and the other was to the south.
MISTAKE NUMBER ONE
Indeed, to my west there were many
tracts within my view, too many to con-
sider owning them all. However, one
particular tract should have been obvi-
ous, as it shared a side with one of my
tracts. At eye level from my house, it was
smack dab in my line of sight. But it
didn’t occur to me to look for the owner
of just that one tract—it seemed part of
the vastness to the west of me that I
couldn’t possibly own. As I said, I didn’t
pursue it.
And one day, to my horror, people
showed up there.
Actually, I don’t remember how it all
unfolded, how I came to find out the
tract had been purchased by someone.
What I remember distinctly is standing
at a phone booth in Study Butte, calling
the couple and offering to buy the land
they had just purchased. Pleading to buy
the land they had just purchased.
“Oh, no, Honey,” said the wife.
“We’re not interested in selling. We love
this piece of land and my husband’s fam-
ily is on their way out right now to help
us put up a roof, a cover for our
motorhome. I’m so sorry.”
I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t rude.
When the call was over, I gave myself a
tongue-lashing for having let this hap-
pen. This is how it went: “Judy, you stu-
pid woman, how could you not have
seen that this piece of land was right
there in front of you? Sure there are lots
of other pieces all around. But this one
is right there, next to yours. You fool!”
And the next day, their enormous
metal roof structure started going up,
right in my view of the sunset.
MISTAKE NUMBER TWO
This mistake did not become appar-
ent until at least 15 years after Mistake
Number One.
Each 40-acre tract measures ¼ mile
by ¼ mile. Purchasing the two tracts to
the south of me,
which I did some-
time around 2001,
meant that I
owned ½ mile,
plus a little more,
in front of my
house. I could easi-
ly see where the
land dropped off
fairly abruptly and
so I felt assured
that I owned to the
drop-off and a lit-
tle beyond. No
possibility of any-
one building in my
southern view.
Then one night
about a year ago,
after playing music
at the restaurant
here on the ranch,
Charlie and I were
driving home in
the dark. Turning
south, cresting the
last hill before our
Cenizo
house, suddenly we could see an incred-
ibly bright light. In the darkness, it was
hard to pinpoint exactly where it was,
but it sure looked like it was right in
front of our house. Even as we got clos-
er, we still could not tell where the light
was located. We drove farther, about
100 yards beyond our house, south to
the end of the road, and the light was
still in front of us.
This was no Marfa Light. This was
someone’s high beam intense light. A
construction light? Was someone actual-
ly building in the dark? Or camping on
our property? We didn’t hear any sounds
coming from there, but the light stayed
on.
The next morning, with binoculars
we were able to see something in the
near distance. I continued to wonder
whether someone was on our land. So I
rode our four-wheeler down the dirt
road that runs through my tracts to the
south and then drops off as it heads
down the hill. I was definitely below the
drop-off, definitely below the line of
sight from my house.
And yet there, right in front of me,
lay my mistake.
Someone had cleared a spot on the
edge of the hill going down, below the
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