He dragged a heavy yellow metal locator through the tall clover near my garden bed, the machine giving off a low, rhythmic hum that ticked like an old kitchen clock.

I watched him from the edge of my patio, holding my coffee cup with both hands to keep them steady.

“There should be an iron pin right about here,” Carl said.

His voice was a low, gravelly drawl that sounded like stones sliding down a wooden chute.

He stopped, wiped his forehead with a faded blue handkerchief, and stuffed it back into his rear pocket.

“The county records show the original parcel was split in nineteen seventy-four,” I said, adjusting my glasses on my nose.