“What did Vance say?” Kenneth asked, stepping up onto the sand ridge beside me with his radio headset around his neck.

“He says my spot is being held,” I said.

Kenneth took a roll of heavy rubber tape and a brass scraper out of his tool belt.

“Then we’ve got two hours to get three hundred pounds of World War II iron out of this dune before your boy takes the auditorium stage.”

I looked out at the waterline, where gray waves broke on the shore thirty yards from our yellow perimeter stakes.

The morning tide was creeping up the slope, wetting the sand around my boots and leaving a dark edge of sea foam by our gear crates.