I Bought a Lake Cabin Outside the HOA — So I Closed the Only Road Their HOA Uses…
I bought a lake cabin to find peace, but I didn’t expect the HOA next door demanded I pay their fees, even though I wasn’t part of their community. They sent letters stamped urgent in red ink. They threatened lawsuits. They claimed the only road into their development crossed my land, so I had to follow their rules.
There was one problem that road was mine, and they had never asked permission. That arrogance would become the biggest mistake of her life.
I bought the cabin to disappear. After 15 years as a structural engineer in Charlotte, I had earned the right to a place where no one could reach me, a two-bedroom lakefront property in the North Carolina mountains, surrounded by nothing but water and silence. The realtor assured me it was outside any HOA jurisdiction.
That was the first thing I asked. I had spent enough years dealing with bureaucracy at work. I wasn’t about to pay someone $850 a year for the privilege of being told what color to paint my mailbox. The deed was clean. The title search came back clear. I signed the papers and moved in on a Friday afternoon, thinking my only neighbors would be the herand.
The letter arrived on my third day. It was waiting in the mailbox when I came back from the hardware store, tucked inside a crisp white envelope with Pine Ridge Estates Homeowners Association printed in the corner. The word urgent was stamped across the front in red ink. I stood in my driveway and opened it, already feeling my blood pressure rise.
Dear property owner, it began. Our records indicate that you have not submitted your annual assessment of $850, nor have you registered your property with the Pineriidge Estates HOA. As a resident utilizing community resources, including road access, you are required to comply with all HOA regulations. Failure to submit payment within 30 days will result in legal action.
I read it twice to make sure I understood what they were claiming. My cabin was not in Pineriidge Estates. My deed said nothing about any HOA, and yet someone had decided I owed them money. I drove to the Pineeridge community entrance the next morning. The development was about a mile down the lake, 47 homes arranged around a private beach and a clubhouse that looked like it had been built to impress investors.
A woman was waiting at the entrance gate when I pulled up. Standing beside a golf cart with the HOA logo on the side, she introduced herself as Amber Ward, president of the Pineriidge Estates Homeowners Association, and she did not offer to shake my hand. “Mr. Meyers,” she said, pronouncing my name like it was a diagnosis.
“I was hoping you would come. We need to discuss your obligations.” I told her I had no obligations to an organization I had never joined. She smiled. The way people smile when they think they know something you don’t. The road you use to access your property runs through our community. That makes you subject to our rules. I asked her what road she was talking about.
She pointed to the gravel path that connected my cabin to the main highway, the only road in or out. That road has been maintained by Pine Ridge for 15 years. If you want to use it, you pay. I told her the road was on my property according to the deed I had signed three weeks ago. She shook her head slowly, the way a teacher corrects a child who has given the wrong answer.
The road is a shared easement, she said. It was established in 2009 when the development was built. Everyone who uses it contributes to its upkeep. I asked her to show me the easement agreement. Her smile flickered for just a moment before she recovered. I’ll have our attorney send you the relevant documents, she said.
In the meantime, I suggest you review your responsibilities before this becomes a legal matter. She climbed back into her golf cart and drove away without waiting for a response. She hadn’t shown me a single piece of paper. She hadn’t cited a single law. She had simply told me what I owed and expected me to believe her. That night, I sat at my Kit Garcia table with my property deed spread out in front of me.
I read every line, every clause, every reference to easements or shared access. There was nothing. The deed described my property boundaries in precise legal terms, 7.2 acres extending from the highway to the lake shore, including all improvements, roads, and access ways contained therein. The road Amber Ward claimed belonged to her HOA was not mentioned anywhere as a shared resource.
According to this document, I owned it outright. The county assessor’s map confirmed it. My property shown in green, the road clearly inside my boundaries. Pine Ridge starting where my land ended. No overlap, no shared easement, no connection except the fact that they had been driving across my property for 15years.
I called the county recorder’s office the next morning and asked them to search for any recorded easements on my property. The clerk typed my address into her system, waited for the results and told me what I had already begun to suspect. Sir, there are no recorded easements on this parcel. She said the only access right listed is a standard utility easement for power and water lines.
Nothing about road access for adjacent properties. I asked her specifically about anything filed in 2009 when Amber Ward claimed the easement had been established. Nothing in 2009, she confirmed. Nothing in any year. If someone is claiming an easement on your property, they would need a recorded document with the county. I don’t see one.
The Pineriidge HOA had been using my road for 15 years. They had been maintaining it, driving on it, treating it as their own. And in all that time, no one had ever bothered to check whether they actually had the right. Amber Ward had walked up to me with absolute confidence and told me I owed her money for a road that belonged to me. She wasn’t making a mistake.
She was making an assumption. The assumption that I would be too intimidated or too lazy to verify her claims. I searched for the previous owner of my property. a man named Gerald Anderson who had sold the cabin after his wife passed away. The realtor had mentioned he had moved to Florida.
It took me 20 minutes to find a phone number. When he answered, his voice was tired but friendly, the voice of a man who had seen enough of life to find most things amusing. I introduced myself and explained why I was calling. Gerald Anderson laughed a dry, knowing laugh that told me everything before he said a word. son. He said, “I built that road myself in 2005.
Paid for every load of gravel out of my own pocket. When those developers came in and started building their fancy houses, they just started using it like it were theirs. Never asked me, never offered to pay.” I figured someday somebody would notice. I asked him if he had ever permitted them. “Not once,” he said. “Not ever.
They just decided they had the right and nobody told them differently until now. So the documents arrived by certified mail 4 days after my conversation with Gerald Anderson, not one envelope three. The first was from the Pine Ridge Estates HOA marked official notice in bold letters across the top. The second was from a law firm called Henderson and Associates with an address in Asheville.
The third was a petition signed by what appeared to be every homeowner in the Pine Ridge development. Amber Ward was not making a quiet request anymore. She was mounting a full assault. I opened the HOA notice first. It was printed on heavy card stock with the Pine Ridge logo embossed in gold at the top. The kind of stationery designed to make people feel like they were receiving something important.
Dear Mr. Meyers, it began. This letter serves as formal notification that your property utilizes the Pineriidge Estates Community Road System, which is governed by an easement agreement established in 2009. As a beneficiary of this shared infrastructure, you are legally obligated to contribute to its maintenance through annual assessments.
