Kurt stared down at the frozen ground for several seconds. Then he slowly moved closer to Dale.
I had known Kurt Ostrowski for eleven years. He had stood beside me at my wedding, wearing a carnation that wasn’t quite straight. He had eaten my homemade chili during countless Packers games. And every November since Brad first brought him to the property in an old borrowed truck, he had hunted on my grandfather’s ridge.
Never before had I seen him look like he did that morning. He stood at the edge of Grandpa’s cornfield beneath the pale gray sky, frost covering his boots.
Behind him were Mike Pruett and Russ Lindahl. Both men had their rifles hanging over their shoulders, their breath forming clouds in the freezing air. Their eyes shifted between me, Dale, and the three blaze-orange hats visible among the trees.
Dale remained beside me, near the bottom of the old wooden ladder stand. His hands hung loosely at his sides, and frost had gathered along his gray beard. At fifty-eight, he stood about six-foot-two and carried himself with the quiet composure of someone who had experienced situations far more difficult than this one.
Kurt stopped roughly three feet away from him. He examined Dale’s face before noticing the faded military patch attached to the left shoulder of his canvas hunting jacket. It showed a black horse’s head against a yellow shield, crossed by a diagonal stripe.
“First Cav,” Kurt said under his breath.
Dale raised his eyebrows slightly.
“That’s right.”
“Desert Storm?”
“Desert Storm. Then two tours in Iraq.”
Kurt remained quiet for a moment, his breath drifting into the cold morning air. Then he slowly removed his right glove, pulling each finger free, and extended his bare hand.
“Twenty-fourth Infantry,” he said. “Ninety-one. I was nineteen.”
Dale glanced at the offered hand. Then he removed his own glove and shook it.
Neither man spoke.
Somewhere about a mile away, another gunshot echoed across the hills, followed by a second one.
Kurt finally released Dale’s hand and looked toward me. His face was flushed, although the cold wasn’t the reason.
“Amy,” he said. “What do you mean you didn’t change your mind? Brad told us you were okay with everything. He said you’d agreed.”
“Agreed to what?”
Kurt reached inside his orange hunting vest and pulled out a folded document. The paper had softened along its creases, as though he’d carried it in his pocket many times.
He handed it to me.
I unfolded it beneath the dim morning light. Across the top, printed in bold capital letters, were the words:
HUNTING LEASE AGREEMENT.
Underneath was the legal description of my eighty acres, copied exactly from the deed: the Southwest Quarter of the Northeast Quarter and the Northwest Quarter of the Southeast Quarter of Section 14, Township 27 North, Range 4 West.
The document identified me as the property owner, Amy L. Halvorsen, and Kurt Ostrowski as the renter, representing his hunting group.
The agreement covered the November 2026 gun season.
The payment listed was $4,000 in cash.
At the bottom were two signatures.
One belonged to Kurt.
The other supposedly belonged to me.
It read “Amy L. Halvorsen,” written in a flowing, slanted style that looked absolutely nothing like my handwriting.
I’d been signing my name the same way since I was twelve years old. Grandpa Arvid had taught me how to write it on the back of a savings bond.
I had never signed that document.
I’d never even seen it before.
“Brad gave us this back in August,” Kurt explained. “He said you signed it over at his place when you stopped by to collect the rest of your things. He told us you were happy to get the money because the property taxes were getting expensive.”
My fingers trembled so badly that the paper began shaking.
“Kurt, I never signed this,” I told him. “I haven’t visited Brad since the divorce. The only time we spoke was on the phone in August. He told me I didn’t even hunt and then hung up.”
Kurt continued staring at me.
Behind him, Mike quietly muttered a curse.
“Then what happened to our four thousand dollars?” Russ asked.
Nobody needed to answer.
To understand how I ended up standing on that ridge before sunrise, surrounded by three Army veterans and holding a forged hunting agreement, you need to understand what my grandfather meant to me.
Arvid Halvorsen was born in 1932 in the farmhouse that still stands at the bottom of that property, about a mile and a half outside Elk Mound, Wisconsin.
He served in Korea with the Second Infantry Division and returned home in 1953 with a Purple Heart and a permanent limp in his left leg.
In 1955, he married my grandmother, Ingrid. Together, they spent the next fifty years working that farm.
