"Permanent access easement," she declared. I looked at the reference number. It was old enough to have been recorded before the clubhouse had been renovated and before most of the Silver Pine homes existed. "Leave me a copy," I said.
Laura gave a short laugh and told me my father had accepted the association's rights years ago, and I had no authority to obstruct an established private road. I asked whether she was talking about access for construction, residents, or commercial marina operations. She said I was being unnecessarily difficult.
"Silver Pine is expanding its lakefront operations," she said. "You cannot decide when homeowners can reach community property." The word expanding interested me more than the insult. I pointed at the original fence posts and told her the road crossed private land regardless of how many people used it. She rolled up her map, warned me that her attorney would deal with the matter, and drove away. The sign remained in the contractor's trailer that afternoon, but the holes he had started stayed in the dirt until Pete filled them.
I called Walter Hayes before dinner. Walter was seventy-three, a retired survey records specialist who lived in a small house north of the ranch and still carried a brass compass even though modern surveyors had better equipment. He had known my father for more than thirty years and could remember the original names of creeks that the county now labeled with numbers. Walter arrived in an old Ford with a cracked dashboard, drank half a cup of coffee in my kitchen, and took Laura's map to the tailgate of my pickup. His reading glasses were tied to a cord that never seemed quite long enough.
He studied the map for less than a minute before tapping the recording number. "I remember this arrangement," he said. I asked whether it was a permanent easement. He shook his head and said the original developer had needed construction access while the subdivision's eastern road was unfinished. My father had granted a limited arrangement so concrete trucks and emergency vehicles could pass without crossing the incomplete residential streets. Walter believed it ran for thirty-six months and ended when the original development passed final inspection.
"You sure?" I asked. He looked at me over his glasses. "Sure enough that I'd drive to the recorder's office before I let somebody tear down your gate."
Then he asked whether Laura had shown me an exhibit attached to the map. When I said there had been no exhibit, his expression changed. "That's funny," he said. "Your father insisted on putting every restriction on a separate signed page."
Rachel Monroe met us at the county records office the following morning. She had handled boundary work for my excavation business and one difficult water-use case involving a neighboring property. Rachel was direct, meticulous, and almost impossible to hurry. When clients asked whether a case was a sure win, she tended to reply with a question about what the other side could prove. I liked that about her, particularly when I was tempted to confuse confidence with certainty.