Colton leafed through the folder, his face changing with every page. Inside was the one thing Delphine’s husband’s law firm had never thought to research. For three years, quietly, I had been in negotiations to place my entire 2,600-acre ranch into a land transfer with the neighboring tribal nation, whose reservation bordered my western fence line. My grandfather had always intended the land to return to them one day. The paperwork was nearly complete. And a prescriptive easement, that clever little state law Delphine was banking everything on, does not survive when the land passes into tribal trust and out of state jurisdiction entirely.

“Dad,” Colton said slowly, “if this goes through, her road…” “Her road runs across land the state of Colorado no longer governs,” I finished. “Her easement claim evaporates. She’ll be trespassing on sovereign tribal land, and the county sheriff she’s so friendly with will have no authority there at all.” I closed the folder. Delphine had cut down a 103-year-old tree and crushed my grandfather’s 1922 marker to widen a road she was certain the law had already handed her. She had never once considered that the ground itself was about to stop being hers to argue over.