Your current balance of $850 is past due. Failure to remit payment within 30 days will result in the following actions. Filing of a lean against your property. initiation of civil proceedings for recovery of funds and restriction of your access to community-maintained roadways. The letter was signed by Amber Ward, president, with her signature flourished across the bottom like she was signing the Declaration of Independence.
The law firm letter was worse. It was written in the cold, precise language that attorneys use when they want to intimidate without technically threatening. Our client, Pineriidge Estates Homeowners Association, has retained our services regarding your ongoing dispute over road access and assessment obligations.
It has come to our attention that you have made statements questioning the validity of the established easement agreement governing the community road system. We wish to advise you that any attempt to obstruct, limit, or interfere with the established right of way utilized by Pine Ridge residents could constitute torchious interference with property rights and may expose you to significant civil liability.
We strongly recommend that you consult with legal counsel before taking any action that could be construed as hostile to the interests of our client and the 47 families who depend on this roadway for access to their homes. It was signed by a partner named David Henderson with his bar number printed beneath his name like a badge of authority.
The petition was the most impressive piece of theater. It was three pages long with signatures from what appeared to be every adult resident of Pine Ridge Estates. At the top in large bold letters, it read, “We, the undersigned homeowners of PineriidgeEstates, hereby affirm our support for the HOA board’s efforts to enforce community standards and protect our shared resources from those who would exploit them without contribution.
We stand united in demanding that Alexander Meyers fulfill his legal obligations or face the full consequences of his refusal.” 47 signatures. 47 families who had apparently decided I was the enemy without ever meeting me. 47 people who believed whatever Amber Ward had told them. I spread all three documents across my Kit Garcia table and studied them like blueprints.
The HOA notice cited easement agreement 2009 as the legal foundation for their claims. The law firm letter referenced established right of way as if it were settled fact. The petition assumed I was exploiting something that belonged to the community. Every piece of paper in front of me was built on the same foundation and easement that according to the county recorder’s office did not exist.
They had constructed an entire legal argument on top of nothing. And they expected me to believe it because it looked official. I called the law firm the next morning and asked to speak with David Henderson. His secretary put me through after a brief hold. Henderson’s voice was smooth and professional, the voice of a man who charged $400 an hour and wanted you to know it.
I introduced myself and told him I had received his letter. Good, he said. Then you understand the seriousness of the situation. I told him I understood that he had made several claims about an easement agreement and asked if he could provide me with a copy of the document. There was a pause just long enough to notice.
The easement agreement is a matter of record, he said. I’m sure the HOA can provide you with a copy if you request one. I told him I had already checked with the county recorder’s office and found no recorded easement on my property. The pause this time was longer. I would need to verify that with my client, he said finally. But I assure you, Mr.
Meyers, the HOA has been operating under this agreement for 15 years. These matters don’t persist without legal foundation. I asked him to send me the document. He said he would follow up with the HOA and get back to me. 3 days passed. I heard nothing from Henderson and Associates. I sent a written request to the Pine Ridge HOA asking for a certified copy of the easement agreement 2009 referenced in their official notice.
I sent it by certified mail with return receipt requested, so there would be no question about whether they had received it. Amber Ward signed for the letter personally. I have the receipt with her signature. One week went by, then two. No document arrived, no phone call, no email. The easement agreement that supposedly governed my obligations and justified their threats simply never materialized.
I started keeping a file, every letter, every receipt, every timestamp. I photographed the certified mail receipts and saved them to my computer with dates and descriptions. I printed out the county recorder search results showing no easements on my property. I wrote down my conversation with Gerald Anderson, including his statement that he had never given the HOA permission to use the road.
I was building something, not a case yet, just a foundation, a record of what they had claimed and what they had failed to prove. If this went to court, I wanted every piece of paper in order. If they came after me with lawyers and leans and petitions, I wanted to be able to show exactly what had happened and when. The silence from the HOA told me everything I needed to know.
They had threatened me with legal action based on a document they couldn’t produce. They had hired an attorney who had made claims he couldn’t support. They had gathered 47 signatures from people who believed a lie. And now, when I had simply asked them to show me the proof, they had gone quiet. Amber Ward had built her entire case on the assumption that no one would ever check.
She had counted on intimidation to do the work that evidence couldn’t, but I had checked, and I had found nothing but empty paper and hollow threats. The question now was what to do about it. I could ignore them and hope they would go away. I could hire my own lawyer and wait for them to make the first move, or I could do something that Amber Ward had clearly never anticipated.
I could find out exactly how far her authority actually extended and whether the road she claimed belonged to her community had ever been anything other than mine. The silence from the HOA lasted exactly 18 days. During that time, I did not sit idle. I drove back to the county recorder’s office in person and requested the complete chain of title for my property going back 50 years.
I wanted to see every deed, every transfer, every annotation that had ever been filed. The clerk was helpful, a middle-aged woman named Patricia, who seemed genuinely interested in my situation after I explained why I neededthe records. “People come in here all the time with easement disputes,” she said while printing out the documents.
“Nine times out of 10, someone just assumed they had a right and never bothered to check. You’d be surprised how many property owners don’t even know what’s on their own deed. She handed me a stack of papers nearly an inch thick and wished me luck. I spent three nights going through those records page by page.
The history of my property was straightforward. The land had been part of a larger parcel owned by the Anderson family since 1952. Gerald Anderson had inherited it from his father in 1987 and held it until he sold it to me. There had been no subdivisions, no easements granted, no access agreements of any kind. The road I used to reach my cabin had been built by Gerald himself in 2005.
I found the original building permit in the county records, filed under his name, describing a private gravel access road for residential use. The permit made no mention of shared access. It was his road built on his land for his own purposes. When he sold the property to me, the road came with it.
That was the legal reality regardless of what Amber Ward believed. What interested me more was the history of Pine Ridge Estates. I pulled the development records from the county planning office and traced the project back to its origins. The land had been purchased by a developer named Coastal Carolina Properties in 2008. Construction began in 2009 and was completed in 2011.
The development included 47 single family homes, a community beach, a clubhouse, and according to the original plans, a private road system connecting all properties to the main highway. I studied the site plans carefully. The private road system shown in the development plans did not include my road.
It showed an internal network of streets within Pine Ridge, all of which connected to a single exit point at the southern edge of the development. That exit point led to the main highway through a completely different route than the one that crossed my property. I pulled up satellite imagery from 2009 and compared it to current photos.
The difference was immediately obvious. In 2009, the Southern Exit Road was the only access to Pine Ridge Estates. My road, the one Gerald Anderson had built, was visible in the images, but it clearly terminated at my property line. There was no connection to Pine Ridge sometime between 2009 and the present. Someone had extended that connection.
