What kind of pressure? Daniel asked. I don't know specifically, but I'd watch the ranch carefully, and I'd make sure your neighbors know what's happening before Hollis can put his version of events in front of them. Daniel stood. He picked up his hat.
He held out his hand to Ardan. "File it," he said. They shook hands. Clara gathered the documents. She and Daniel walked out into the cold and stood on the street for a moment, the town moving around them with its ordinary noise and its ordinary ignorance of what had just changed.
"It's done," Daniel said. "It started," Clara said. He looked at her sideways. "You don't let anything be simple, do you? Simple things don't need me," she said.
He almost smiled. Almost. The corner of his mouth moved in the direction of it. And then he put his hat on and turned toward the livery to collect his horse, and Clara watched him go and felt the particular weight of a thing that has been set in motion and cannot now be stopped. She hoped she had set it in motion in the right direction.
The answer came faster than she had expected. 2 days after the complaint was filed, Daniel came in from the barn in the mid-after afternoon. Too early, wrong time. His jaw set and his eyes carrying something dark and controlled and said, "Come outside." Clara followed him.
In the yard stood three men she didn't recognize. Ranch hands by the look of them, but hired hands, not Daniels, carrying themselves with the particular looseness of men who have been told they have the backing of someone important. The one in the center, heavy set and deliberate, said, "Mr. Hayes, Mr. Hollis wanted you to have a message." Say it, Daniel said. He says the complaint you filed is going to make this harder than it needs to be.
He says he's a reasonable man and reasonable men can work things out before they need lawyers and judges involved. He had 14 months to work things out, Daniel said. He spent those 14 months changing my loan terms without notice. The man shrugged. Mr. Hollis says he's willing to renegotiate.
He says he'll extend the payment period, give you another year if you withdraw the complaint. And if I don't, the man was quiet for a moment. He looked at the house. He looked at the barn. He looked at Clara briefly with an assessment that was not threatening exactly, but was designed to be understood as significant.
He says, "Ranching is hard work," the man said. "And harder without good faith from your lender." Daniel took one step forward. Clara put her hand on his arm. He stopped.
"Tell Mr. Hollis," Clara said, stepping slightly forward, her voice even and clear that Mr. and tell him that the documentation supporting the complaint has already been provided to the county land records office and to two other land owners whose records show the same pattern. So, if Mr. Hollis is calculating how to make this harder than it needs to be, he might want to consider whether he can afford the arithmetic. The three men looked at her. The one in the center looked at Daniel. Daniel said, "Nothing, just held the man's gaze with the steady, immovable quality of someone who has decided."