I wanted out.
Out of the shop, out of the concrete, out of a life where every day felt like trading years of your body for a paycheck. I wanted soil under my nails instead of oil. I wanted to grow something real.
That’s how I found the government land auction. Two hundred point three acres. Agricultural parcel. Nebraska. Back taxes two thousand dollars.
On Saturday morning, I drove out to see it. Windows down. Gravel humming beneath the tires. Meadowlarks singing from fence posts like they’d been hired to sell the place. The land rolled gently, black soil exposed where animals had disturbed it, old boundary markers still standing straight and proud.
I could see corn rows in my head already.
Monday, I won the auction. One other bidder dropped out after ten minutes. Two thousand dollars. Done.
Too good to be true.
Wednesday, Brinley Fairmont showed up.
That night, lying in bed hours away from the land, her threats replayed in my mind. Liens. Legal action. County involvement. She’d known me for three minutes and gone straight to intimidation.
If she was doing this to me, she was doing it to others.
Thursday morning, a certified letter waited on my kitchen table. She’d hand delivered it. Forty miles.
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