Someone had built a link between my private road and the Pine Ridge development without any recorded permission, any easement agreement or any legal right to do so. The HOA hadn’t just been using my road. They had physically modified it to serve their purposes. I needed professional help. Not just any lawyer.
I needed someone who specialized in property disputes, someone who understood easement law and could tell me exactly where I stood. I found Andrew Roberts through a colleague in Charlotte who had dealt with a boundary dispute a few years earlier. Roberts was a real estate litigation attorney based in Raleigh with 20 years of experience and a reputation for being thorough without being theatrical.
I called his office and explained my situation. He listened without interrupting, asked a few clarifying questions, and told me he could see me the following week. “Bring everything,” he said. “Every document, every photo, every piece of correspondence. I want to see the complete picture before I give you an opinion.
” I drove to Raleigh on a Tuesday morning with a banker’s box full of papers in my passenger seat. Andrew Roberts had an office in a converted Victorian house near the state capital, the kind of place that suggested competence without ostentation. He was in his early 50s with gray hair and reading glasses that he wore pushed up on his forehead when he wasn’t examining documents.
I spread everything across his conference table. The deed, the chain of title, the building permit for the road, the development records for Pine Ridge, the satellite imagery, the letters from the HOA, the lawyer’s threat, the petition, my notes from the conversation with Gerald Anderson. Robert spent nearly an hour going through it all, making notes on a yellow legal pad, occasionally asking me to clarify a date or a name.
When he finished, he leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses. “Mr. Meyers,” he said, “you have a remarkably clean case. There is no recorded easement on your property. The road was built by the previous owner for private use. The HOA has been using it without permission for approximately 15 years.
” He paused. Under North Carolina law, they could potentially claim a prescriptive easement, essentially a right acquired through long-term use, but only if they can prove continuous, open, and hostile use for 20 years, they’re 5 years short. And more importantly, prescriptive easements require that the use be adverse to the owner’s interest.
If Gerald Anderson simply tolerated their use without objection, that’s permissive use, not adverse use. Permissive use never ripens into a prescriptive easement, no matter how long it continues. I asked him what my options were. He smiled slightly, the smile of a man who enjoyed his work. You have several, he said. You could do nothing and wait for them to file suit, then defend on the merits.
You would almost certainly win, but it would take time and money. You could file a declaratory judgment action asking the court to confirm that no easement exists. That puts you on offense instead of defense. Or, he paused, you could simply exercise your property rights, send them a cease and desist letter demanding they stop using your road.
If they continue after receiving formal notice, they’re committing trespass. At that point, you would be within your rights to physically block access. I asked him about the HOA’s lawyer, about the threatening letter from Henderson and Associates. Roberts shrugged. David Henderson is a competent attorney, he said.
But he can only work with what his client gives him. If the HOA told him there was an easement agreement, he probably took them at their word. Once he realizes there’s no documentation to support their claims, he’ll advise them to settle. No lawyer wants to take an unwinable case to trial. He slid a document across the table, a draft cease and desist letter already prepared.
I took the liberty, he said. If you want to move forward, we can send this today. It gives them 30 days to respond. After that, the road is yours to do with as you please. I signed the letter. Roberts sent it by certified mail that afternoon. And then I did something else, something I hadn’t told him about.
I drove to an electronic store and bought a trail camera. The kind hunters used to monitor game paths. I mounted it on a tree at the entrance to my road, positioned to capture every vehicle that passed. If Amber Ward wanted to claim they had a right to use my property, I was going to document exactly how much they were using it. Every car, every truck, every time stamp.
When this went to court, and I was increasingly certain it would, I wanted evidence that couldn’t be disputed. The camera recorded its first vehicle 3 hours after I installed it, a white SUV with a Pine Ridge parking sticker in the window. Over the next week, it captured 214 separate trips. The HOA wasn’t just using my road occasionally.
They were using it constantly, every single day, as if it belonged to them. And now I had proof. The cease and desist letter arrived at the Pineriidge HOA office on a Thursday morning. I know this because Andrew Roberts had requested delivery confirmation, and the postal service recorded the exact time, 9:47 a.m. Amber Ward signed for it personally.
I have a copy of her signature on the receipt, the same flourished handwriting she had used on all the threatening letters she had sent me for the first 3 days after delivery. Nothing happened. No response, no phone call, no letter from Henderson and Associates explaining why my demands were unreasonable. Just silence.
the kind of silence that falls when someone realizes they have made a serious miscalculation. Roberts called me on the following Monday to discuss strategy. They’re scrambling, he said. I’ve dealt with HOAs like this before. They operate on intimidation and inertia. Most people receive a threatening letter and either pay up or hire a lawyer who tells them it’s not worth the fight.
They’re not used to someone who actually checks their claims right now. Amber Ward is probably calling every attorney in the county trying to find someone who can manufacture a legal basis for what they’ve been doing. I asked him what he thought they would do. Two possibilities, he said. Either they admit they have no easement and try to negotiate, or they double down and hope you’ll back off.
Based on what you’ve told me about Mrs. Ward, I’m guessing the latter. People like her don’t admit mistakes, they escalate. While I waited for the HOA’s response, I continued building my case. The trail camera was recording everything, every vehicle that entered and exited through my road, every license plate, every time stamp.
I created a spreadsheet tracking the data date, time, vehicle description, and direction of travel. In the first two weeks after the cease and desist was delivered, I documented 341 separate trips by Pine Ridge residents across my property. That was an average of 24 trips per day. The HOA wasn’t just occasionally using my road. They had made it the primary access point for their entire community.
Despite having a perfectly functional southern exit that connected directly to the highway, they were choosing to trespass on my land because it was more convenient. I also reached out to Gerald Anderson again. Roberts had suggested that a formal affidavit from the previous owner would strengthen my position significantly.Gerald was happy to help.
I’ve been waiting 15 years for someone to call those people out, he said when I explained what I needed. Tell me what to write and I’ll sign it. I drafted the affidavit with Roberts’s guidance and sent it to Gerald in Florida. It stated in clear legal language that he had built the road in 2005 for his personal use, that he had never granted any easement or access rights to Pineriidge Estates or its residents, that he had never received any compensation for the use of his road, and that no one from the HOA had ever asked his permission
before they started using it. Gerald signed the affidavit in front of a notary and mailed it back to me within a week. Now, I had testimony from the man who had actually built the road, confirming that the HOA’s claims were baseless. Roberts also suggested I document the physical modifications that had been made to connect my road to the Pine Ridge development.
