Page 2 of Property of the Woodsman

She shakes her head and draws a deep breath. “No, this isn’t a personal share circle. I entertained your offer multiple times. The bottom line is you don’t have enough money to entice me, and I no longer want to converse with a criminal, so good luck.” She steps forward through the front door and slams it shut behind her.

I’m not sure what the feeling is that I’m feeling right now. On one hand, I understand the concept of time. I know life moves, titles are transferred, and homes are sold. This woman locking me out of my family’s home is her legal right. Thankfully, I also know that a rational person would leave, and he’d handle his grief at home with a bottle of whiskey and an old record, maybe some photographs. A slightly crazier person would bang on the door, maybe scream a little.

Then there’s me.

I don’t know what I’m doing, but instinct takes over, and without much thought at all, my body moves around the edge of the pine tree that sits at the corner of the house. It moves past the old wildflower garden my mother tended for the better part of fifty years, up onto the deck, then the railing, and up to the asphalt roof where I used to jimmy open the window in my sister’s room for us to sneak out every Friday night. It’s convenient that this room is also the place where my father hid his money. He had it in his head that no one would think of checking a kid’s room for anything of value.

“Oh my God!” Ms. Houston shrieks the second my boots hit the ground. “You didn’t!”

“I’m only here for one thing,” I call down the steps. I scan the room for something hard to hit the wall with, but when nothing comes into view, I punch through the drywall like a maniac. Dust gathers in small clouds, and the dry fragments coat my knuckles.

“I’m calling the police!” she shouts, and I can’t say I blame her. Technically, I’m trespassing and now I’m destroying property.

“Please do,” I say with a grin, searching inside the wall for my father’s box of cash. “I’d love to talk to the sheriff. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Ugh!” Her heels knock against the wood steps as she climbs up toward me. “What are you doing?” She hollers the second she sees what I’ve done to the wall.

“I’m getting the money my father left behind. It’s enough to pay for the land.”

“No!” She swings at me with a steel ladle from the kitchen that stings when it hits my skin. “Get out!”

“It’ll only take me a second.”

She pauses and huffs, her arms crossing over her chest again. “It’s not there.”

My chest tightens and I glare toward her. “What?”

“The box with the cash you’re looking for isn’t there. If you weren’t a stupid buffoon who just started smashing everything he saw, you’d have noticed that this piece of drywall was recently replaced. I found the cash box months ago. Like, a week after I moved in.” She nods up toward the ceiling. “There was a leak. I had to have the roof replaced, but there was some drywall damage, so I did a DIY job and found the box.” She rests her hand on her hip. “It was a miracle I found it, actually. I was almost out of money, and it helped me pay for a bunch of renovations I wanted to do on the house.”

My jaw ticks. “You spent the money? Money that wasn’t yours?”

She laughs under her breath. “Funny that a criminal is schooling me on taking something that doesn’t belong to me.”

“He had sixty grand in that box. What the hell did you spend it on?”

“The bathrooms needed a facelift,” she shrugs, “the kitchen needed countertops, and the fireplace was unsafe, so I had to—”

“The fireplace was an heirloom passed down from my grandfather’s cabin. It got him through the coldest winter of his life. My father had it installed here when he passed. It’s cast iron. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

“Well, if you want the fireplace, you can have it. You just need to go down to the landfill to dig it out.” She raises the silver ladle again. “Now get out of my house!”

This time, I hold my arm up to block the strikes and grip her wrist before she takes another swing.

“Hey! Let me go!” She’s begging with a whine in her voice as I back her up against the bedroom wall, her heavy breasts pressing against me, the scent of honey and whatever fucking floral perfume she’s wearing wafting up my nose as the barbaric bells inside of me start ringing.

Jesus Christ, I need to get a fucking grip. This woman is heartless, but this is too much.

“I’ll leave,” I groan, “but I’m getting this land back.”

She laughs and rolls her head to the side. “You’ve got three seconds before I knee you in the balls. Three, two—” Her knee lifts, and I back away, though my hand is still wrapped around her tiny, pulsing wrist as she swings the ladle at me. This time she nails me in the knuckles, and I lose my grip.

“Get out of my house, you giant ape!”

I stare down at her, knowing full well I could lift her little frame up over my shoulder and lock her in the basement for good. The walls are eight feet thick down there. No one would hear her screams.

I’m thinking over the possibility when she reaches for her phone in her back pocket, stares at the screen, groans, then tucks it back again.

“What was all that about?”