Chapter 6 - The Paper Trail
The storm broke on the third morning, leaving the Blue-White peaks of St. Orin gleaming under a merciless winter sun. Warren sat at the trestle table with an antique brass-plated iron box he had pulled from beneath the floorboards under Silas's cot.
Ghost lay with her chin across his boot, while the puppy—now officially named Scout—worried a piece of braided leather lace near her paws.
Inside the iron box lay the original 1912 land grant deeds signed by the territorial governor, alongside a stack of certified county tax receipts paid in full through the next decade. But it was a thin manila folder at the bottom that caught Warren's attention. It contained signed affidavits from the former Brierfall town clerk detailing how Dale Vance's father had illegally forged boundary maps in the 1990s to claim government timber subsidies on protected watershed land—including the forty acres of Northstar Hollow.
The evidence wasn't just enough to defend the property; it was enough to dismantle the entire municipal real estate syndicate that Dale and his out-of-state investors had spent five years building.
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"Your grandfather kept better records than an infantry S-2," Warren murmured, tapping the manila folder against the wood.
Ghost let out a low, satisfied huff, her tail giving a single thump against the floor. The hollow was quiet once more, but it was no longer the quiet of an abandoned relic. It was the quiet of an armed camp that had successfully repelled its first assault.