I hired a surveyor to map the exact boundaries of my property and identify where the unauthorized connection had been constructed. The surveyor’s report was damning. Sometime around 2010, someone had extended the gravel surface of my road approximately 120 ft beyond my property line, creating a junction with the Pine Ridge internal road system.
The extension had been built without any permit, any recorded easement, or any authorization from the property owner. It was, in legal terms, an encroachment, an unauthorized physical intrusion onto private property. The HOA hadn’t just been using my road. They had literally expanded it to suit their needs without asking anyone’s permission.
I compiled everything into a master file. The deed, the chain of title, the building permit, the county recorder search results, the satellite imagery, Gerald’s affidavit, the surveyor’s report, the trail camera footage, the spreadsheet of documented trips, the cease and desist letter, and the delivery confirmation showing Amber Ward’s signature.
Every piece of evidence was organized chronologically and cross-referenced. If this went to court, I would be able to present a complete narrative supported by documentation at every step. Roberts reviewed the file and pronounced it bulletproof. The only way they win this, he said, is if they can produce an easement agreement that predates your purchase.
And we both know that document doesn’t exist. The 30-day deadline in the cease and desist letter came and went with no formal response from the HOA. According to the terms Roberts had outlined, they were now officially on notice that any continued use of my road constituted trespassing.
I could have blocked access immediately. I could have installed a gate, hired a security guard, or simply parked my truck across the entrance and dared them to move it. But Roberts advised patience. “Let them keep using it,” he said. “Every trip they make after the deadline is another documented instance of trespass. The longer this goes on, the stronger your case becomes, and more importantly, the more desperate they’ll get.
Desperate people make mistakes. I didn’t have to wait long for the mistake. On the 32nd day after the cease and desist was delivered, I received an email from a Pine Ridge resident I had never met. Her name was Susan Chen, and she lived three houses down from Amber Ward. The subject line read, “Thought you should see this.
” The email contained a single attachment, a screenshot of a post from the Pineriidge Community Message Board. The post was written by Amber Ward and it was addressed to all residents. Fellow neighbors, it began, “As many of you know, we are dealing with an outside agitator who has threatened to cut off our primary road access.
This individual, Alexander Meyers, is not a member of our community and has no stake in our well-being. He purchased the adjacent property specifically to create problems for Pineriidge families. I am asking all residents to stand firm against this act of aggression. Do not engage with Mr. Meyers.
Do not respond to any communication from him and please attend the emergency board meeting next Tuesday where we will discuss our legal options and community response. Susan Garcia had added a brief note below the screenshot. I don’t know you, but I looked up the property records after I saw this post. I think there’s more to this story than Amber is telling us. Be careful.
She’s already talking about organizing people against you. I forwarded the email to Roberts. His response was immediate. Save everything. This is exactly what I expected. She’s shifting from legal threats to social pressure when the law doesn’t work. People like Amber Ward try to win by making your life miserable. Don’t respond to her post.
Don’t engage with any residents. Let her keep talking. He paused before his final line. The more she says publicly, the more ammunition she gives us. If she crosses the line into defamation, we’ll add that to the complaint. I sat in my cabin that nightand looked out at the lake. The water was perfectly still, reflecting the last light of sunset like a mirror.
Somewhere on the other side of that water, 47 families were being told that I was their enemy. They were being organized against me by a woman who had spent 15 years using property that didn’t belong to her and was now furious that someone had finally noticed. She couldn’t beat me with lawyers or fake easement agreements.
So, she was going to try to beat me with the neighbors. What Amber Ward didn’t know was that her own words were already being documented. Every post, every email, every statement she made to her residents was creating a record. And somewhere in that community of 47 families, at least one person had decided to pay attention to the truth instead of the narrative.
Susan Garcia had just handed me something more valuable than any legal document proof that Amber was spreading information she knew to be false and evidence that not everyone in Pine Ridge believed her. The silent counter strike was working. All I had to do was wait for Amber Ward to keep talking.
The emergency HOA board meeting happened on a Tuesday evening. I wasn’t there. Of course, I hadn’t been invited. And even if I had, walking into a room full of people who had been told I was their enemy seemed like a poor strategic choice. But I heard about it. Susan Garcia sent me another email the next morning with a detailed summary of everything that had been discussed.
The meeting had lasted nearly 2 hours. And by the end of it, Amber Ward had transformed me from a stranger with a property dispute into the greatest threat Pineriidge Estates had ever faced. According to Susan’s account, Amber had opened the meeting by describing me as an outside investor who had purchased the cabin specifically to extort money from hardworking families.
She claimed I had demanded $200,000 in exchange for continued road access, a number she had apparently invented on the spot. since I had never demanded anything except that they stop using my property without permission. She told the residents that I was working with lawyers from Charlotte to bankrupt the HOA and force families out of their homes.
She painted a picture of a wealthy predator targeting a peaceful community for profit. By the time she finished, half the room was ready to march on my cabin with torches. The campaign started the next day. Someone printed flyers with my photograph and the words community threat in large red letters at the top. They appeared on telephone polls, community bulletin boards, and car windshields throughout the Pineriidge development.
The flyer described me as a hostile property speculator who was attempting to hold 47 families hostage and urged residents to stand together against outside aggression. My phone number wasn’t on the flyer, but my address was. Amber Ward wanted people to know exactly where to direct their anger. The harassment began slowly and then accelerated.
On Thursday, I found a bag of garbage dumped at the entrance to my road household trash. Food waste, empty bottles deliberately scattered across the gravel as a message. I cleaned it up and photographed everything before disposing of it. On Friday, someone spray-painted the word leave on a tree near my property line. I photographed that, too.
On Saturday morning, I woke up to find three cars parked across the entrance to my road, blocking my access completely. The drivers were nowhere to be seen. I had to call a tow company to have them removed. And even then, the tow truck driver seemed reluctant to help once I explained the situation. I don’t want to get involved in neighborhood drama, he said.
I paid him double his normal rate and watched him haul the cars to an impound lot. The social isolation spread beyond Pineriidge. The lake community was small and word traveled fast. When I went to the hardware store in town, the same store I had visited half a dozen times since moving in. The owner refused to serve me.
I’ve known the wards for 20 years, he said, not meeting my eyes. I don’t know you. I think you should shop somewhere else. The grocery store was the same. The gas station attendant glared at me as I had personally insulted his family. In the span of one week, I had become a pariah in a community I had barely joined. Amber Ward had done what the law couldn’t.
