Chad Jones's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

Chad walked the property line on Monday morning, axe in hand, looking for where to start clearing. The barn needed space around it, room for people to move and work. But fifty yards into the tree line, he stopped. Someone had built a fire here. Not old — the ash was still gray, not black. He found the rest of it another twenty feet in. A metal barrel on a plywood platform, rigged with a garden hose and some kind of pump. Shower setup. Next to it, a pile of beer cans and soiled boxers thrown in a heap like someone had been camping here for weeks. Chad kicked through the trash, jaw tight. This wasn't some weekend hiker passing through. Someone had been living on his land, using it like they owned it. Then he saw the magazine half-buried under the cans. Pin-up photos of bearded men in jeans, flexing and posing. He dropped it back in the pile and stepped away, pulse hammering. Whoever this was, they'd been here a while. Watching. Chad walked back to the barn, gripping the axe harder than he needed to. DeShawn was outside the tent, heating water on his camp stove. "Someone's been camping out there," Chad said. "Deep in the trees. Built a whole setup." DeShawn looked up, hands still on the pot. "You see them?" Chad shook his head. "Just their stuff. A lot of it." DeShawn stood, wiping his hands on his jeans. "You want me to help you tear it down?" Chad considered it. The easy move was to trash the site, leave a message. But then he'd never know who it was or if they'd come back. "Leave it," Chad said. "I want to know who's using my property." He walked to the barn and leaned the axe against the wall, staring out through the man-shaped window toward the tree line. The farm wasn't just his project anymore. It was a place people came to when they had nowhere else. DeShawn was here because his dad kicked him out. Maybe the person in the trees had a similar story. Or maybe they were just taking what they wanted. Either way, Chad needed to find out. The land wasn't going to work if he didn't know who else thought it belonged to them.