The older man in the sport coat unfolded the letter from the white envelope slowly, as if it might be hot to the touch, and read the letterhead aloud in a thin voice. “Snake River Farm Credit. Fraud Prevention Unit.” His name was Walter Hayes, and he had played poker with Brett every other Saturday for eleven years. He was also the president of that bank. “Mrs. Ellingson,” he said, “this is a notice of a nine hundred forty thousand dollar loan secured by your north farm. It was signed by a man named Brett Sorensen, who forged your name as owner, and our fraud unit froze the account last week.” I am Ruth Ellingson, seventy seven years old, and I sat in a wingback chair with my hands folded.
In 1966, Gunnar and I planted forty acres of russets on rented land, and we paid every bill on the day it came due, for fifty five years. I know my signature the way I know my face. When the lawyer for the buyer told me about the sale of the north farm in March, I did not argue or cry. I drove to Twin Falls and hired a lawyer named Janice Okimoto, who found the forged deed in two days and found the loan in six. I told no one. I wanted to hear Brett speak to the family before he knew that I knew.
Kristen had put down the deed and was staring at her husband as if she had never seen him before. The Christmas music, a soft jazz piano, kept playing. Brett poker friends and their wives stood in a half circle by the fireplace with their drinks forgotten, and the caterer, a woman with a silver serving fork, froze by the ham. Walter Hayes folded the letter very carefully. “Brett,” he said, in a voice like cold iron, “I have loaned you money, and I have lost to you at cards. I never once thought you would use my own bank to steal from a widow.”
A forged deed in a white envelope gave one widow the length of a Christmas party to bring her son in law back to the truth in Boise.
I gave my terms from the wingback chair. “Brett, I will not have you arrested at Christmas, in front of your children. On Monday, you will go to the sheriff of Minidoka County and make a full statement. You will sell your boat and your cabin at Redfish Lake and pay back the bank. You will see a counselor for your gambling, and Kristen will decide whether she goes with you. The north farm returns to me by order of the court. And you will call the dairy in Jerome and tell them the sale was a fraud, and apologize to the farmer who paid you.”
My son in law sat down on the hearth, and the bourbon glass slid from his hand and rolled across the rug. “I started with fifty dollars at Jackpot in 2015,” he said, hoarsely. “I won three thousand the first night. I have been chasing that night for ten years.” He looked up at his wife. “I lost three hundred thousand dollars of your inheritance, Kristen. I took out the loan against the farm to cover the rest. I told myself Ruth would never miss a farm she never visited. I am a thief, and I am a coward, and I do not know how to stop.”
But fear drives men to terrible quickness. Brett leapt up, snatched the forged deed off the coffee table, and lunged for the fireplace, plainly meaning to throw it on the logs. He had it nearly to the screen when Walter Hayes, who was sixty eight and lean as a fence rail, caught his wrist. Kristen stepped between her husband and the hearth. The caterer, with admirable calm, set down her silver fork, took hold of the poker, and moved it out of reach. One of the poker friends said, almost kindly, “Brett, there are copies of everything.”
Brett stood at the hearth with the deed crumpled in his hand, and the Christmas tree glittered behind him. A child in the corner, his own nine year old daughter in a red velvet dress, said in a high small voice, “Daddy, why are you holding fire paper?” He looked at her. All the fight went out of him. He handed the deed to Kristen, who smoothed it against her sweater, and sat down on the floor with his knees up and his head down, and the room waited with perfect patience for him to speak.
The consequences were hard and fair. Brett made his statement on Monday morning, and the judge in Rupert sentenced him to probation and restitution because Kristen and I both spoke on his behalf. He sold the boat and the cabin. He went to a gambling clinic in Boise twice a week, driven by Walter Hayes in his Buick. The sale of the north farm was voided in April. The farmer in Jerome shook my hand at the courthouse and said he was sorry, and I said we were both fooled by a bad man in a good coat.
In the name of my husband Gunnar, who passed in 2021, I started the Gunnar Ellingson Fund. It pays for legal help for farm families who have been defrauded and for agriculture scholarships for young people, in Minidoka, Cassia and Jerome counties. In the first year we helped fourteen families recover their land and sent twenty two students to college. One was a boy from Burley, the son of a potato hauler, who planted his first forty acres of russets on rented land that spring and sent me a photograph of the green rows coming up in the red evening light.
On Christmas Eve a year later, I sat again at the head of the table in the house in the foothills, with a plain ham and a plate of rolls. Kristen carved. The children had set out their cookies. Brett came in from the kitchen with a gravy boat held in two hands, sober for three hundred and one days. He set it down in front of me and cleared his throat. “Ruth,” he said, “I signed a card for you this time. With my own name.” I opened it. Inside were four words in a shaky hand. “Thank you for staying.”