She had made me an outsider in my own home. The online attacks were worse. Someone created a page on a community website dedicated to documenting my crimes against Pine Ridge. It featured photos of my cabin, my truck, and me taken without my knowledge from somewhere on the road. The comment section was filled with accusations, threats, and speculation about my motives.
One person claimed I was a professional property flipper who had done this to communities across the Southeast. Another suggested I was being funded by outofstate developers trying to destroy rural neighborhoods. A third simply wrote, “Someone should teach thisguy a lesson.” [clears throat] I screenshot everything and sent it to Roberts.
Through all of this, I kept documenting every piece of garbage, every spray painted message, every blocked road, every refused service, every threatening comment online. I created a folder labeled harassment and added to it daily. Roberts had warned me this might happen, and he had given me clear instructions. Don’t respond. Don’t engage.
Don’t give them anything they can use against you. They want you to lose your temper, he said. They want you to say something they can quote out of context or do something they can characterize as aggressive. Your job is to stay calm, stay quiet, and let them hang themselves. The hanging happened faster than I expected. One week after the harassment began, Amber Ward made a mistake that would cost her everything.
She posted a message on the community page responding to a resident who had asked about the legal status of the road dispute. Her response was long, defensive, and increasingly unhinged. She called me a con artist, a land thief, and a danger to children. The last accusation based on nothing whatsoever.
She claimed I had fabricated the county records showing no easement. She accused me of bribing the previous owner to lie about the road’s history. And then in a moment of pure recklessness, she wrote something that made me read the screen three times to make sure I understood it. We have been using that road since before this man was even born.
It belongs to Pine Ridge by right of history and no piece of paper is going to change that. I checked the timeline. Amber Ward was 55 years old. I was 38. The Pine Ridge development was built in 2009, 15 years ago. The road had been built by Gerald Anderson in 2005, 19 years ago. There was no possible interpretation of before this man was even born that made any sense.
She had lied so confidently and so publicly that she had contradicted her own narrative. The HOA was 15 years old. The road was 19 years old. I was 38 years old. None of her numbers added up. And now that statement was preserved forever on a public forum where anyone could see it. I forwarded the screenshot to Roberts with a single question.
Is this defamation? His response came within the hour. calling you a con artist, land thief, and danger to children. Yes, that’s defamation, per se. She just handed you a second cause of action. He paused before adding, “But don’t file yet. Let her keep digging. The deeper the hole, the harder the fall.
” 2 days later, Susan Garcia sent me another email. This one had an attachment, a PDF file with no explanation except a brief note. found this in the HOA archives. Thought you might want to see it. I opened the file and felt my heart stop. It was the minutes from a Pineriidge HOA board meeting dated September 15th, 2009, just months after the development opened.
The agenda included an item titled road access discussion. The minutes recorded the following exchange. President Ward raised the issue of road access through the Anderson property. Legal council advised that no easement exists and that a formal agreement should be sought from the property owner.
President Ward proposed that the board continue using the road without a formal agreement, noting that if no one complains, it becomes ours eventually. Motion passed 4 to one. I read it again and again. Amber Ward had known from the very beginning, from the first year of the HOA’s existence that they had no right to use my road.
She had been told by her own lawyer that they needed permission, and she had deliberately chosen to ignore that advice, betting that no one would ever call her bluff. For 15 years, that bet had paid off. Gerald Anderson hadn’t complained. The residents hadn’t questioned her. The system had worked exactly the way she wanted it to.
Until I bought the cabin, until I checked the records, until I asked for proof, she couldn’t provide. Now I had everything. the county records, Gerald’s affidavit, the surveyor’s report, the trail camera footage, the harassment documentation, the defamatory posts, and the board minutes prove that Amber Ward had knowingly and deliberately trespassed on private property for 15 years while lying to her own community about their legal rights. Roberts was right.
She had dug her own grave. Now all I had to do was help her fall into it. The board minutes changed everything. I now had documentary proof that Amber Ward had known from the very first year of Pine Ridg’s existence that the HOA had no legal right to use my road. She had been advised by her own attorney to seek formal permission.
She had chosen instead to gamble on silence and complicity. That gamble had worked for 15 years. It was about to end. I spent the next three days with Andrew Roberts preparing for what he called the final act. We met at his office in Raleigh and spread every piece of evidence across his conference table, the same table where I had first laid out my case weeks earlier.
But now the stack was three times larger. The deed, the chain of title, the building permit from 2005, the county recorders search results. Gerald Anderson’s notorized affidavit. The surveyor’s report documenting the unauthorized road extension. The trail camera footage shows 412 documented trips since the cease and desist was delivered.
The spreadsheet tracking every vehicle, every time stamp, every license plate, the harassment file photographs of garbage, graffiti, and blocked roads. Screenshots of every defamatory post Amber Ward had made. And now the crown jewel the board minutes from September 2009 proving she had known the truth all along.
Roberts organized the evidence into categories property rights trespass documentation harassment, defamation and fraud. Fraud is the key, he said, tapping the board minutes with his pen. She didn’t just use your road without permission. She collected assessments from residents based on the claim that they had a legal right to use it. That’s fraud.
Every dollar Pineriidge paid for road maintenance came from homeowners who believed they were contributing to something legitimate. Amber Ward took their money, knowing the foundation was a lie. I asked him what that meant for the case. It means this isn’t just about you anymore. He said the residents are victims, too.
when they find out what she’s been doing, they’re going to turn on her faster than you can imagine. The plan was straightforward. Pine Ridge held monthly HOA meetings at the community center on the first Thursday of every month. As a property owner in the immediate vicinity, even though I wasn’t a member of the HOA, I had the right under North Carolina law to attend open meetings and request time to speak during public comment periods.
I would register in advance, show up with my documentation, and present the evidence directly to the residents who had been lied to for 15 years. Roberts would be there as my attorney, ready to address any legal questions. The goal wasn’t to win a court case in a community center. The goal was to expose the truth in front of the people who needed to hear it most.
“Let her speak first,” Roberts advised. “People like Amber Ward can’t resist the spotlight. She’ll use her opening remarks to attack you, to repeat all the lies she’s been telling, to rally the room against the outside threat. Let her. Every false statement she makes in front of witnesses strengthens our defamation claim. And more importantly, it sets up the contrast.
