Chapter 9 - The Courthouse Bench
The hallway of the county courthouse smelled of pine oil floor soap, wet wool coats, and tobacco juice that had been spit into the copper cuspidors near the stairs.
I sat on a long oak bench on the second floor, my trunk beside my knees, my wet shawl draped over the brass rail to dry.
My father sat three feet away.
He looked smaller than he had at the wedding. His grey wool suit—the one he had bought for my mother’s funeral seven years ago—hung loose around his collar, his hands resting on his knees like two dry, knotty roots that had been dug up out of the red clay before the frost was gone.
"He says he won't give back the two cows, Sarah," my father said softly, his eyes fixed on the dirty marble floor.
"The cows are dead, Father," I said. "Harlon slaughtered them on Tuesday for the winter meat. I saw the hides hanging in the cider house."
My father took a slow, heavy breath that made his ribs creak under his coat.
"What are we going to do about the bottomland?" he asked.
"We're going to fence it," I said. "And then we're going to sell the cedar timber on the back five acres to the mill in town."
"Harlon won't let the mill trucks through his gate," my father whispered, looking around as if he expected Harlon to come out of the clerk's office with a marshal behind him.
"He won't have a choice," I said.
The heavy oak door at the end of the hall opened.
Judge Miller came out. He was seventy, with white hair that stood up like thistle down around his pink ears, and a pair of silver spectacles hanging from a black ribbon around his neck.
He looked at my father. Then he looked at me—at my torn hem, my dirty leather shoes, and the sharp, red mark across my knuckles that was just beginning to turn purple at the edges.
"Sarah," Miller said, his voice deep and slow like the town clock striking six.
"Judge," I said, standing up.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a long white envelope bound with a red rubber band, and set it on the oak bench between my father and me.
"Harlon was here at eight," Miller said. "He signed the release for the thirty acres. He said he didn't want any more town women on his ridge."
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"What did he take for it?" my father asked, his hands trembling as he reached for the envelope.
"He took his son's word that he wouldn't go near the creek again," Miller said, his blue eyes turning to me, hard and clear behind his lenses. "And he took a promise from me that if Colton sets foot on your father’s bottomland before the year is out, I'll have the state troopers pull him out of his bed by his hair."
