The smell of diesel fuel and freshly turned earth grew stronger with every step I took.

I rounded a thicket of yellowing aspen trees and stopped in my tracks.

A small, yellow excavator was idling near the old stone boundary marker my father had set in concrete thirty years ago.

Two workmen in orange safety vests were shovel-clearing the dirt from around the base of the concrete pillar.

Vance, the real estate broker, was standing nearby, holding a GPS mapping rod and a clipboard.

“Stop!” I yelled, marching directly into the clearing.

The workmen paused, looking up from their shovels.

“Who are you?” the one with the shovel asked, wiping his brow with a dirty sleeve.

“I’m Maren Calder,” I said, pulling my military ID from my pocket. “This is a restricted trust property.”

“You are illegally altering a physical boundary line on a protected watershed,” I added.

Vance stepped forward, his face pale but determined as he tried to look official.

“We have a signed variance,” Vance said, waving a laminated map at me.