Chapter 42 Sawyer
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Sawyer
Silence sits heavy in the room, the kind of silence that makes my ears ring. The only sound is the monitor’s soft whir and the way breath moves around the room as the three of us lean in.
Late afternoon light slides through dusty blinds and cuts across the footage on the screen. We’ve been chasing shadows for weeks.
Little things at first: a snapped fence post, a gate unlatched, feed tubs overturned. Annoyances that add up into loss we cannot afford. We barely salvaged what remained of the barn and the equipment strewn across the land.
Tonight, the new footage rolls, and it’s not an annoyance anymore. Cody and the Harlan brothers have really come through with their top-notch equipment.
Black and white night vision. Wind cuts through the microphone; a distant animal whuffles. Then a figure moves. Quick, practiced, almost casual in the way he steps between the floodlights’ reach.
I freeze before I can help it. The walk is a thing you only notice if you know it.
There’s cadence in the stride, the tilt of the shoulders, the shrug of one hip. A jacket that hangs the same way in the chest. A habit of glancing left, then right, a man counting exits.
“Stop it,” I say before my brain catches up to my mouth, and the room goes even quieter.
Clint is the first to look at me. His profile is hard. “What is it?”
“He’s not a stranger,” I snap.
I hit pause, and the pixels hang mid-step on the screen. Zoom in. Frame by frame. There… a flash of a card in the pocket, the way his right hand rubs the waistband when he walks.
I’ve seen that motion before.
“That’s Derek,” Reid says.
He doesn’t need to ask which Derek; there’s only one who moves in that way in this town. Thomas Buck’s assistant.
The man who shows up at the council meetings with a polite smile and expensive shoes. The man who strolls through town, collecting favors and looking for weak doors.
My stomach drops. It’s not random vandalism. It really is a plan.
Clint does what Clint does. He clamps down. His jaw tightens so hard I can see the line of it work. “You sure?”
I don’t have to be poetic about it. “I’m sure. That walk. The jacket. The pocket card. He’s been in and out of the Buck truck around town.” My hands are still, but inside there’s a coil of cold that won’t unwind. “This really is for the land. All of it.”
Reid lashes out, slamming a fist palm-first into the table. “So it’s a scare campaign. Squeeze Clint to sell quickly. Drive the price down, make it look unsafe, desperate.” His laugh is ugly in the room. “Classy.”
Clint’s eyes flash. “That son of a—”
“Hold on,” I cut in, because the anger’s hot enough to burn us if it gets rolling without a plan. “We have what we need now, right? We can take this to Sheriff Miller. Get him moving, at last.”
Clint looks over at me, still simmering with anger, but there’s a shift in his gaze. Something calculating. He knows I’m right.
Reid stands up from the table, a low, frustrated sound escaping him. “Miller had better not screw this up, or I’ll make sure he’s the next one on the receiving end of a little ‘pressure.’”
I glance at Clint, catching the storm in his eyes. “We go in with everything we have, and we don’t leave until they listen. This ends now.”
Clint grits his teeth, his jaw tight with that quiet fury. “I’ll make them listen.”
The three of us share a look. This is bigger than just the ranch now. It’s about fighting back against the manipulation.
Against the idea that people like Thomas Buck and Derek can just waltz in and take whatever they want without consequences.
And as I stare at the screen, that figure still frozen there, a plan starts to take shape in my mind.
We’re not backing down. No way.
The drive to Sheriff Miller’s office is a blur of tense silence, broken only by the hum of the truck’s engine and the occasional creak of the old vehicle’s suspension as it rumbles over the uneven road.
Clint is focused, his hands tight on the wheel, his jaw still set in that hard line that’s become all too familiar. Reid’s in the back, his arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently.
My mind’s racing, what we just saw pushing me into overdrive. We finally have something concrete.
But we can’t afford to let any more time slip away.
Clint glances over at me, his eyes sharp. “You think Miller’s gonna listen this time? He hasn’t before.”
I exhale slowly. “He’ll have to. We’ve got video. He can’t ignore this. He wanted proof. Well, we have it now.”
We’ve been playing by the rules for weeks now, hoping that if we kept quiet and followed the proper channels, the sheriff would take us seriously.
But now we know it’s not about ‘petty’ vandalism. This is sabotage. A calculated effort to run Clint into the ground. We can’t afford to waste any more time.
The sheriff’s office comes into view. Clint pulls into the parking lot and slams the truck into park, the sound echoing in the quiet evening. He cuts the engine, but none of us makes a move to get out.
We know what’s at stake now. If we don’t get Miller on our side, we could lose everything.
I glance at Clint, then at Reid.
“We go in together this time,” I say. “We don’t leave until he listens.”
Clint’s eyes harden. “He’ll listen.”
We all climb out of the truck and head toward the sheriff’s office. The door creaks open as we step inside, and the familiar smell of coffee and old paperwork hits me.
Sheriff Miller’s behind the desk, his thick arms folded across his chest, a cup of coffee in front of him. He looks up when we walk in, his eyebrows lifting in surprise.
“You guys,” he says with a little sigh. “What’s happening now?”
Clint doesn’t waste a second. He’s straight to the point. “We’ve got evidence, Sheriff. Evidence that proves it’s not just vandalism. Someone’s trying to push us off the land. And we know who.”
Miller’s eyebrows furrow, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he motions for us to sit down. We all take a seat at the small table in the corner of the room. The tension is almost palpable.
Reid pulls out his phone and taps the screen, bringing up the footage. The black and white night vision makes the barn look eerie, something out of a horror movie, but the figure we see on the screen is unmistakable.
We all watch in silence as the man walks across the frame, that telltale motion of his hand against his waistband, the way he holds himself with that same confidence we’ve seen time and time again.
“This,” Reid says, tapping the screen, “is Derek. Thomas Buck’s assistant.”
Sheriff Miller leans in, his eyes narrowing. “Derek? You sure about this?”
“Positive,” I answer. “That walk. The cocky swagger… that can only be him.”
Clint is firm. “It’s all been planned. The vandalism. The sabotage. It’s meant to drive us out of business. To force us to sell.”
Miller leans back in his chair, his fingers tapping the edge of his coffee cup. His gaze flickers between us, processing the information.
He’s not one to jump to conclusions, but I can tell he’s weighing the facts. This isn’t the kind of case he’s used to handling, not the way we want it to be.
“Alright,” he finally says. “I can move forward with this investigation now.”
Reid lets out a breath, clearly relieved, but I can see the wariness still sitting in Clint’s eyes. He knows this isn’t over yet. It’s just the beginning.
But at least now, for the first time in weeks, we’re not alone in this fight.