Chapter 15: Collateral

"Did he put the jobs in writing?" I asked.

The owner shook his head.

"Said he'd keep the doors open. Said it was a handshake town."

"Did you ask him to write it down?"

"I did. He laughed and said lawyers would handle it."

I walked up close so he'd have to look at me.

"He told a hall full of people Saturday he's keeping this mill open."

"He told me eight years he was going to marry me."

The old man looked at the tarp under his hand for a long time.

"His letter's got an out," he said finally. "Till closing, I can hand back his money."

"Bring me nine hundred thousand by Thursday noon, and forty jobs on paper, and it's yours."

***

By noon Monday I knew three things.

My savings were in the Hollow Fund, where I'd promised them.

Ridgeline couldn't buy a building in four days with a lawsuit coming and the Ohio trial running.

And the bank in town would lend me nine hundred thousand dollars only if somebody put up land worth more than that.

I sat in Jeb's truck in the bank lot with the loan papers in my lap.

"I'll find it," I said. "I'll call Sheree. I'll call the Ohio buyer. I'll call every investor in Chicago."

"Use the ridge," Jeb said.

I looked up.

"What?"

"The Easterly ridge. Three hundred acres of white oak, clear title. It's worth a million and some."

"No."

"It's mine to put up."

"Your great-granddaddy cut the elder's table off that ridge, Jeb. Your family's buried up there."

"So it'll hold a bank note fine."

"And if I fail? If the support center flops and the note goes bad?"

"Then don't fail."

He said it was easy.

It made me so angry I got out of the truck.

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