After a few minutes, I sighed, and turned the engine back on.
I knew what I had to do.
The vision of clarity that I had lasted until my tires hit the paved driveway to the Yates ranch. This could not have looked more different from Clint's beat-up, pothole-ridden disaster of a road. It was still as smooth and well-tended as it was on my last visit, almost better than the state road that I'd just left.
I wanted the similarity to stay there. I wanted to find everything in order and perfect, just like the paperwork described. It was the simplest option.
I could sign the papers with a clear mind, and tell Clint about the honorable decision I'd made, and tell Herman Banks about the smart business decision I'd made.
Would the business decision and the honorable one line up? I hoped. I hoped hard.
The barn looked promising, large and new, but I saw a few signs that made me hesitate before I even parked the van. The manure pile was not in the proper place that was indicated on the diagram I had in the file, and a few of the fences weren't as carefully tended as the buildings. Nothing that would have caught my eye on my first visit, but with the paperwork in front of me it just didn’t make sense.
Yates himself marched out to confront me.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"I'm from the USDA," I began.
"I can read, and I remember you" he said. "What are you doing here? Herman said no one was going to stop by for a while."
I hesitated. That didn't sound promising. I really, really wanted this to be simple.
"He must have forgotten that I would actually need to stay last time I was out. Two people have to sign off on inspections, and Sarah is on maternity leave," I said, with a brigh
t, professional smile.
"I don't give a flying fuck that someone named Sarah is popping out a baby, I want you off of this land in fifteen seconds," he said.
"Sir," I began, "I'm a government official. You can't just order me off your land like this without consequences. It's important that you know that."
He leered. "Yeah, well, you can't stay on my fucking land without consequences. It's important that you know that if you're staying here, my boys and I will make you regret it."
Before I said anything else, he grinned more broadly and said "Yeah, you'll regret it all right."
"Really, sir, I just need to take a quick look around," I said, patiently. I'd talked men into letting me look around their ranches before, and they'd never gotten off as badly as they'd feared. "I'm not about to punish anyone for minor infractions, I just need to take a look around before I can sign off on your paperwork."
He grimaced at me.
"Herman told me he'd take care of this," he said. "Go back to him and ask if he wants you to try and stick your nose in here."
I considered getting out of the car, demanding to see the property, but for the first time, I was afraid on a ranch. The way this man looked at me was nothing short of salacious, and he and I were the only people I'd seen for the past ten miles.
Ten miles was a long way from the nearest person if he tried anything. I decided that I really should have gotten some sort of backup, or at least left Clint a message telling him where I was.
Too late for that now, I supposed.
My phone beeped and I smiled at the man. "One moment, please, sir," I said, and pulled it out of my pocket. It was just a reminder that I had voicemail I hadn't listened to, but I sent a quick message to Clint.
'Yates ranch inspection weird'
I tried not to laugh at myself. I was almost certainly overreacting, but I couldn't help but be a little nervous.
Feeling the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, I finally decided to be the coward.
"All right, sir, I will go back to the office and talk to Herman," I said. I slid the keys back into the ignition and fired it up.
He took a step back from the window and glared at me.