The woman arrived shortly before closing.
A ceiling fan turned slowly above a wooden counter.
A clerk with reading glasses looked up from a computer.
"Afternoon. What can I do for you?"
"I need a deed record from 1957."
The clerk smiled.
"That's going back a ways."
"I know."
"Do you have a reference?"
The woman opened the old ledger.
She pointed to a number.
The clerk examined it.
"Book and page. That helps."
She searched the digital index.
Nothing appeared immediately.
Then she checked another database.
Still nothing.
The woman felt her stomach tighten.
"Is it missing?"
"Not necessarily. Some older records were indexed differently. We'll look in the scanned deed books."
The clerk led her to a computer station.
Together, they searched historical records.
Several entries appeared for the family ranch.
An acquisition deed.
A mortgage release.
A transfer involving a narrow tract of land.
Then the clerk stopped.
"Here."
A scanned document filled the screen.
It was dated 1957.
The woman leaned closer.
The text was difficult to read, its typewritten letters faded and uneven.
But one paragraph was clear enough.
It referred to a permanent right of ingress and egress across a described portion of the adjoining tract, for the benefit of the ranch property and its successors.
The woman pressed a hand against her chest.
"That's it."
The clerk looked at her.
"Possibly. You'll want a title professional or attorney to interpret the legal description and how it applies today."
"Can you print it?"
"Of course."
The printer began working.
The woman stared at the screen.
She had not imagined the road.
Her father had not merely assumed that decades of use gave him permission.
He had taken steps to secure access in writing.
The clerk returned with a certified copy request form.
"There's one more thing."
The woman looked up.
"What?"
"The legal description references an exhibit. A map."
"Is it here?"
The clerk scrolled.
The scanned deed ended with a page bearing a handwritten notation.
Survey plat attached to original filing.
But the plat itself was not in the scanned packet.
The clerk frowned.
"That's unusual."
"Where is it?"
"Could be in a separate survey book, a miscellaneous record, or archived with the original instrument."
The woman stared at the missing exhibit.
She had found the first piece.
But not enough to establish exactly where the protected corridor lay.
And the bank manager had a surveying crew placing new stakes.
The clerk printed the recorded deed.