The note gave him the right to call it at any point. I signed it because I had no other option at the time and because I trusted. He stopped. I trusted his word that he wouldn't call it early unless there was a genuine reason. And his genuine reason, Clara said carefully, is us.
A pause. Edna Hargrove talked to him, Nate said. She's been talking to him since you arrived. She She has views about the arrangement here. And Gerald does whatever Edna tells him to do, which everyone knows and nobody says.
Clara looked at the letter again. 30 days, she said. Yes, what happens if you can't pay? Nate's jaw was set hard. He gets the east pasture, he said.
It's written into the note. If I default, I forfeit the east pasture as collateral. A pause. That's 40 acres of the best grazing land on the property. Without it, the herd's capacity drops by a third.
I'd spend 5 years recovering from it. If I could recover at all. Clara sat down now. She pulled the letter toward her and read it again slowly, the way her father had taught her to read legal documents, looking not at what was written, but at what was implied, what was permitted, what the spaces between the words contained. "When did you take this note?"
She said. "Spring of '82," he said. "14 months after Eleanor died," she said. "Yes." "You were alone with seven children and a sick herd, and you needed supplies," she said.
"Yes, and Hargrove offered credit on favorable terms." "At the time," Nate said, "it seemed it seemed like a favor." She said, "That's how these things work. They seem like favors until they need to be something else." She traced the letterhead with one finger.
"He's owned 40 acres of your best grazing land in potential for 2 years. He's just decided now to collect." Nate looked at her. "You understand this kind of thing," he said. It was not quite a question.
"My husband's farm," she said. "We had a similar arrangement with a merchant in Billings. I read every word of it, and Robert thought I was being overcautious, and I thought I thought I was being careful." She paused. "We were lucky.