When you present the evidence, the actual documents, the actual records, it will be obvious that she’s been lying. I registered for the meeting on Monday morning. The HOA secretary confirmed my slot by email. Public comment period begins at 7:30 p.m. Speakers are limited to 10 minutes each. 10 minutes was more than enough.
I didn’t need to give a speech. I just needed to show them the paper trail. Susan Garcia called me that afternoon. Her voice was tense, almost whispering, as if she was afraid someone might overhear. I wanted to warn you, she said. Amber knows you registered for the meeting. She’s been making calls all day, organizing people.
She’s got three residents who are going to speak before you. They’re going to say the road has always been part of Pine Ridge, that their families have used it for generations. I asked her if that was true. Susan laughed bitterly. The development is 15 years old. Nobody’s family has been here for generations, but Amber told them what to say, and they believed her.
or they’re afraid not to. She paused. There’s something else. She’s been telling people to bring signs. Protect Pine Ridge or something like that. She wants it to look like the whole community is against you. I thanked her for the warning and asked why she was helping me. There was a long silence before she answered.
Because I read those board minutes, she said. I’ve been paying assessments for 12 years thinking I had a right to that road. She lied to all of us and someone needs to tell the truth. The week before the meeting passed slowly. I kept documenting the trail camera continued recording.
The harassment continued escalating and Amber Ward continued posting increasingly unhinged accusations on the community page. She called me a litigation terrorist. She claimed I was funded by a conspiracy of developers. She told residents that if they didn’t stand united, I would destroy their property values and force them out of their homes.
Each post was screenshot, timestamped, and added to the file. She was building my case for me, one lie at a time. On Wednesday night, less than 24 hours before the meeting, I drove out to check on my trail camera. I had been downloading footage remotely through a cloud backup service, but I liked to inspect the physical equipment periodically to make sure nothing had been tampered with.
When I reached the tree where the camera was mounted, I stopped and stared. The camera was still there, but the powercable had been cut. Someone had sliced through it cleanly, probably with wire cutters, severing the connection to the solar panel that kept it charged. The red recording light was dark.
They had found it. They had disabled it. I pulled out my flashlight and examined the ground around the tree. The soil was soft from recent rain, and I could see clear impressions in the mud footprints, size 10 or 11, with a distinctive tread pattern that looked like work boots. Whoever had done this hadn’t been careful about covering their tracks.
I photographed the footprints from multiple angles, measuring them against my own shoe for scale. Then I photographed the severed cable, the camera housing, and the surrounding area. More evidence, more documentation, more proof that someone from Pine Ridge was willing to commit crimes to protect Amber Ward’s lies.
What they didn’t know was that the camera had been uploading footage to the cloud every 6 hours since the day I installed it. Every trip, every vehicle, every timestamp was already saved on a remote server they couldn’t touch. The footage from the past two months was backed up, encrypted, and ready to be presented tomorrow night. They had cut a wire.
They hadn’t cut my evidence. Gerald Anderson called me that evening as I was driving home. His voice was tired but warm. The voice of a man who had lived long enough to recognize when something important was happening. Susan Garcia tracked me down, he said. Told me about your meeting tomorrow.
I wanted to wish you luck. I thanked him and told him his affidavit had been crucial to building the case. He was quiet for a moment. You know why I never fought them? He asked. 15 years they used my road and I never said a word. I told him I had wondered about that. I was tired, he said simply. My wife was sick for a long time before she passed.
Taking care of her took everything I had. I didn’t have the energy to fight some HOA president over a gravel road. I told myself it didn’t matter that they weren’t hurting anyone. He paused. But that’s not true, is it? Every time someone gets away with taking what isn’t theirs, it makes it easier for them to take more.
I should have stopped it when it started. I’m glad you’re stopping it now. I told him it wasn’t too late. The truth was coming out. That’s the thing about the truth, Gerald said. It doesn’t care how long you try to bury it. It always comes back up eventually. I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, running through the timeline in my head.
2005, Gerald builds the road. 2008, Coastal Carolina Properties buys the land next door. 2009, Pine Ridge opens. HOA starts using Gerald’s Road without permission. Amber Ward tells the board to keep quiet and hope no one notices. 2010 through 2023, 15 years of silence. 15 years of assessments collected under pretenses.
15 years of Amber Ward building power on a foundation of sand. 2024. I buy the cabin. I check the records and the foundation cracks. The pattern was clear now. Amber Ward had won for 15 years because everyone she faced had either been too tired, too intimidated, or too trusting to verify her claims. She had counted on human nature the tendency to believe authority, to avoid conflict, to assume that people in power must have earned it somehow.
She had exploited that tendency until it became her entire strategy. threaten, intimidate, overwhelmed with paper and signatures and official looking documents. And when someone pushed back, they attacked their reputation until they gave up. But I wasn’t giving up. I had the evidence. I had the timeline.
I had witnesses willing to tell the truth. Tomorrow night, 47 families would learn that the woman they had trusted to lead their community had been lying to them from the very beginning. Some of them would be angry at me. Some of them would be angry at her. And some of them, like Susan Garcia, would simply be relieved that someone had finally said out loud what they had suspected all along.
I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. and closed my eyes. The countdown was over. The reckoning was about to begin. The Pine Ridge Community Center was a singlestory building with beige walls and fluorescent lighting. the kind of space designed for potluck dinners and children’s birthday parties, not public confrontations.
But on that Thursday evening, it felt more like a courtroom. Every seat was taken. People lined the walls three deep. Someone had set up a projector and screen at the front of the room, and the harsh white light made everything feel overexposed, like a crime scene photograph. I counted at least four residents holding phones up to record.
Whatever happened tonight would be documented from multiple angles. There would be no dispute about what was said. I arrived at 7:15, 15 minutes before the public comment period was scheduled to begin. Andrew Roberts was already there, standing near the back with a leather briefcase containing copies of every document weplanned to present.
He nodded when he saw me, but didn’t speak. We had agreed to keep our distance until I was called to the podium. No reason to give Amber Ward ammunition to claim we were conspiring before the meeting even started. I found a spot along the sidewall where I could see both the podium and the audience.
Susan Garcia was sitting in the back row as far from amber as possible, her eyes fixed on the floor. She didn’t look at me. I understood. She had already risked enough by sending me those documents. Being seen as my ally tonight would make her life in Pine Ridge very difficult. Amber Ward sat in the front row, center seat, wearing a navy blue blazer and a string of pearls that made her look like she was attending a board meeting at a Fortune 500 company.