They raised three children, grew corn and soybeans, and kept a small herd of beef cattle. They made their living from whatever those eighty acres could produce.
But the part of the property Grandpa treasured most was the ridge.
The northern forty acres were covered in hardwood trees. There were enormous white oaks, several red oaks, and a creek bottom surrounded by thick cedar trees.
Every autumn, deer traveled down from the ridge toward the harvested cornfields.
Grandpa always insisted it was the finest deer hunting ground in Dunn County.
Nobody ever challenged that opinion.
Mostly because nobody else had land quite like his.
But he never charged people to hunt there.
Every opening morning, beginning in 1961 and continuing until the year before he passed away, Grandpa personally guided his hunters onto the property.
Most were veterans.
Some had served in Korea or Vietnam. Later came men who had fought in the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
In the kitchen drawer, he kept a small green notebook. It contained the names of everyone who had hunted there, the year they came, and whether they had managed to get a deer.
Sometimes he added a little personal note beside someone’s name.
One entry read:
“Jim Haugen, Vietnam, 1969. First hunt since coming home. Didn’t shoot anything. Sat all day. Said it was the first night he’d slept properly since Khe Sanh.”
When I was young, Grandpa allowed me to accompany him on those early mornings.
I’d walk behind him carrying his heavy steel thermos, which seemed almost as big as I was. He always reminded me to put my feet exactly where his had been so I wouldn’t make noise walking through the leaves.
One morning, when I was around nine, I asked him something.
“Grandpa, why don’t you charge the men to hunt here? The Larsons charge people to use their property. Uncle Gary says they make good money doing it.”
He stopped at the edge of the field and looked down at me.
“Some things aren’t meant to be sold, Amy,” he answered. “These men already paid.”
My grandfather passed away three years ago, in March. He was eighty-nine.
His will had been prepared by Harold Brekke, an elderly attorney from Menomonie who had represented our family since the 1960s.
He left the farmhouse and all eighty acres to me, his only granddaughter.
The property was placed entirely in my name.
At the time, I was married to Brad Kessler.
We had been together for nine years.
Brad worked as a sales manager at the John Deere dealership in Menomonie. He was friendly, charming, and had a way of making people feel comfortable around him.
He was the sort of man who could convince a dairy farmer to purchase a combine he didn’t actually need.
People liked Brad.
And for many years, I did too.
When Grandpa’s will went through probate in Dunn County, Brad accompanied me to Harold Brekke’s office.
He sat beside me while Harold read the documents.
When the attorney reached the section describing the land, Brad placed his hand on my knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Later, outside in the parking lot, he smiled and said:
“Well, that’s our land now, babe.”
“It’s my land,” I corrected him playfully. “Grandpa left it to me.”
Brad laughed.
“What’s yours is mine, right? We’re married.”
But it wasn’t that simple.
I would understand that a year later, when our marriage finally fell apart.
I’m not going to explain every detail of what happened between us. There wasn’t some dramatic affair or explosive argument that ended everything.
We simply reached a point where we had been living more like roommates than husband and wife for nearly three years.
Brad wanted to move to Madison and sell the farmhouse.
I wanted to remain where I was.
He saw the property as an opportunity to make money.
To me, it was something that couldn’t be replaced.
“It’s just land, Amy,” he told me one evening. “Eighty acres of dirt and a bunch of old trees.”
I looked at him.
“It’s Grandpa’s land.”
Brad shrugged.
“Your grandfather isn’t here anymore.”
That was the moment I understood our marriage was finished.
We filed for divorce that spring.
Brad hired an attorney from Eau Claire named Darren Fiske. He wore cowboy boots beneath his expensive suits and charged $325 an hour.
During our first mediation meeting, Fiske argued that the inherited property should be considered marital property. At the very least, he claimed Brad deserved a portion of its increased value.
“My client made substantial contributions to the property’s improvements,” Fiske argued. “He constructed four deer stands, maintained the trails, and contributed toward the property taxes in 2024.”
My attorney was Patricia Haugen, a composed, gray-haired woman who rarely raised her voice.
I later discovered that she was the granddaughter of Jim Haugen, the Vietnam veteran mentioned in Grandpa’s hunting ledger.
She barely glanced up from her paperwork.
