Part 7

My sergeant asked how many of them should come Saturday, in uniform. "Nobody comes in uniform," I said. "The Army doesn't take sides in a neighbor fight. That's the rule, and it's a good one. If you want to come as a neighbor, in jeans, on your own time, that's your business." He grinned. "Yes, ma'am." I looked out Grandma's front window and couldn't believe what I saw. People. Lining the road on both sides. Neighbors in bathrobes and jackets, with coffee. Sixty men and women from a veterans' motorcycle group, standing beside their bikes, each holding an American flag on a pole. Thirty young people in jeans and sweatshirts, standing very straight. My soldiers. And at the front gate, in lawn chairs with blankets on their laps, three old women. Delphine Dolan. Eunice Kettering. And Mabel Hutchins, who had come all the way from Temple in her granddaughter's car. About a hundred and forty people in all. My grandmother stood on the porch in her church coat and looked out at them. She didn't say anything. She just held on to my arm. At seven, the crane truck came down the road. Chad's white pickup was behind it. And behind that was a sheriff's car. Chad had called them himself, saying a homeowner was "refusing to comply." Chad got out and looked at the crowd. His face went pale under his tan. Then he squared his shoulders and walked to the gate with his folder. Deputy Villanueva got out of the patrol car. He recognized me. "Morning, Major," he said. "What've we got?" I handed him a folder of my own. The 1994 rules, open to page thirty-three, with one sentence highlighted. The photo stamped SEP 67, and my grandfather's note from the concrete. The Texas laws, printed out. And the letters from Carl Henshaw and Marjorie Fairbanks saying the board had never met or voted. The deputy read every page while a hundred and forty people waited in silence. Then he turned to the workers. "There's no court order here," he said. "You touch that pole, I'm writing you up for criminal mischief. Go home, fellas." The workers looked at each other and climbed back in their truck. "This is an association matter," Chad said. "I'm the president—" "Of a board that never met," I said. Loud enough for the whole road. Then I held up the cream-colored offer letter and read the company's name from the state records out loud. "Lone Oak Land Partners. Managing member, Chad Sizemore." A murmur went down the road. Mrs. Dolan stood up from her lawn chair and held up her own envelope. Then Mrs. Kettering. Then Mrs. Hutchins, with shaking hands. "He bought my house for eighty-eight thousand dollars," Mabel Hutchins said. "My husband was in Korea." Chad opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Then someone pushed through the crowd from the back. My father. He walked up and stood beside my grandmother at the gate. He turned around to face all those people. "Chad Sizemore offered me twenty-five thousand dollars to help get my mother out of her house," he said.