Her husband sat on one side of her, a thick-necked man in a golf shirt who looked like he had been dragged to the meeting against his will. On her other side sat three residents I didn’t recognize. Two men in their 60s and a woman about Amber’s age. These were the witnesses Susan had warned me about. The ones Amber had coached to testify about the road’s history.
Behind them filling the first three rows were the loyal supporters the residents who had signed the petition, who had posted threats on the community page, who had dumped garbage on my property and spray painted messages on my trees. They held handlettered signs that read, “Protect Pineriidge and Community over outsiders.
” Amber had staged this like a political rally, and she was the candidate. The HOA secretary called the meeting to order at 7:30 sharp. She ran through the standard agenda items treasurer’s report. Maintenance updates. A brief discussion about pool hours for the upcoming summer while the crowd shifted restlessly in their seats. Nobody cared about pool hours.
They were here for the main event. At 7:45, the secretary announced the public comment period and asked if anyone wished to speak. Amber Ward’s hand shot up immediately. The secretary recognized her and Amber walked to the podium with the confident stride of someone who had already won. “My fellow residents,” she began, her voice warm and measured, the voice of a leader addressing her people.
I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I know many of you have busy lives, families to care for, and jobs to attend to. The fact that you’re here shows how much this community means to you.” She paused, letting the flattery settle over the room. “As many of you know, we are facing a threat.
an outside individual, someone who is not a member of our community, who has no stake in our future, who purchased property adjacent to Pine Ridge for reasons we can only speculate about, has decided to attack the very foundation of our neighborhood.” She turned and looked directly at me. “Mr. Alexander Meyers claims that the road we have all used for 15 years, the road our children take to school, the road our elderly residents depend on for medical appointments, the road that connects us to the outside world, does not belong to us. A murmur rippled through the crowd.
He claims there is no easement. He claims we have no right to use this road and he has threatened to close it entirely to cut off 47 families from access to their own homes. Amber let the words hang in the air before continuing. But I want to share something with you tonight. Something about the history of this road, something that Mr.
Meyers, in his eagerness to extort money from hardworking families, has conveniently ignored. She gestured to the three residents in the front row. I have asked some of our longest tenur homeowners to share their memories of this community. People who were here from the very beginning. People who know the truth. The first man stood up gay-haired, weathered face, the kind of man who looked like he had spent his life working with his hands.
My name is Bill Crawford, he said. I’ve lived in Pine Ridge since 2010. 14 years and I can tell you that the road has always been part of this community. We’ve maintained it. We’ve paid for it. We’ve treated it as our own since day one because it is our own. The second man and the woman echoed similar sentiments 14 years, 12 years, always been ours, always will be.
They spoke with conviction, with righteous anger, with the certainty of people who had been told what to believe and had never thought to question it. When they finished, Amber returned to the podium. You see, she said, “This isn’t about legal technicalities. This isn’t about pieces of paper filed in some dusty county office. This is about history.
This is about community. This is about the simple truth that we have been using this road, maintaining this road and depending on this road for 15 years and no outsider is going to take that away from us. The crowd applauded, signs waved. Amber smiled at a woman who had just delivered a knockout blow. She returned to her seat without acknowledging me, without offering me achance to respond, as if the matter were already settled.
The secretary cleared her throat. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak during the public comment period? I raised my hand. The room went quiet. I could feel every eye on me as I walked to the podium. Hostile eyes, suspicious eyes, a few curious eyes, wondering what the villain of this story could say in his own defense.
I reached the podium and adjusted the microphone. Then I opened my briefcase and began. My name is Alexander Meyers, I said. I purchased the cabin adjacent to Pine Ridge 8 weeks ago. On my third day as a property owner, I received a letter demanding that I pay $850 in HOA assessments for a community I do not belong to. When I questioned this demand, I was told that the road I use to access my property is a shared easement established in 2009.
I was threatened with legal action if I did not comply. I paused. I’m an engineer by training. When someone tells me something is true, I verify it. So, I did. I connected my laptop to the projector. The screen lit up with the first document. This is the deed to my property. Section 4, paragraph 2, describes the boundaries.
It includes, and I quote, all improvements, roads, and access ways contained therein. The road Mrs. ward claims belongs to Pine Ridge is entirely within my property boundaries. I own it. I clicked to the next slide. This is the result of a search I conducted at the county recorder’s office. I asked them to find any recorded easements on my property, any document that would give Pine Ridge the legal right to use my road. I let the screen speak for itself.
The search result was highlighted in yellow. No recorded easements found. There is no easement, I said. There never was. Not in 2009, not ever. The murmuring in the crowd grew louder. I saw Bill Crawford shift uncomfortably in his seat. I clicked again. This is a building permit filed in 2005 by Gerald Anderson, the previous owner of my property.
It authorizes the construction of, and I quote, a private gravel access road for residential use. Mr. Anderson built the road himself with his own money for his own purposes. He never granted permission for anyone else to use it. I pulled out a document and held it up. This is a notorized affidavit from Mr. Anderson, who is now 72 years old and living in Florida.
He states under oath that he never permitted Pine Ridge to use his road, that no one from the HOA ever asked his permission, and that the first time he learned they were using it was after the development opened in 2009. I clicked on the surveyor’s report. This shows that sometime around 2010, someone extended the gravel surface of my road approximately 120 ft to create a junction with the Pine Ridge internal road system.
This extension was built without any permit, without any authorization from the property owner, and without any recorded easement. In legal terms, it’s called an encroachment and unauthorized physical intrusion onto private property. The room was silent now. No more murmuring, no more signwaving. Just 47 families are beginning to realize that the foundation of their community’s access was built on nothing.
I clicked on the trail camera footage. After I sent a cease and desist letter to the HOA demanding they stop using my road. I installed a camera to document continued trespassing. The screen showed a montage of vehicles, cars, trucks, SUVs, all with Pine Ridge parking stickers entering and exiting through my road.
A counter in the corner ticked upward with each trip. In the 8 weeks since the cease and desist was delivered, I have documented 412 separate instances of trespass, an average of seven trips per day. Every single one of these trips was made after the HOA received formal legal notice that they had no right to use my property.
A woman in the middle of the room raised her hand. Mrs. Ward, she said, her voice cutting through the tension. He’s saying there’s no easement. You told us there was an easement agreement from 2009. Can you show us the document? Amber Ward stood up slowly. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady. The easement agreement is a matter of internal HOA records, she said.
