"Wendell, stop loading."
He nodded.
"Stop hauling. Nothing leaves this property until the sheriff documents the scene."
"Understood."
"Are you willing to give a sworn statement?"
"Toby, I'll give a statement to anybody who asks."
"Thank you."
Then I looked across the property line.
Brittlyn Yarwood Chesterfield stood on the back porch of her house, about 400 feet up the slope.
She wore a coral linen wrap.
A glass of white wine rested in one hand.
Her phone was in the other.
She was watching us.
And smiling.
Then she raised the wine glass in something that was either a toast or a salute.
I did not return it.
I walked back to my truck and sat inside the cab for one full minute with both hands resting on the steering wheel. The smell of fresh-cut oak was so strong that it stayed in my nostrils for two days.
Then I went inside the farmhouse.
Greta was sitting at the kitchen table with my father.
Henrik sat very still, staring through the window toward the empty space where his father's windbreak had stood for 77 years. There was a cup of coffee in front of him.
He had not touched it.
He looked up at me.
His eyes were the gray of late-November water in Lake Winnebago.
"Toby."
"I'm sorry, Pa."
He shook his head once.
Very slowly.
He picked up the coffee cup.
Took one sip.
Set it down.
Then he spoke in a voice I had heard him use only twice before in my entire life.
The same voice he used in 1986 when we buried Rune.
"Son, don't do anything you can't undo."
I waited.
"And don't let them think they've won. Not for one day. Not for one hour."
"Yes, Pa."
He nodded.
Then he stood, crossed the yard slowly, and returned to his own house.
I sat at the table with Greta.
She put her hand over mine.
"Toby, what are we going to do?"
I looked through the kitchen window.
The windbreak was gone.
Beyond it, for the first time in my life, I could see the entire lake from that side of the farm.
And above the property line stood 21 premium Lakeshore Hills houses with brand-new unobstructed views.
I looked at Greta.
"Have you ever wanted to live next to a 100-foot grain silo?"
She tilted her head.
"Toby, are you serious?"
"I am extremely serious."
Greta thought about it for about ten seconds.
Then she said, "Toby Halverson, you build that silo."
Sheriff Buford Petrasic arrived at 6:45 that evening with two deputies, a crime-scene technician, and a digital camera.
He had known my father since high school.
"Toby."
"Buford."
"Walk me through it."
I walked him through my side.
Wendell, who had stayed on the property, walked him through his.
The crime-scene technician photographed every stump. She measured 11 of the larger ones and logged growth-ring counts from several of the oldest trees.
Three of the white oaks measured more than 40 inches across at the cut.
The largest oak, Rune's tree, had 81 visible rings.
Buford watched the technician work in silence.
Then he turned toward me.
"Toby, I have to ask you something. Did anyone, at any point before this morning, give you written notice that this cutting was going to happen?"
"No."
"Did anyone ask for or attempt to obtain your permission?"
"No."
"Did you file any kind of aesthetic easement in 2010 in favor of Lakeshore Hills Estates HOA?"
"No. Neither did my father. We've never granted an easement to that HOA."
Buford looked across the slope toward the line of stumps.
Then he looked toward Brittlyn's house.
She was no longer on the porch. She had gone inside about 20 minutes earlier.
"Toby, I'm going over there now and having a conversation with Mrs. Yarwood Chesterfield."
"All right."
"With your permission, I'd also like one of my deputies to remain here overnight so nothing else gets touched."
"Please."
Buford paused.
"And Toby, based on what I'm looking at, this is not a neighborhood dispute."
He looked toward the loaded flatbeds.
"We're potentially dealing with criminal trespass, criminal destruction of property, and timber theft. If the recorded easement Wendell was shown was fraudulently created, then we're also dealing with falsification of a public record."
I said nothing.
"This is a major case. The district attorney in Waupaca is going to want it investigated fully."
"I want it investigated."
Buford nodded.
Then he walked across the slope.
He spent about 40 minutes inside the Yarwood Chesterfield house.
When he came back to my driveway around 7:45, he had the expression of a sheriff whose simple Monday afternoon had just become considerably more complicated.
"Toby, she admitted ordering the cut."
I waited.
"She admitted producing the survey for Wendell. She admitted relying on the easement recorded in 2010. She maintains that she believed she had legal authority."
"Does she understand now that she didn't?"
"She has been advised that she did not."
"What about Stuart?"
"He's not home. He'll be contacted tomorrow morning."
I sat on the tailgate of my truck.
"Buford, did she apologize?"
"No."
"Did she offer to replant?"
Buford looked toward the house again.
"No."
He hesitated.
"She told me, and I'm quoting her exactly, 'Sheriff, I have been waiting 14 years to see that lake from my dining room. I am not sorry about the trees.'"
I stared at the gravel.
Buford waited.
Finally, I said, "I want you to tell her something for me through official channels tomorrow morning."
"What's that?"
"Tell her she's about to learn the difference between an aesthetic easement and a 100-foot agricultural grain silo."
Buford looked at me.
The corner of his mouth moved upward almost imperceptibly.
"Toby, the land where your windbreak stood is zoned agricultural. Your agricultural structures are protected from ordinary HOA interference under the applicable farming protections."