Hollis Called Me A Hired Hand Before The Judge Read Our Articles

Hollis wore a dark suit to the Park County courthouse.

He looked more at home in it than I felt in my clean work shirt. I had scrubbed my hands twice, but black dust stayed in the lines beside my nails.

June sat behind me with her binders square on her lap.

"Let him finish his sentences," she whispered.

"I'll try."

"Try hard."

Hollis had hired a lawyer named Grant Bell. Grant looked tired before the hearing began. I wondered which set of papers Hollis had shown him.

The judge explained that she would decide what needed protection while the case moved forward. This was not the final trial.

Then Grant called me a former worker with an unpaid compensation dispute.

Ada stood.

"Our claim concerns ownership. The signed partnership articles are attached to the complaint, along with proof of Mr. Kalinowski's completed capital contribution."

The judge opened Exhibit A.

Hollis leaned toward Grant. Grant did not look at him.

When I took the stand, Ada asked what I made.

"Saddle trees. I fit the wood frame to the maker's pattern and the kind of horse it'll sit on."

"What did you contribute to this business?"

"Thirty-four thousand two hundred dollars in equipment payments. My labor. My patterns. Hollis put in the same starting amount. We agreed on half each."

"Were your weekly cash payments listed as wages?"

"They were partner draws. June kept those records."

Grant asked why I had accepted cash if I thought I was an owner.

"Hollis preferred cash," I said. "We still entered it in the books and reported it."

"Do you hold title to each machine personally?"

"No. The partnership owns the machines. I own half the partnership."

I saw Ada lower her pen.

That was the whole claim. I did not need to make it bigger.

Grant asked whether I had always understood our bills.

"No," I said. "Sometimes June explained them. Sometimes I asked Hollis."

"So you relied on him?"

"For sales and buying. He relied on me to build things people could use. We hired June because neither one of us should have been keeping numbers in his head."

June went next. She explained the matching draw accounts, the tax records, and the equipment payments. She gave each answer with a page number.

Grant asked why she kept copies away from the shop.

"A flood, a fire, or a lost password shouldn't destroy ten years of books," she said.

"You expected trouble from Mr. Stroud?"

"I expected arithmetic to remain arithmetic."

The judge asked Hollis whether he disputed his signature on the articles.

"We had an understanding after that," he said.

"A later written agreement?"

"A handshake."

"Changing the ownership terms?"

"He knew how it was."

"Do you have records of a purchase of his interest?"

"I paid him every week."

The judge turned to June's draw ledger.

"You received payments entered under the same description. Did those payments also buy your interest away from you?"

Hollis opened his mouth, then closed it.

Basin's lawyer said its loan had relied on Hollis's ownership claims. She wanted the equipment held while the lender investigated.

Cottonwood's lawyer said it had a valid first loan and would not accept being pushed behind a second creditor.

Ada agreed that Cottonwood's debt was real. She showed the court the attempted freight sale and Len's report. A broken-up auction could destroy the shop's ability to earn money even if I later won.

The judge looked at the photographs of the seven plates.

"These items will remain in place," she said.

Her order stopped the scheduled auction for thirty days, required full financial records, and restored my access for limited shop work. Neither partner could sell assets, take new loans, or remove records. June would prepare weekly reports for both lenders and both lawyers.

I had to post a $2,500 bond. Ada had warned me that the court might require it.

I signed the payment form with a hand that barely felt like mine.

The judge had found enough evidence to protect my claim. She had not paid our debts or finished our case.

Outside the courtroom, Hollis caught up with me.

"You humiliated me in there."

I held the order against my chest.

"I answered questions."

"We can still work this out between men."

"Put your proposal in writing."

June stepped beside me. Hollis went down the stairs without offering his hand.

At Ada's office, we made a plan for the first lender. Cottonwood agreed to wait ten days for a firm repayment proposal. I called customers with the access order in front of me and gave careful, limited delivery dates.

Then Basin sent its disbursement record.

The entire $48,000 loan had gone to an account belonging to Stroud Trail Gear, a separate company I had never heard of.

June circled the account number.

"Now," she said, "we find out what he bought."