Dad handed the sheet back to me without another word, but his jaw tightened until the muscle near his ear stood out like a cord.

“Did he try to file anything against the farm or your name?” Dad asked.

“I’m driving down to the county registrar right now to check,” I said.

“Take my pickup,” Dad said.

“The tank’s full and the air conditioning works.”

The basement office of the county registrar smelled of old paper binders and floor wax.

The clerk, a woman named Martha who had gone to high school with my mother, pulled three heavy leather-bound land ledgers from the oak wall rack.

She tapped her keyboard twice and turned the flat-screen monitor three inches toward my side of the counter.