The riders were not alone. Silver Creek residents were coming out too by the sound and the sight and the instinct that something worth watching was happening. Standing apart from from the riders, they were standing among thematively at first and then less tentatively looking in low voices. and several of the riders were responding and the separation that Grant would have banked on the separation between a small Montana town and a motorcycle club. The weariness and the distance was not materializing the way logic said it should.
Grant said Dennis appeared at his shoulder. Get my attorney on the phone. Dennis took out his phone and dialed us. Goes to voicemail. He said try the office number.
Dennis tried the office number. He said Grant had lost track of the day of the week that surprised him. He almost never lost track of the day of the week. Prided himself on that. He prided himself on a great many things that standing at this window felt suddenly flimsy. "
All right," Grant said. He straightened his jacket. He made a decision. The decision that a certain kind of man always makes when confronted with circumstances he cannot control as to walk directly into them and brazen it through on personality and authority and the sheer nerve of refusing to look uncertain. Had worked before.
It had worked many times before. He was very good at it. He walked the front door of the shop and opened it and stepped outside. Shifted when Grant emerged dramatically. Nobody surged forward.
Nobody shouted. Of the attention changed. People who had been looking at Eleanor or at the assembled writers turned and looked at Grantity of their attention was not what he was accustomed to. He was accustomed to being looked at with deference, slightly cautious regard that people reserve for those with visible money and institutional access. He was accustomed to being the most important person in any room he entered.
What he walked into now was not that. Eleanor turned when she heard the door. So did Michael Reynolds. Reynolds looked at Grant with an expression that contained approximately nothing. Not hostility, contempt, just a complete absence of any recognition that Grant was significant.
That absence was more uncomfortable than any open hostility would have been. Grant walked toward Eleanor with his hands at his sides and his chin up. Bit more, he said. I don't know what you think this accomplishes. Then let me explain it.
Eleanor said. This is a legal matter. Whatever. He glanced at Michael in the assembled crowd. Whatever statement you think you're making here, it doesn't change the regulatory process.
It doesn't change the zoning application. It doesn't change anything. I said inside. You're right that it doesn't change the regulatory process. Eleanor said.
But it changes something else. What it it changes who's watching. Eleanor said frown. What does that mean? It means Eleanor said for 22 months you've been doing what you do in the way you always do it quietly individually, one person at a time, making sure that each person feels completely alone before you apply pressure.
A very effective method. It works because people who are frightened and isolated make poor decisions. She looked at the crowd. Only works if people stay isolated. She raised her voice, not dramatically, but with theatrical effect, but simply louder, the way a person who is accustomed to being heard projects when they need everyone in a space to receive something, she said.
Rosa Medina stepped forward from across the street. She was still holding her arms crossed, but her jaw was set now rather than tight and the expression on her face was the look of someone who has decided that they are done being afraid of something. This me my lease was invalid. Rosa said clearly of two witnesses. He said there was a clause that voided my teny when the property changed hands.
I've had a lawyer look at my lease in the last 2 days. She looked directly at Grant. There is no such clause. He made it up. A murmur went through the assembled people, opened his mouth.
Rosa wasn't finished. I've had that store for 11 years, Rosa said. Employ four people. I have never missed a rent payment. And this man told me to my face that I had no legal right to be there because he wanted to frighten me.
Her voice held steady. For about a week, I was terrified. And then Eleanor called me and she said something I want to say out loud right now. She paused. She said, "Being scared is not the same as being beaten."
The murmur grew. Or turned back to Grant. His expression had shifted again. The brazeness was still there barely, but it was visibly costing him something to maintain it. " Donny," Eleanor said.
From somewhere in the crowd, and it took Grant a moment to locate him. Frank Donnelly had aged considerably from stress in the past year and was standing near the back. Frank stepped forward. rancher in his late 50s with a farmer's posture and a farmer's hands and the careful measured speech of a man who doesn't use more words than a situation requires me. The environmental compliance on my land was going to be referred to the state agency.
Frank said me there were irregularities in my water usage permits going back 15 years. The fine exposure alone could bankrupt me. A pause. There were no irregularities. I've had two different compliance attorneys look at my records since then.
He invented a liability that doesn't exist to make me believe I had no choice but to sell. He stopped with great deliberateness. I want my land back. Grant turned toward him. Nervous.