The headlines burned fast; the consequences didn’t. The oil company retreated from boardrooms to back roads, turning corporate interest into something uglier.
Survey stakes appeared overnight along my fence line, “accidental” trespassers snapped photos of my wells, and anonymous callers suggested an old man might be happier with cash than with conscience. But Jenny’s stipulations were ironclad: independent environmental studies, community oversight, no drilling without protections for the water table. She hadn’t trusted my strength;
she’d made it legally impossible for me to be weak. When subpoenas multiplied and Marcus’s name slid from whispered suspicion into sworn testimony, the farm stopped being a consolation prize and became a line she’d carved into the earth itself: this far, no fur
