My heavy brass padlock had been cut clean through with bolt cutters and left in the grass like a broken tooth.

In its place, a heavy steel logging chain was wound three times around the iron post and fastened with a square gray padlock I’d never laid eyes on.

I reached out and touched the cold steel of the new lock.

A white plastic tag hanging from the shackle had the initials B.K. written across it in thick black marker.

Ten feet beyond the gate, bolted at eye level to the trunk of a young white oak, was a black box about the size of a paperback.