Chapter 6 - THE HUNTING CABIN
Daniel claimed Grant forced him to go.
Grant claimed Daniel asked for help.
Wonderful.
Neither knew the other was being watched.
Neutral investigators documented entry into the cabin.
They found nothing.
Because the coordinates were false.
But inside Grant’s vehicle, visible through lawful search later after a separate warrant related to the break-in, investigators found copies of my mother’s payroll sheets.
Not mine.
Older copies.
Grant had possessed them for years.
That changed the story.
Maybe Blackridge knew exactly what Eleanor preserved.
Then another item:
Michael Reeves’s handwritten recantation.
Daniel had never seen it.
The statement claimed:
No mineral-rights reservation was intended.
Blackridge retained all ownership.
Signature genuine?
Forensics later said likely.
So Michael changed sides.
Then below his signature:
Eleanor Hayes refuses to sign.
My mother.
Good.
Then one handwritten note from Grant’s uncle:
Eleanor must be managed through employment.
My stomach turned.
Managed.
How?
Payroll reduced.
Promotion denied.
Insurance threatened.
Apartment subsidy canceled.
My mother had not left Blackridge because she wanted Idaho.
She had been pushed out.
Then I remembered childhood.
Moves.
Cheap apartments.
Mom saying:
“We’re starting over.”
She had protected me from the reason.
Then Daniel found something inside the cabin.
A floor compartment.
Empty except for a metal plate.
Engraved pine symbol.
This place had mattered historically.
Nathaniel looked at photographs.
“It was a survey station.”
Then:
“My father met Eleanor here.”
How did he know?
A photograph from Pinehaven archives.
Nathaniel’s father.
My mother.
Michael Reeves.
All three.
Standing beside the cabin.
The original agreement may have been signed there.
Then why hide it elsewhere?
Because the cabin belonged to Blackridge.
Not safe.
The combined coordinates pointed to another place.
We finally assembled them.
Mine:
Latitude/longitude.
Madeline’s:
Tract 17B.
Nathaniel’s:
Elevation 7,420.
The point fell near an old fire lookout in Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Federal land now.
Interesting.
That reduced private interference.
We requested legal access.
No treasure hunt.
No guns.
A survey team went with attorneys and federal land personnel.
I went.
Nathaniel too.
Grant was not invited.
Daniel was not.
At the old lookout foundation, the surveyor found a metal survey tube buried beneath a marker.
Inside:
Waterproof cylinder.
Documents.
Original side agreement.
Signatures:
Nathaniel’s father.
Grant’s uncle.
Eleanor Hayes.
Michael Reeves.
Valid?
That required legal review.
But the document existed.
Then one more sheet.
Ownership schedule.
A five-percent carried interest in the mineral rights assigned to:
ELEANOR HAYES.
My mother.
I stared.
My mother had owned part of whatever lay beneath the land.
And if the assignment survived legally, that interest passed to me.
Five percent of a project projected at nearly half a billion dollars.
Daniel had publicly humiliated a woman who might be worth more than the alliance he chose over her.
But money was not the most shocking line.
Below my mother’s interest was another name.
MICHAEL REEVES - 5%.
Daniel’s father.
May you like
Daniel had inherited the same kind of claim.
He had betrayed me for an alliance he may never have needed.
