Over by the edge of the east field, the crude homemade wooden stands Brad had built had been taken down completely, the rotten boards stacked neatly as firewood beside my shed.

There were no fresh tire tracks in the mud, no unauthorized ladders propped against the trees, and no forged leases sitting in anybody’s pocket.

The stillness of the woods spread across all eighty acres, broken only by the cold wind moving through the high oak canopy.

I climbed the steep slope of the ridge to the high rock outcrop where Arvid used to sit through the late afternoons.

The sun was sinking low behind the timber line toward the Chippewa River, throwing long orange shadows across the cornfield bottom.