“Mr. Fiske,” she replied, “Wisconsin law generally treats inherited property as individual property. It remains separate unless marital assets become mixed with it in a way that prevents it from being traced. Mrs. Halvorsen inherited this land through her grandfather’s will. The deed has always remained in her name. It was never transferred, refinanced, or combined with marital property. The property tax bill was issued in her name. Your client contributed one payment toward half of the 2024 taxes. That amount was $930. We are prepared to reimburse him.”
Fiske continued arguing during the following two mediation sessions.
He insisted that Brad’s improvements had increased the property’s value.
Patricia responded by bringing in Gordon Lund, a local property appraiser.
After examining the property, Gordon testified that the four homemade wooden deer stands contributed approximately nothing to the overall market value of eighty acres of farmland.
The divorce became final in October, two years ago.
According to the judgment, I retained the farmhouse and all eighty acres as my separate property.
Brad received his truck, his bass boat, half of our joint savings, which amounted to approximately $23,000, and his own 401(k).
I also reimbursed him the $930 he had contributed toward property taxes.
I sent the payment from my Royal Credit Union account.
In the memo section, I wrote two words:
“Paid in full.”
Brad moved into an apartment in Menomonie.
I stayed at Grandpa’s farmhouse.
I honestly believed that chapter of my life was finished.
What I didn’t realize was that Brad had held on to something.
It wasn’t a spare key.
It was something much worse.
He still believed the ridge belonged to him.
Kurt mentioned it casually in August, almost as though he were discussing the weather.
I was filling up my truck at the Cenex station in Elk Mound when Kurt pulled into the neighboring pump in his black Silverado.
He waved when he recognized me.
“Amy! How have you been?”
“Doing well, Kurt. How about you?”
“Can’t complain.”
He pulled the gas nozzle from its holder and leaned against the side of his truck.
“Hey, just wanted to let you know we’re all paid up with Brad for this season. Four thousand in cash. Me, Mike, and Russ. Same arrangement as last year.”
I stood there holding the gas nozzle.
The pump continued running.
“Same arrangement as last year?” I repeated.
“Yeah. Brad said everything was fine with you. He said you were letting him handle the hunting because you weren’t interested in it anymore.”
Kurt shrugged.
“Figured you’d already heard about it.”
I hadn’t.
Until that moment, I had absolutely no idea that Brad had been collecting four thousand dollars every year from his friends to hunt on land that legally belonged to me.
And this hadn’t started after the divorce.
He had apparently been doing it for two full seasons.
Meanwhile, I’d spent those same November weekends inside Grandpa’s farmhouse, hearing gunshots echo across the ridge and assuming the hunters were on neighboring property.
That evening, I called Brad.
He picked up after the fourth ring.
I could hear a television playing in the background, along with a woman’s laughter.
“Amy. What’s going on?”
“Kurt just told me you’ve been renting out hunting rights on my property. Four thousand dollars every season. For the past two years.”
There was a brief silence.
Then Brad chuckled.
That familiar, relaxed laugh.
“Come on, Amy. You don’t even hunt. What are you going to do with it? Those guys enjoy going out there. They’ve been using that ridge for years.”
“They hunted there because Grandpa allowed them to. And because I allowed them when we were married. You don’t have permission to sell access to my land.”
“I built those stands.”
“You put together four plywood boxes on property you don’t own.”
“Amy,” he replied, still sounding completely relaxed. “Don’t turn this into some big issue. It’s only a few weeks every November. Nobody’s getting hurt.”
Then he ended the call.
He didn’t shout.
He didn’t argue.
He simply hung up.
That had always been Brad’s way of dealing with things. He could make you feel unreasonable just by keeping his voice calm while you were the one getting upset.
I remained at Grandpa’s kitchen table for a long time, still holding my phone.
The little green hunting ledger was in the drawer directly in front of me.
I pulled it out and began turning the pages.
Name after name.
Year after year.
Fifty-nine years of men who had been welcomed onto that ridge because my grandfather believed their service had already earned them the right.
And now Brad was charging them for it.
The following morning, I drove to Menomonie and met Patricia Haugen.
“I don’t want to take anybody to court,” I told her. “I just want him to stop.”
She looked at me calmly.
“Then we’ll make sure he stops. Amy, you don’t need a sheriff or a judge to tell people they can’t use your property. Your name is on the deed. You’re the owner.”
She explained my rights under Wisconsin law.
