Trespass

I knew I was in trouble the second I saw him take a picture.

He wasn’t coming up the hill to greet me. He wasn’t coming up the hill to say “Howdy, partner” or “You must be my new neighbor.” No. His climbing posture said it all. He was coming up the hill with a sense of urgency. The look on his face said business, even if the jeans, work shirt, and ball cap said farmer.

I might have said “Good morning” or some such pleasantry. I was maybe 20 feet up the hill, on a pretty steep section of trail. And his response? To take out his phone and snap a photo of me. Two.

“What are you doing here? Who gave you permission to walk on my property? Do you know you’re on my property? Well, then, how come you don’t know?”

Gulp.

This happened two weeks ago. In late May, my wife and I moved to a house, west of Durango, in a town called Mancos. We have 17 acres; our neighbor has 400. And there is tons of BLM (federal) property everywhere. It feels, well, open.

There’s a path from our property that leads up to the west, and I had followed it to a gap in the fence. The gap is big enough to drive a big bulldozer through. There is zero signage. After the fence, a trail leads straight up to the south along the fence to a high spot.

Me? I love high spots.

So my dog Aspen & I had walked up to this spot a few times, no problem. I carry my big Sony RX-10 camera with a zoom lens. The land is completely undeveloped, dominated by scrub oak, sage, and wild grasses. The farmhouses and barns are a few hundred yards away. If I was technically walking on another person’s property, it certainly didn’t seem to me that I was doing any damage. I certainly meant no harm.

“No,” he informed me. “Never again.”

I apologized profusely. I told him I was new to the area (while also trying to get my dog to understand the importance of looking chagrined.) In case you’re wondering, I did not take a photo of him.

I certainly understood the principle of trespassing, but my neighbor’s anger made me feel it in my bones. I was very glad I didn’t see a six-shooter on his hip.

My heart thumped. He made me wait. He wanted me to stay in the spot where I’d been “caught” until his folks came to read me the riot act—just in case I hadn’t heard it from him. They never showed up; he stormed off through the scrub.

Sure, he could have been much more chill about the situation. Just taking photos? No problem. You want to hike up here once a month or something? Sure, now we’ll know it’s you.

Alas, no.

Trespass. Such a fundamental wrong—in life, and in fiction. How many times has one of your characters had to step onto another’s property to accomplish their goals? Whether it’s snooping through a lover’s text history or sneaking into an office at night to dig through files, the trespass trope is almost a given.

My point? Don’t shrug it off. This can and should be a point of genuine tension, whether it’s internal wrestling over whether to tread on another’s property or getting caught doing so.

Of course, if your main character is a lifelong burglar, that might a whole other story. But otherwise, stepping onto another person’s property, figuratively or literally, will tell us lots about your characters. Whenever I need to write a scene like this, I know precisely what real-life moment I’ll be conjuring up.

And I won’t need a photo for reference.