Trust Issues

Margaret Kerr has one shot at the last six hundred acres within reach of Ketchum, and the whole valley is watching her take it. She runs the Boulder Fork Land Trust. She has been here two years. Half the town still says "Margaret" like a summons.August Nyland wants the same ground. Architect, first-time developer, his own name and his own money on the line, and reasonable in public in a way she finds unforgivable.Then a box of old paperwork gives up a clause the rancher's lawyer buried on purpose. The gift holds only if the land is worked and lived on by people who actually work in this valley. Preserved and idle, it voids and reverts to an eighty-year-old widow with a blue heeler and opinions.So the preservationist and the developer become the only two people who can read the deed. The archive has a door that locks.They take separate cars. The town, which has been running a pool since June, is polite about it.Every week they keep this quiet costs one of them the thing they came here for.