“It’d take them years of environmental review.

They’ll have to redesign the entire project around us.”

“They can build their resort if the county lets them,” I said.

“But they’ll build it well clear of my fence line, or we will tie them up in court until Beaumont is old enough to retire.”

She picked up the folder then, four million dollars and all, and carried it to the woodstove, and opened the iron door, and fed it to the fire.

We stood together and watched the corporate logo and the dollar figures curl into orange flame and go up the chimney as gray ash into the rainy dark over Cooper Lake.