The next morning I drove Earls Mason jar letter to the courthouse in Bardstown, and the clerk looked at it, looked at me, and said, Mrs. Hardin, there is no easement across your pasture, there never was, and this letter from the judge-executive proves the county already settled that in 1989.
Deputy Rollins stood at Earls gate in his uniform and told me he had an easement on the county books, that hed be putting gravel down next month, that I could make it easy or have a lot of trouble with the calls only he answers.
He did not know what Earl wired under the green bridge.
Back in 1989, when the county surveyor tried to run a road through our pasture, Earl fought it and won, and the judge-executive signed a letter confirming there is no public easement across our land and never would be, and Earl sealed that letter in a Mason jar under the bridge, telling me to look there if anyone ever said the word easement.
Earl built every fence by hand and the little green bridge where the grandbabies threw rocks, and he was no fool about a mans land. He beat the easement claim in 1989 and hid the proof under the third plank, and I climbed down the bank in my church shoes and found it exactly where he said.
A signed letter from the judge-executive, on file, beats a deputy who says he checked the books. There was no easement. Rollins either misread the county records or counted on a widow not knowing, and either way the courthouse set him straight.
The clerk pulled the county file, matched it to Earls letter, and confirmed there was no easement of record. Deputy or not, Rollins had no right to put a road, or a shovel of gravel, across my pasture.
When Rollins came back to my gate, I did not argue with the badge. I handed him a certified copy of the 1989 letter and the clerks confirmation and I said, Earl did mention it, deputy. He told me to look under the bridge. Theres no easement. There never was. You put one rock of gravel on my pasture and it is you who will have trouble, at that same courthouse.
He did not come back with a gravel truck. The cattle still graze, and the bridge is still green, the way Earl liked it.
You know who answers those calls around here, he told me. I do. But I also know who signed the letter Earl hid under the bridge, and it outranks a deputy every day of the week.