The word sat in the middle of the page in ordinary black type.
Warren read the letter once at the mailbox and again at the kitchen table. Then he placed it beside Casey's monitoring notebook, which happened to be open to a page showing water depths from the same week. On one side of the table was the bank's case against the farm. On the other side was a growing record that might someday explain why the acreage they called impaired was beginning to attract professional interest.
The problem was timing. Casey's records could not make a loan payment. Odell's optimism could not cure a default. Claire Benton's company had not yet made any commitment, and even if the property eventually fit a restoration or mitigation project, everyone involved kept warning Warren that approvals and credit releases could take months or years.
Gerald called the next morning.
"I assume you received the notice."
"I did."
"I want you to understand this isn't personal."
Warren looked out the kitchen window toward the lower ground. "Funny how often people say that right before they take something personal."
Gerald ignored the remark. "The bank needs a credible path. Your production is down. The lower acreage is effectively out of service. If you sell while you still control the timing, we can structure this in a way that protects the rest of the property."
"You keep saying sell like you know who wants to buy."
"There are interested parties."
"Name them."
"That isn't relevant unless you're willing to consider an offer."
Warren leaned back in his chair. "Then we don't have anything to discuss."
"Warren, don't turn this into a fight you cannot afford."
"I didn't change the drainage."
For the first time, Gerald's tone sharpened slightly. "Neither did the bank."
"You finance the development."
"We finance many projects. That does not make us the engineer, contractor, or owner of every ditch connected to them."
"Then why are you so interested in my eighty acres?"
Gerald paused. "Because they are part of the collateral securing a loan that is deteriorating."
"They're deteriorating because somebody is sending water onto them."
"Prove it."
The word was not shouted. It was worse than that. It was spoken with confidence.
Warren hung up and called Harlon Boyette.
Harlon's office occupied the second floor of a brick building above an insurance agency and across from the courthouse. He had represented farmers, equipment dealers, landowners, and small businesses for more than thirty years. His shelves were crowded with binders and county plat books, and one wall held framed aerial photographs of farms he had helped keep out of bankruptcy or divide without destroying families.