Chapter 1: The Road That Had Always Been There
The first thing the old ranch woman noticed was the orange survey flag.
It stood in the dusty shoulder of the private ranch road, trembling in the hot southwestern Kansas wind, its bright plastic ribbon tied around a thin wooden stake. The second flag appeared forty yards farther along. Then a third. Then a fourth.
By the time she reached the bend near the north cattle pasture, she counted seventeen.
Somebody had been marking her road.
The woman stopped her battered blue pickup and killed the engine. For several seconds, she sat behind the wheel, staring through the dusty windshield at the flags that had not been there when she checked the cattle that morning.
Beyond the road, hundreds of acres of wheat stubble stretched toward a distant line of grain elevators. To the south, black Angus cattle grazed behind long wooden fences, their dark bodies scattered across the pale summer grass. The ranch covered more than three thousand acres of wheat ground, native pasture, creek bottom, and hard country that had been worked by her family for almost seventy years.
There was no other house in sight.
Only the cattle, the wheat, the fences, the long private road, and a storm of dust rolling slowly along the western horizon.
The woman was sixty-seven years old, sturdy and broad-shouldered, with sun-tanned skin, sharp blue eyes, and silver-gray hair pulled into a loose ponytail beneath a faded beige baseball cap. Her rounded face carried the lines of decades spent riding fence lines, driving machinery, delivering calves in freezing barns, and watching clouds that sometimes promised rain and sometimes threatened destruction.
She wore a dusty brown canvas jacket over a faded plaid shirt, old blue jeans, and heavy work boots that had been repaired more times than she could remember.
Her hands were thick-fingered and rough.
They were hands that had buried livestock, repaired broken water lines, and held her dying husband's hand through his last night.
They were not hands that frightened easily.
But the orange flags made her uneasy.
A large black SUV stood beside the fence near the old cattle guard.
Two young male surveying technicians wore bright yellow safety vests and carried measuring equipment. One stood beside a tripod-mounted instrument while the other hammered another orange stake into the ground.
A third man was waiting beside the SUV.
He was not dressed for ranch work.
His expensive black business jacket looked absurd beneath the afternoon sun. His white shirt was spotless, his charcoal trousers perfectly pressed, and his dark-brown hair neatly combed back from a clean-shaven face.
He looked to be about thirty-nine.
The old woman recognized him immediately.
He was the property manager from the regional bank that had recently acquired the neighboring land through foreclosure.
She had met him once before.
She had not liked him then.
She liked him considerably less now.
She opened the pickup door and stepped onto the dirt.
The wind tugged at her jacket.
The banker turned.
A thin smile crossed his face.
"Well. There you are."
She shut the truck door.
"What are you doing on this road?"
He looked toward the surveyors.
"Conducting a property assessment."
"On whose authority?"
"The bank's."
She glanced at the flags.
"Those are inside my fence line."
"That is precisely what we're here to clarify."
She took several steps toward him.
"This road's been here longer than you've been alive."
The banker smiled.
"Age doesn't establish ownership."
"Neither does standing beside it in a thousand-dollar jacket."
One surveyor lowered his head, hiding a smile.
The bank manager noticed.
His expression tightened.
"Perhaps we should begin with a little respect."
The ranch woman stopped directly opposite him.
"Then get off my road."
He opened a leather folder.
"I suggest you listen carefully."
From inside the folder, he removed a white document bearing the bank's letterhead.
He held it in front of her face.
At the top were three words.
ROAD MAINTENANCE PENALTY
Below them appeared the amount.
$640.00
The woman stared.
Then she looked up.
"What is this foolishness?"
"An assessment for unauthorized use and maintenance costs associated with the access corridor crossing bank-controlled property."