I spend the next two days in a state of controlled panic.
The financial situation is worse than Granddaddy let on. I go through the ranch books—actual books, because Granddaddy still does his accounting in ledgers like it's 1987—and what I find makes my stomach drop.
Total shortfall: closer to four hundred thousand dollars, not three.
"We're not just in trouble," I mutter, surrounded by papers at my kitchen table. "We're circling the drain."
But the ideas are there. Heritage beef—grass-fed, hormone-free, the kind of stuff that farm-to-table restaurants in Austin pay top dollar for. Agritourism—ranch tours, chuck wagon dinners. Grant money from the state.
The pieces are there. But every plan hits the same wall.
I need more land.
Three hundred acres isn't enough to make the economics work. I need at least five hundred. And there's only one ranch within a mile of our property line with the kind of grazing land that could make this viable.
The McCallister place.
Five hundred acres of prime Hill Country. Best grass in the county. Solid water rights. And a forty-year feud between our families that's so old and so deep that most people have forgotten what started it.
I find Doc Patterson—our veterinarian, seventy-one years old, bowlegged as a parenthesis—at his office on Main Street and lay it all out.
Doc listens without interrupting, which is more than most people do.
"What you need," he says slowly, "is to stop thinking like a commodity rancher and start thinking like a brand. Heritage beef. Grass-fed, pasture-raised. There's a market for it—big market. But you need five hundred acres to make the numbers work."
"The McCallister place."
"There's five hundred acres of good grazing land within a mile of your property line. Problem is, Jack McCallister died two months ago. His grandson inherited the property. Army Ranger. Moved here from Dallas. Keeps to himself."
"So he's struggling too."
"Everybody's struggling, Sutton. This is Texas. We struggle. It's what we do." He leans forward. "But here's the thing. If the Cooper ranch and the McCallister ranch were to work together—shared resources, shared branding—five hundred acres of heritage beef... that's a real business."
"Doc, if I walk up to a McCallister and suggest a partnership, my family might actually disown me."
"If you don't, they're going to sell the ranch to a developer. Which option sounds worse?"
He's got a point.
I spend two more days researching, planning, building the bones of a proposal. Then on Wednesday, my sister Hadley calls with news that changes everything.
"Uncle Beau's been on Mercer's payroll for six months," she says.
"What?"
"Five thousand dollars a month. Plus a bonus when the sale goes through. I found the bank records. Sutton—he's been negotiating behind the family's back since January."
"He's selling us out."
"He's selling Granddaddy's ranch out for thirty pieces of silver. And there's more. Mercer's done this before. Six ranches in the Hill Country. Every time, they promise to preserve the land. Every time, they bulldoze it."
"How much is the land actually worth?"
"At least ten million. Maybe more."
They're offering us two-point-five for land worth ten. And Uncle Beau is helping them do it.
"I need documentation," I say. "Everything. Emails, payment records, all of it."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to save this ranch. And if Uncle Beau gets in my way, I'm going to burn his world down."
I hang up, grab my truck keys, and head for the north property line.
It's time to meet Cash McCallister.