This land is my land

This land is your land

By Max Alexander

While cruising a stretch of my wetlands along a frozen back road in January, I noticed someone had cut two large red maples on my property. A couple trees more or less might go unnoticed in the Maine woods, but these were the only trees of height along the edge of a low swampy area, and their absence transformed the landscape. It appeared to be the work of a vandal, not a logger: the stump cuts were sloppy, not neatly buzzed the way a pro with a powerful, well-maintained chainsaw would do it. And while the trunk sections had been hacked up and removed (no doubt for firewood), huge pieces of the crowns (called slash) had been left to rot along the road — a bush-league violation of state law. At any rate I knew from my forest management plan that this wetland was a zoned conservation district; tree harvest of any kind was forbidden.

Staring at the broken limbs and sawdust scattered across the snow, I felt like someone had broken into my house. I wondered what kind of person in rural Maine would so callously disregard property rights — and then I noticed that the “No Trespassing” signs I had posted along the road were gone. Whoever cut those two maples had also ripped off all my signs. This was an act of deep anger.

I got into my truck and headed for home, thinking about what to do next. Call the state police? What could they do? Something told me that my neighbor Roy would know about this. The trees had been cut near my boundary with his land — or more accurately, his father Roy Sr.’s land. Roy Jr., a laborer in his early 20s, lived in a shingled shack on 24 acres owned by his dad, just half a mile down the road from me. I had met him more than a year ago — when he stopped by to warn me darkly about what he regarded as too much enthusiasm on the part of the local dog catcher. I hadn’t seen him since, but I often see his flinching black mongrel, slinking around my house early in the morning.

I could hear the dog barking inside as I turned into Roy Jr.’s driveway and parked next to a fleet of snowmobiles, most of them with hoods up and greasy parts spread across the snow. No one answered the door, and as I turned to leave I noticed the stack of freshly cut firewood on his porch. It was red maple and hadn’t been split yet, so I could easily see that the cross section exactly matched one of the two new stumps on my property.

Back home I called another neighbor to see if she knew about Roy Jr. and his chainsaw rampage. “Oh yeah, Roy thought those signs were mine,” she said, “and he came tearing up my driveway, blowing his horn, screaming about how I was posting his land and all. Said he’d give me one hour to remove the signs or he’d do it himself. I said I didn’t know anything about it and he left. But he was so threatening, I called the state police. They came and took a report. Anyway, just before Christmas I stopped by his place with some cookies, hoping to mend things, and he was very apologetic. Said he knew it was you who put up the signs.”

“Well, he hasn’t come by to see me.”

“Some people find it easier to yell at a woman. Anyway, he claims your land starts at the sofa.”

“Oh no, my land starts way before the sofa.” I don’t know what made me sadder — the idea that a piece of living-room furniture dumped in my swamp had become a local landmark, or the fact that I was seriously discussing its relative significance as a boundary monument. It was one of the few times since moving to Maine that I wished I was back in an office in Rockefeller Center. “I’ve got a recorded survey of my line,” I said defensively. “It’s marked at the corner by a spike and was blazed through the woods years ago. In fact, that line goes back to King George.” It was the truth: way before the sofa, my northern property edge was a section of what was called the Ballard Line — one of the original royal land grants that carved Maine into vast, exploitable tracts during the Colonial era.

“Well, you better talk to Roy.”

“Do you have his number?”

“I don’t think he has a phone, you’ll have to go down there. I’d be careful; he flies off the handle. Here’s the name of the state trooper who took the report. You might need it.”

I put it off, and couldn’t sleep that night. Coincidentally, in the course of writing an article for a home magazine about picket fences, I had recently talked to a legal expert who told me that boundary disputes were the leading cause of homicide between neighbors. I twisted in the sheets as my range war escalated: Ballard Line . . . sofa . . . surveys . . . Hatfields . . . McCoys . . . shotguns. In the morning I calmly assessed the situation: I had a survey, he had an opinion. But I had a wife, small children, school committee meetings, and a 401-K; he had nonworking snowmobiles. It obviously wasn’t worth getting angry about, but it would also be wrong to leave it unsettled. I decided to go down to Roy’s on Saturday, when most people are in their best mood.

Again the dog barked but no one answered as I banged on Roy’s door that Saturday afternoon. This time as I turned to leave, a rusted Oldsmobile roared up the driveway. It was Roy’s dad. I introduced myself and explained the situation, apologizing if I’d caused any confusion. Roy Sr., who clearly knew all about it, waved an arm dismissively and said “Nah, it’s all taken care of. C’mon, get in, let’s go take a look at that boundary.”

Roy Sr. hadn’t shaved in a few weeks, and a small blood stain ran down the silver whiskers on his right cheek. He told me he was 47, and as we bounced along the back road he carried on cheerfully about bastard loggers and son-of-a-bitch beaver poachers, and goddamn trespassers. I could see where his son got his anger, but in the father it had become philosophical, mellowed with age. And he was trying to mend fences with me.

“See where that brook runs through my swamp?” he said, pointing out my window. “There’s trout this big in there,” and he held his hands two feet apart. “I don’t tell too many people about it, ’cause I like to save ’em for the kids. You take your kids in there next summer; they’ll love it.”

We pulled up to the edge of my property. I showed him the spike in the ground, and the blazed trees. “Ayuh,” he said. “That’s the line.”

“I was worried I had it wrong,” I said, “because your son ripped my signs down all the way to the sofa.”

“All taken care of.”

“And these maples of mine he cut,” I said, pointing to the slash. “He should know this is conservation land.”

“Well that was probably the goddamn road commission cut those,” said Roy Sr. as we got back in his car. “County men are always down here clearin’ the road.”

The road commission wouldn’t leave slash, of course. I wondered if Roy knew that his son had cut my trees, but I decided not to mention the firewood on the porch. Better to let new maples sprout from the stumps than to plant a seed of hostility. If I read his dad right, Roy Jr. wouldn’t be cutting any more trees on my land. As far as I was concerned, it was all taken care of.

Max Alexander lives in Washington, Maine. He can be reached at malex@midcoast.com.