The man in Cheyenne said, Mrs. Whitaker, my grandfather Harlan told me about your Roy. He said if the wind company ever came, the answer was in the second page. What did the lease say he never signed?
I told him what the wind man told me, that Roys father leased the wind rights in 1962 and it all transferred to the company, turbines along the north fence, Roys Wall coming out.
Here is the thing, the lawyer said. In 1962 your husbands father signed the first page, which was only an agreement to talk. The second page, the one that actually granted access and the right to build, he refused to sign. My grandfather was the witness. There is no signature. Without it, that company has no right to set one boot along your north fence.
The paper in Roys saddlebag was the original, with the blank signature line on the second page plain as day, and the 1962 county stamp on the first.
They told me very expensive lawyers would make me say yes, and my husband had left me the one blank line that meant I never had to.
Harlans grandson drove up from Cheyenne with the county records, and he laid the lease out on my kitchen table in front of the wind man, and he pointed at the empty line, and that was the end of the conversation. The turbines went up two miles east, on land that was honestly leased.
Roys Wall still stands along the north fence, cedar post by cedar post. The calves do not freeze in the March blizzards. And every rancher in Carbon County still calls it by my husbands name, the way they always will.