Ben was shaking his head. “Back when the papers first came your father and I studied the documents. We even went to a lawyer friend your father knew. He confirmed what we thought from what we’d read. It’s airtight. Any violation of the stipulations will result in the title reverting permanently to the conservation trust.
“It’s a very tricky document. It’s drawn up in a way that ensures that any deviation from the stipulations will cause the land to go to the trust. There’s no wiggle room. It’s constructed so as to tightly control what happens to the land. You might say that it doesn’t grant an inheritance so much as it offers choices among very limited options.
“With your father’s premature passing, and then your mother getting sick, the transfer of title wasn’t able to go forward, so it was put in abeyance, in limbo, until you were twenty-seven.”
“What if I don’t want to decide right now what I want to do?”
“You have the year you are twenty-seven to decide to take title or not. You don’t have to take the land. You can refuse it and then it goes to the trust. If you don’t act while you’re still twenty-seven, title to the land automatically transfers to the trust — except under one condition: your heir.
“You’re presently the last heir in line, Alex. You aren’t allowed to will the land to anyone other than a direct descendant. If you never have children, then, when you eventually die, the land goes to the trust.”
“What if next week I get hit by a bus and die?”
“Then the title immediately transfers to the trust — permanently — because you don’t have an heir, a child. If you become a father, even if you don’t act to claim rightful ownership during the time you’re twenty-seven, then that child becomes part and parcel of the will. It waits for them to come of age. In fact, that’s how you came to this place. If you’re hit by a bus it doesn’t affect any offspring’s rights, just as your father’s death didn’t negate your rights.
“You can take title and enjoy the land all you want and if you ever have children you can pass it on to them, providing you haven’t sold it to the trust. Once sold to them it’s theirs forever.”
“If I can only sell to the trust, then they can set the price cheap.”
Ben flipped through the pages, searching, until he found what he was looking for. “No, look here.” He tapped the page. “You have to sell it to the Daggett Trust — that’s the conservation group — but they must pay fair market value. You can name your own appraiser to ensure that the price is fair. And I can tell you that at fair market value that much land, even being inland, is worth a fortune.”
Alex stared off in thought. “I could paint all I want.”
Ben smiled. “You know that I think a person should prepare for the worst but live all they can of life. You could sell the land and then paint the rest of your life and never have to sell one of them. I hate to see you having to sell your paintings. They hold such love of life. I hate to see you part with them.”
Alex frowned as he came back from imagining. “Why would this trust want to buy this particular piece of land?”
Ben shrugged. “They already own all of the surrounding land. None of it has ever been developed. Most of it is virgin timber that’s been in trust for ages; they want to keep it that way. Our family’s piece is the last remaining part to the puzzle.
“The land owned by the trust is closed to people. No one is ever allowed onto the land — not even hikers. The Nature Alliance is a little miffed that they aren’t allowed in. They think they should have special access since they’re so devoted to preserving nature and all. I guess they went along, though, since the conservation group’s purpose seems so high-minded.”
“Well, what if I decide I don’t want to sell it? What if I want to keep it and build a house on it?”
Ben tapped the papers again. “Can’t. The deed comes with a conservation easement. That’s why we’ve never had to pay any property taxes. It’s some kind of special state wilderness area act that exempts land from taxes if it has a conservation easement constructed in the way this one has been drawn up.”
“So, then, the land is of no use to me. I can’t use it for anything?”
Ben shrugged. “You can enjoy it, I suppose. It’s your land if you want it. You can walk it, camp on it, things like that, but you can’t build any permanent buildings on it. You also must abide by the trust bylaws that you won’t allow strangers — hikers, campers, and such — on the land.”
“Or I can sell it.”
“Right. To the Daggett Trust.”
It was all so unexpected and overwhelming. Alex had never owned any land, other than the house that had been his parents’. The house, just down the street, the home where he’d partially grown up and now lived, was now in his name. In a sense it still felt like it belonged to the ghosts of those long gone. With his home on an ordinary lot Alex had a difficult time imagining how much land fifty thousand acres was. It seemed enough land that a person could become forever lost there.
“If I can’t really do anything with it, maybe I should just sell it,” Alex said, thinking out loud.
Ben pulled his soldering project closer. “That sounds wise. Sell it and buy yourself that car you want.”
Alex suspiciously eyed the back of his grandfather’s head. “I like the Cherokee. I only want a starter motor.”
“It’s your birthday, Alex. Now you can buy yourself a proper present. The kind none of us could ever afford for you.”
“I never really wanted for anything,” Alex said in quiet protest as he laid a hand gently on his grandfather’s shoulder. “I always had everything I needed, and what I really needed the most.”
“Kind of like my coffeepot,” his grandfather muttered. “Never wanted anything better.” He abruptly turned back, looking uncharacteristically stern. “Sell the land, Alex. It’s just trees and rocks — it’s good for nothing.”
Trees and rocks sounded good to Alex. He loved such places. That was his favorite thing to paint.
“Sell it, that’s my advice,” Ben pressed. “You’ve no need of Castle Mountain.”
“Castle what?”
“Castle Mountain. It’s a mountain that sits roughly in the center of the land.”
“Why’s it called Castle Mountain?”
Ben turned away and worked for a time bending the tubing on his essence extractor to some plan known only to him. “People say it looks like a castle. Never saw the resemblance, myself.”
Alex smiled. “I don’t think Indian Rock looks much like an Indian.”
“There you go. Same thing. People see what they want to see, I guess.” Ben didn’t look back as he handed the papers over his shoulder. “Get the deed transferred, then sell the place and be rid of it, that’s my advice, Alex.”
Alex slowly made his way to the stairs as he considered it all. He paused and looked back at his grandfather.
A dark look shadowed Ben’s face. “This is one of those things that I mentioned before, Alex, one of those things that doesn’t make proper sense.”
Alex wondered at seeing such a forbidding look for a second time that day. “Thanks, Ben, for your advice.”
His grandfather turned back to his soldering. “Don’t thank me unless you take the advice. Unless you heed it, it’s just words.”
Alex nodded absently. “I’m going to go see my mom.”
“Give her my best,” Ben murmured without turning.
His grandfather rarely went to visit his daughter-in-law. He hated the place where she was confined. Alex hated the place, too, but his mother was there and if he wanted to see her he had no choice.
Alex stared down at the envelope in his hand. It seemed that such an unexpected birthday present should make him happy, but it didn’t. It only reminded him of his dead father and his mother lost to another world.