As the landowner, I could formally post the property against trespassing. That meant installing signs at the appropriate intervals along the boundaries and around the entrances.
Anyone entering without my permission could then be treated as a trespasser, regardless of what Brad had told them.
She also recommended sending Brad a certified letter officially withdrawing any permission he believed he still possessed.
That way, he couldn’t later claim he hadn’t been informed.
Then Patricia mentioned something else.
Something I hadn’t considered.
“There’s also a liability issue we need to discuss.”
I looked at her.
“What kind of issue?”
She folded her hands on the desk.
“Wisconsin has a recreational use statute. It provides certain protections for property owners who allow people to use their land for activities like hunting, fishing, and hiking without charging them.”
I nodded.
“Grandpa always said nobody could sue him just because he let someone hunt there.”
“Your grandfather understood the general principle. But there’s an important distinction. Those protections can be limited when a landowner charges people to use the property.”
She leaned forward.
“Brad has been collecting four thousand dollars each season to allow people to hunt on your land. If someone falls from one of those homemade stands and suffers a serious injury, their attorney could argue that the arrangement involved paid recreational use. You could end up dealing with a lawsuit even though Brad was the one collecting the money.”
I felt a chill run through me.
“So he’s not only collecting money for something that doesn’t belong to him.”
I paused.
“He’s potentially putting the entire farm in danger.”
Patricia nodded.
“Call your insurance agent today.”
That afternoon, I contacted Lyle Swenson at the Farm Bureau office.
Lyle had handled Grandpa’s farm insurance for thirty years.
When I explained the situation, he went quiet for several seconds.
Then he spoke.
“Amy, your current farm liability policy includes coverage for certain ordinary recreational activities. That means friends, relatives, and neighbors who hunt on the property without paying. But a commercial hunting lease is a different matter.”
He continued.
“If people are paying to hunt there, we need to know about it. We’d have to look at a separate rider, a written agreement, proof of insurance from the people renting the property, and inspections of the stands. Without those precautions, an accident could create a serious problem for you.”
I sat quietly, taking it all in.
We were talking about the farm.
Eighty acres valued at approximately $640,000 based on the going rates in Dunn County, not including the farmhouse.
Everything Grandpa had worked his entire life to preserve.
That evening, I drove to Fleet Farm in Menomonie.
I bought eighty orange signs reading:
PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO TRESPASSING – NO HUNTING.
I also purchased aluminum nails and a staple gun.
Over the next two weekends, I walked the entire perimeter of the property.
I installed the signs along the boundaries, at the corners, and on both sides of the field entrance, following Patricia’s instructions.
My neighbor, Earl Nygaard, had farmed the adjoining land for forty years. He rented my sixty tillable acres for corn at $185 per acre.
One afternoon, he spotted me putting up signs along the fence and stopped his tractor.
“Brad’s hunting crew?” he asked.
“Brad’s hunting crew,” I answered.
Earl slowly nodded.
“I wondered about that last November. Saw their trucks parked near your gate almost every Saturday. You weren’t out there with them. Didn’t seem right.”
He climbed down from his tractor.
“Need a hand with the northern boundary? That fence is in pretty rough shape near the creek.”
We spent the next few hours putting up signs along the north side together.
Earl didn’t ask many questions.
He didn’t have to.
Afterward, I returned to Grandpa’s kitchen table and wrote a formal letter.
Patricia reviewed it before I mailed it.
It stated:
“Mr. Kessler: This letter serves as formal notice that any permission you believe you have to enter, occupy, use, hunt, or grant hunting access to my property in Section 14, Town of Elk Mound, Dunn County, Wisconsin, is hereby withdrawn, effective immediately.
This revocation applies to you and to anyone to whom you have sold, granted, or represented any right to enter or hunt on this property.
The property has been posted. Any entry without my express written permission will be considered trespassing.
— Amy L. Halvorsen, Owner.”
I took the letter to the Elk Mound post office.
I sent it through certified mail and requested a return receipt.
The total cost was $8.85.
Four days later, the green confirmation card arrived in my mailbox.
Brad had signed it himself.
His familiar, slanted handwriting was unmistakable.
Nobody contacted me.
Nobody complained.
For a moment, I thought he had finally understood that the property wasn’t his to control.
I assumed he would inform his friends and end the arrangement.
But I was mistaken about that last part.
He had no intention of stopping.
Leave a Reply