I don’t have it with me tonight, but I can assure you, the woman interrupted. You’ve had 8 weeks since this dispute started. You told us there was a document. Where is it? Amber opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. The silence stretched for 5 seconds, 10 seconds. The woman sat down, shaking her head. I clicked on the final slide.
I want to show you one more document, I said. This is from the Pine Ridge HOA board minutes, dated September 15th, 2009, just months after this development opened. I read the words slowly, letting each one land. President Ward raised the issue of road access through the Anderson property.
Legal council advised that no easement exists and that a formal agreement should be sought from the property owner. President Ward proposed that the board continue usingthe road without formal agreement, noting that, and I quote, “If no one complains, it becomes ours eventually.” Motion passed 4 to 1. The room erupted. People shouted questions.
Someone yelled. “Is this true?” another voice demanded. “You knew. You knew this whole time.” Amber Ward rose from her seat. Her face no longer pale but flushed red with fury. “That document is fake,” she shouted. “He fabricated it. He’s trying to destroy our community.” But even as she spoke, I could see the doubt spreading through the room.
The people who had been her loyal supporters were looking at her differently now. not with admiration, but with suspicion. Then Amber made her final mistake. She turned and pointed at Susan Chen, who was still sitting in the back row, trying to make herself invisible. You, Amber, screamed. You gave him those documents. You’re the traitor.
You’ve been working against this community from the beginning. Susan Garcia looked up, her face pale, but her voice steady. I gave him the truth,” she said quietly. “Someone had to.” The crowd turned to look at Susan, then back at Amber. The accusation had confirmed what everyone was now beginning to suspect the documents were real, and Amber Ward had known all along.
Andrew Roberts stepped forward and addressed the room. My name is Andrew Roberts. I’m Mr. Myers’s attorney. Based on the evidence presented tonight, we will be filing a lawsuit against the Pine Ridge Estates HOA for trespass, fraud, and defamation. We will also be referring this matter to the county prosecutor’s office for potential criminal charges related to vandalism of my client’s property and fraudulent collection of assessments.
He paused, letting the words sink in. For any residents who participated in the harassment campaign against Mr. Myers, the garbage dumping, the graffiti, the blocking of his road. I strongly advise you to consult with your own legal counsel. Continuing to trespass on Mr. Meyer’s property after tonight will result in individual lawsuits against each person involved.
Amber Ward stood frozen at the front of the room, surrounded by people who had trusted her and now looked at her like a stranger. Her husband was already walking toward the exit. The three witnesses she had coached were staring at the floor and in the back of the room. Susan Garcia finally met my eyes and gave me a small sad nod.
The meeting was over. The truth was out. And Amber Ward’s 15-year gamble had finally come due. The aftermath came faster than I expected. Amber Ward resigned from the HOA board the following morning, not voluntarily, but after an emergency phone vote by the remaining board members who wanted to distance themselves from the scandal before it consumed them, too.
Her husband filed for divorce 3 weeks later. The county prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into fraudulent collection of assessments and Henderson and associates formally withdrew as HOA council, citing irreconcilable differences with client leadership. Within a month, the woman who had ruled Pineriidge for 15 years had lost everything she had built.
The legal consequences were substantial. Andrew Roberts filed our lawsuit as promised trespass, fraud, defamation. The new HOA board, led by Susan Garcia as interim president, chose not to fight. They couldn’t afford to. And more importantly, they knew they would lose. The settlement included full reimbursement of my legal fees, a formal written apology published to all residents, and Amber Ward’s permanent ban from holding any leadership position in the community.
The county investigation resulted in a referral for potential criminal charges against Amber for fraudulent misrepresentation. Though the prosecutor ultimately declined to pursue them in exchange for her cooperation and full admission of wrongdoing, the question of the road remained. The new board approached me 2 weeks after the settlement was finalized.
Susan Garcia came to my cabin personally, looking exhausted but determined. We need to discuss access, she said. The southern exit adds 20 minutes to everyone’s commute. Some of our elderly residents can’t make that drive safely. We’re prepared to offer you $75,000 for a permanent easement. I invited her inside and poured two cups of coffee.
Then I told her my answer. I didn’t want their money. I had never wanted their money. What I wanted was to be left alone, to enjoy the property I had purchased, to live my life without being threatened or harassed or lied about. I told Susan I would grant an easement not to the HOA, but to the residents individually.
The road would remain open, but there were conditions the easement would be formally recorded with the county. The apology would be read aloud at the next community meeting and every resident who had participated in the harassment campaign would acknowledge in writing that they had acted wrongly. No money would change hands. I wasn’t interested in profit.
I was interested in respect. Susan Garciastared at me for a long moment. Why? She finally asked. After everything they did to you, why would you give them anything? I thought about Gerald Anderson, who had built the road with his own hands and watched strangers claim it as their own. I thought about the 15 years of silence, the lies compounding on lies, the assumption that power meant never having to prove anything.
Because winning doesn’t mean destroying, I said. It means setting things right. The easement was recorded on a Tuesday afternoon in late spring. I stood at the county clerk’s office and watched my signature go into the permanent record, a document that would outlast all of us. That would define the relationship between my property and Pine Ridge for generations to come.
The road was still mine. But now it was shared legally, transparently, with the consent of the actual owner, the way it should have been from the beginning. A month later, I was repairing the fence along my property line when a pickup truck pulled over. The driver was one of the men who had blocked my road during the harassment campaign.
I recognized his face from the trail camera footage. He climbed out, walked over, and stood there for a moment without speaking. Then he picked up a fence post and helped me set it in the ground. We worked in silence for 20 minutes. When we finished, he nodded once and drove away. No apology, no explanation, just a small act of acknowledgement that things had changed.
I sit on my porch most evenings now, watching the sun set over the lake. Cars from Pine Ridge still pass by on the road, my road, but the drivers wave instead of glaring. Some of them stop to chat. A few have become something like friends. The cabin is everything I hoped it would be. Quiet, peaceful. Mine. Last week, a young couple moving into Pine Ridge knocked on my door. They had heard the story.
Everyone in the area had heard the story by now, and they wanted to meet the man who owned the road. The woman asked me the question everyone eventually asks. You could close it anytime you want, couldn’t you? You still have that power. I looked out at the lake, at the road winding through the trees, at the community that had tried to destroy me and failed.
Power isn’t about what you can take, I said. It’s about what you choose not to. They thanked me and left. I watched their car disappear down the road, and I thought about Gerald Anderson’s words from months ago, “The truth always comes back up eventually.” He was right. It just needed someone willing to dig.
