Inherit the Land is the story of Jo Shelby Ferguson’s return from Mexico to the Mississippi Delta and of his reunion with his childhood sweetheart, Athen, the daughter of the landowner Jo Shelby believes illegally possesses land that belongs to his family. Athen learns of his designs, which includes returning part of the land to the Negroes farming it. Sparks fly. She leaves him. Her two nefarious brothers abduct him and leave him in the middle of the night—bound, gagged and hooded in a cotton field.

Miraculously, Jo Shelby frees himself. With the aid of an aged attorney, and after considerable legal mining of ancient county land documents, the attorney discovers a cloud on the land title dating back to 1885 when the property was lost in a crap game…while the old colonel Calvin T. Ferguson, owner of the land, was still alive in Mexico.

A dramatic, emotional court battle ensues. The plantation blacks, also aware of Jo Shelby’s ultimate plans, fill the courtroom. Athen strides in with her family. With the aid of his aging sidekick, Jo Shelby serves as his own attorney. A climactic pivotal moment occurs when he faces Athen on the witness stand and discovers she is on his side. Months later, the judge rules that a “material fact was possibly concealed when the deed changed hands.” There was a cloud on the title. Jo Shelby has sixty days to find the original will.

In the final scene, he is on a bus returning to Mexico to find the will. Unexpectedly, when the bus stops at Indianoloa, Athen, boards the bus: “I thought it might prove interesting, us headed in the same direction for once. Besides, I couldn’t let you go traipsing off to Mexico where some señorita might grab you.” She is unaware of Jo Shelby’s Mexican girlfriend.