Wyatt stared at the pasture out the window. His mother had been part Nez Perce. She had asked me, right before she died, to help bring the people home if I ever could.
“Dad,” Wyatt said, his voice thick. “If you do this, Corrine is going to find out exactly three hours too late.”
“That is exactly the plan.”
When a private party sells land to a federally recognized Indian tribe, it does not trigger county review boards or HOA notices. The transaction is private. And once the tribe takes title, they possess the full sovereign rights of any landowner, including the absolute right to terminate unrecorded encroachments.
I met with Margaret Broncho, the executive director of the Homeland Project, that Thursday. I offered her 2,260 acres, leaving millions of dollars of fair market value on the table, on one condition: we had to close in 61 days.
Margaret didn’t blink. The tribal council voted unanimously on Monday.
