“She usually did,” Travis said wistfully. “Anyway, what Verdacorp is doing here is similar to what they did in the Panhandle, only on a smaller, more strategic scale.” He spread out the map, which already had some pencil markings on it and writing in John’s small, neat block letters. “John was tracking the land Verdacorp was buying. His theory was that Mitchell didn’t actually have a solid plan at first, that he was just buying land to have the land. But when he started pressuring John to sell, John became more invested in figuring out what he was up to.”
Travis started reshaping the outlines that John had started. Ellen knew what the pencil colors stood for: green was McKenna land; red was Verdacorp land; and blue was owned by other farmers.
As they watched, Travis nearly doubled the size of Verdacorp land and marginally increased the McKenna land. Ellen saw a shape come to life. It was a strip of land going northeast all the way to the Red River, going southwest all the way to Whitesboro.
“I didn’t realize he’d bought that much land,” Ellen said. “It’s not all farmable, and it’s an odd shape.”
“Long and narrow, the skinniest parcel is this strip here along US 377. And now I know why.”
“Why?” Jake said. “You can’t farm like that. He’s dividing small farms to the point they won’t be able to make a living.”
“Because of this.” Travis tapped Marietta, Oklahoma, which was parallel to a point on the Texas boundary. “Marietta is one of the biggest natural gas outfitters in the area. And I didn’t know why Mitchell had bought into the industry, other than as an investment. There is a network of pipes all over the country, but there’s a new facility opening in Plano—and if you draw a line from Marietta to Plano, it goes through Whitesboro—and it goes through all the land that Verdacorp has acquired.”
“They’re going to put in natural gas pipes?” Ellen said. “That has to cost a fortune, and there are already existing pipes.”
“Not in this area. Here’s the catch. A bill just passed Congress to invest in natural gas and oil production and distribution in the entire region, from the Canadian border down to the Gulf. The author of the bill is Congresswoman Jeanne Culvers.”
No one had to say anything. Jeanne Culvers represented their area, and Mitchell Robinson was her biggest contributor. He held a fundraiser at his ranch every year—Ellen had just gotten another invitation today in the mail, which she’d promptly tossed in the trash.
She got up and looked in the recycling bin in the mudroom. There it was. She picked it up, brought it back to the table.
Ellen had liked Jeanne when she was first elected—she was from Gainesville, had ties to the community, and her grandparents had gone to the same church as Penny and Milton.
But over the years, she had become less accessible and more slimy. John once said that good people go into public office, but the system corrupts them. She wasn’t that cynical, but she was getting there. Especially once she learned that Mitchell Robinson was her biggest supporter.
“I’ll bet there is some deadline on Monday for funding,” Travissaid. “If Mitchell doesn’t own the land free and clear, with all the rights delineated, he’s going to lose tens of millions of dollars.”
“But why?” Ryan asked. “Wouldn’t he have to pay to put in the pipeline?”
“No,” Avery said. “In my current events class we’ve been talking about infrastructure and economics. The government will either give him the money to do it, or lease the rights and put in the pipes themselves. Right, Uncle Travis?”
Travis nodded. “Yep. If the government decided to put the pipeline in through this area, even if they used eminent domain, it would be years of haggling and lawsuits because most of us don’t want it here—it’s too disruptive to the land, as John has always said. It would divide parcels and make it more difficult to farm and raise livestock. We could win—there have been cases in other areas where small and medium-sized farms have banded together to avoid eminent domain, often the government just drops it because of PR issues. But if Mitchell, through Verdacorp, owns the land, he can lease it without consulting any other farmers. And that’s why this”—he pointed to the two-hundred-acre square of McKenna land that Mitchell was desperate to have—“is so crucial for him. It’s either this corner or buying out Sudduth on the other side of Privett, and Sudduth is bigger than we are. So, he came after us.”
“That bastard.”
Ellen thought about the sabotage of her barn, but before she could say anything, Jake brought it up. “Do you think that Mitchell is behind the sabotage on the farm?”
“What sabotage?” Travis asked. “What’s been going on?”
“Someone cut narrow holes in the barn parallel to the gutter, then filled the drainage pipes with expanding foam,” Jake said. “So, the gutters flooded into the barn. The entire west wall is wet from the inside, and we lost most of the stored hay. And that’s just one of several odd things, but the most obvious because it was intentional.”
Ellen reached out and took Lyla’s hand. “Someone sabotaged the barn generator by wrapping copper wire around part of the engine. When Lyla tried to start it, she got a shock that was strong enough to knock her down.”
Travis looked from Jake to Ellen. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He sounded hurt, and Ellen realized she should have said something earlier. “Anything else?”
“Small things, nothing I could say was deliberate until the barn,” Ellen said.
Jake nodded. “A couple months ago we lost a week’s supply of milk when the refrigerator in the barn went out, and that damaged our reputation with our main customer. And we had to replace it because the circuits were fried. And the cattle got out on Privett Road last month as we were in the middle of planting, so we had to hire a couple extra laborers for a few days—we couldn’t delay planting—so Mateo and I could get our livestock back. We lost one who got trapped in barbed wire on the Sudduths’ property. I thought I hadn’t secured the gate properly. But… Mateo wondered if someone was playing a prank.”
“That doesn’t sound like a prank,” Travis said.
“No, it’s deliberate to damage our business,” Ellen said. “All of it costing money, but not enough so that our insurance would kick in. I can withstand losing the crops—we have crop insurance. But it’s the small repairs that are killing me. And if I have to replace the barn, we have a huge deductible, not to mention we have to find a solution for the animals while it’s being repaired.”
“How can we prove it?” Lyla said.
Ellen didn’t know. All she had was the word of two criminals.
“Maybe we can’t,” Ellen said. “But I can stop him from achieving his goals. He’s not getting a square foot of land from me.”
