The Audit Followed Our Shop's Loan Into Hollis's Trailer Business

I worked the next Monday with the court order taped beside the clock.

Hollis stayed upstairs, talking into his phone. Every time he crossed the floor, he looked at the paper as if I had hung up a dirty picture.

I heated the glue, checked the clamps, and measured the first set of bars three times.

Getting back inside had not brought back my trust in my own hands.

I cut one bar too full along the edge, stopped the saw, and started the piece again. The board cost $18. Wasting it hurt, but sending out bad work would cost more.

By the second tree, I stopped looking upstairs whenever a floorboard creaked. I had an order to fill. Hollis could make his calls without borrowing my attention too.

June arrived with fresh bank statements. The court's record order had brought them through the lawyers. She worked beside an independent accountant named Elise Ward, whose agreed fee for the first audit was $2,100.

"Why two of you?" I asked.

"I know the books," June said. "Elise gives everyone an outside check."

By lunch, they had traced the August loan.

Of the $48,000, Hollis had spent $31,000 on two used horse trailers for his new resale business. Another $9,600 had paid his personal credit card.

The remaining $7,400 had reached our shop account and paid lumber and overdue bills.

"We include that too," June said, pointing at the transfer. "It's real."

"Even if it helps him?"

"Especially then. You need an accounting people can rely on."

The audit found no second fund waiting to save us. Hollis's side business had no customers under contract. The trailers sat in rented storage, costing $180 a month.

Elise had checked their identification numbers against the purchase papers. Both trailers were still there. A dealer offered $23,500 for the pair, subject to clear title and a look at the tires.

"He spent thirty-one thousand," I said.

"He thought he'd sell high before anybody asked about the loan," June said.

The shop had $9,400 in genuine unpaid customer invoices. Those were balances on work already delivered, separate from the unfinished orders and their deposits.

June called each customer to confirm the amount. She asked for payment, not sympathy.

One man paid while she was still on the phone.

Another said, "Hollis told me to wait till things settled."

"The invoice is due," she said. "Pay the shop account shown on the bill. Nowhere else."

That afternoon, Ada brought us a written offer.

Hollis would sell the trailers and put their proceeds toward Cottonwood. He would also sell his fishing cabin, which already had a signed buyer's offer for $112,000.

The title report showed a $19,800 mortgage. The closing agent estimated about $6,200 in sale costs, leaving roughly $86,000 before the new claims were paid.

Basin wanted $48,000 back. Its lawyer had proposed dropping the disputed equipment claim if the principal arrived through a supervised closing. Hollis would cover the lender's agreed costs separately.

There was enough cabin equity to make that possible.

For the first time, I could see a path that did not end with an auctioneer naming prices over my bench.

Then Ada gave me the last page.

Hollis wanted me to sign a statement calling the loan forms a misunderstanding. He also wanted everyone to promise never to report them.

"No," I said.

"You can settle your civil claims," Ada said. "You can't speak for a lender or control what public officials do. I've told his lawyer that."

"Then strike it."

Hollis came down when he heard us.

"You get the shop and still want my cabin?"

"You offered the cabin," I said. "You pledged our shop to buy trailers and pay your card."

"Half those books are guesses."

June placed three bank pages on the bench.

"Which transaction?"

He would not point.

The draft settlement gave me the partnership assets and required Hollis to give up his interest. His remaining claim to equity would be offset against the losses and claims we agreed to settle. He would pay the audit, cover agreed legal costs, and leave the shop with its customer obligations funded.

I would take on the work and ordinary business bills. Basin's disputed debt would be paid from his cabin closing. Cottonwood would get its full balance from the trailer sale and collected invoices.

Ada made clear that this was a negotiated price for ending the ownership fight, not a judge giving me everything for free.

"I built this place too," Hollis said.

"You did," I said. "Then you tried to sell it out from under me."

He looked at his boots.

I picked up a new maple cantle and tapped it against my wrist. The note came clean. I put it on the good rack and waited.

That evening, Grant sent revised terms with the silence clause removed.

Attached was a warning from the cabin's buyer: sign by noon tomorrow, or the $112,000 offer would expire.