Chapter 10 - Restoring the Fortress
The sun was setting behind the Continental Divide when I finally drove up the long, winding dirt road toward my father’s cabin. The air was crisp, smelling of pine needles, wet earth, and the clean, cold snow from the peaks above.
The moving trucks were already gone. Sloane’s team had executed the eviction order at noon, clearing out the equipment and the temporary fencing Victor’s workers had set up.
The cabin stood in the clearing, its cedar logs dark against the white birch trees around it. The roof was clear, the wide front porch exactly as my father had left it five years ago.
I walked up the wooden steps, my boots making a hollow, familiar sound against the pine planks. I unlocked the heavy iron padlock on the front door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
The interior was quiet, the air cool and holding the faint, sweet scent of sawdust and linseed oil. The display case on the northern wall was empty, its glass door swinging open where Victor had ripped the medals out.
I walked to the table, carrying the wooden box Ben Ramirez had given me at the courthouse.
One by one, I took out my father's things. First, the old, tarnished dog tags, their metal cold against my fingers. I placed them on the center shelf. Then the Meritorious Service Medal. Then the Bronze Star, its small gold 'V' catching the last ray of sunlight coming through the western window.
The door behind me creaked open.
I turned around and saw my mother standing on the threshold. She was alone. She wasn't wearing her custom overcoat; she had an old fleece jacket wrapped around her shoulders, her hair messy from the mountain wind.
"Elena," she whispered, her hands buried deep in her pockets. "Victor’s being processed at the station in Hot Sulphur Springs. The bank took the cars this afternoon. I had to take a bus just to get up the canyon."
I didn't step toward her. I stood beside the display case, my hand resting on the wood. "Why are you here, Mom?"
"I wanted to see it," she said, her eyes wandering across the cedar logs, the exposed beams, the stone fireplace my father had built rock by rock. "I forgot... I forgot how much he worked on this place. He used to come home with his fingers bleeding from the mortar, Elena. I used to yell at him for bringing dirt into the kitchen."
She looked at me, a single tear cutting through the dust on her cheek. "I let Victor tell me what our family was worth, Elena. I let him make me think that because you were gone, you didn't care about us anymore. I am so sorry."
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"I was never gone, Mom," I said softly, the active precision of my military voice softening into the language of the woods. "I was just doing the work. The slow work. The kind that lasts."
She didn't ask to stay. She didn't ask for money. She just looked at the medals in the case for one long, silent minute, turned around, and walked back down the wooden steps into the gathering dark.
