did not blame the person who had left the company. She did not ask me to be patient for her comfort.

"Will you tell my wife?" I asked.

"Counsel will notify everyone concerned. I cannot promise secrecy. I can make sure your address receives the same notices."

She copied the reports, the assignment, and the payment history. She also gave me a written receipt for my dispute.

I counted the sheets as they came from the printer.

"Un. Deux. Trois."

My hands steadied by the fourth.

At home, Sabine was waiting beside the kitchen counter. Her phone lay face down. Beside it was a black notebook I had seen for years but never opened.

"Leon says you went to North Coulee," she said.

"They paid six hundred thirty-six thousand dollars."

"Before expenses. Before all the things you don't see."

"Those were the royalty payments."

She pushed the notebook toward herself.

"You want to count money? I can count twelve years of what you cost me."

"I want to see the account."

She picked up her phone.

"Then you'd better learn how expensive a lawyer can be."