The Freight Driver Waited While We Read The Duplicator's Serial Plate

We reached the shop at six forty-five.

The mountains were still dark. A freight truck idled beside the loading ramp, and Hollis stood in its headlights holding a clipboard.

June parked behind me. Ada joined us by phone.

"Don't block the truck," she said. "Give the driver the documents. Basin's lawyer is calling dispatch."

I kept my hands in my coat pockets.

Hollis watched me cross the gravel.

"This isn't a good time."

"That's our duplicator."

"It needs service."

The driver looked down at his clipboard.

"Paper says sold. Delivery to a used equipment dealer in Idaho."

Hollis reached for the page.

The driver pulled it back.

"I need that, sir."

There was a $12,000 price on the freight order. Hollis had offered a machine worth far more than that to get money before anyone checked the rest of his story.

"Buyer paid yet?" June asked.

"Not my department."

She handed him Ada's letter and a copy of the ownership dispute filing. He read the first page, called dispatch, and shut off his engine.

"I'm waiting for instructions."

For once, Hollis's handshake had nobody to land on.

"You're costing me money," he told me.

"Whose money?"

He looked away.

Basin's lawyer called him within minutes. I heard only his half of it.

"It's a separate deal."

A pause.

"I told you, he was an employee."

Another pause, longer this time.

"Fine. But I'm not letting him wander through my office."

By eight, both lenders and both partners had agreed in writing to a supervised inventory and no equipment moves before Friday's hearing. The buyer in Idaho would get its deposit back. The freight driver left with an empty truck.

I stepped inside for the first time since the locks changed.

Cold glue stood in the pot. Someone had set a soda cup on my bar patterns. The shop smelled wrong without warm wood and hide glue in the air.

An equipment inspector named Len had driven over from Bozeman for Basin. He wore reading glasses on a cord and carried numbered tags.

"I need plates, wide shots, and condition," he said. "You know where the numbers are?"

"Every one."

The duplicator sat near the overhead door on wooden blocks. Its serial plate had been covered with gray tape.

"Dust protection," Hollis said.

Len took a picture before touching it. Then he peeled back the tape.

4418.

I handed him the purchase receipt.

He put the two numbers in the same photograph.

At the band saw, I knelt and wiped resin from the base. At the press, June held a work light. We moved through the seven machines in order.

Seven plates. Seven receipts. Seven matches.

Len also photographed the machine bases bolted to the floor and the dust pipes joined above them. This was a working line, fitted to this room. Moving it would mean more than loading iron onto a truck.

"Keep the wide pictures with the close ones," June told him.

"Always do," he said.

"These belong to the partnership," I said.

Len kept writing.

"I report what I see. Your lawyer handles ownership."

Fair enough. I was starting to value people who stayed inside what they knew.

June checked the customer rack. Six unfinished orders matched her deposit list, a total of $4,600 already paid by people waiting for their trees.

"The deposits bought material," Hollis said.

"Some did," she said. "I'll trace the rest."

He folded his arms.

Len valued the seven machines at about $52,600 as a working group. Broken up for a hurried sale, he expected less.

"Can you finish those orders with this equipment?" he asked me.

"If I can keep access and buy supplies."

He noted that too.

While June copied the open invoices, I found a finished cantle under a packing blanket. I tapped its edge against my wrist.

The note was dull.

A split ran beside a screw hole. Hollis had fitted it after sending me home.

I marked it REJECT and put it in the scrap bin.

"Still acting like you run the floor," he said.

"I won't let that go on a horse."

He had no answer that helped him in front of the inspector.

We left at noon with copies, photographs, and a written promise that nothing would move. I had spent the morning proving that machines I had used for ten years were the machines on my receipts.

It felt foolish until I pictured the empty freight truck.

Then it felt worth every minute.

Ada called as I reached home.

"Cottonwood has sent a default notice," she said. "The attempted sale and second pledge breach the first loan's terms."

"But that was Hollis."

"It was partnership debt when you both signed it. They want a payment plan or their $28,940."

The notice arrived on my phone while she was still speaking.