At a quarter to noon Arthur set the 1984 deeds on the evidence table and the room went quiet.

Frank had found them in the trunk, wrapped in an oilcloth that was older than my daughter, and they carried my grandfather’s hand-drawn survey lines in faded pencil.

“Your Honor,” Arthur said, “the encumbrance claims the south sixty acres.

The original survey, filed with the county in 1984, shows the boundary thirty feet further east, and it shows a right-of-way that does not appear on the mortgage application.”

Then he called the handwriting man, a retired examiner from Raleigh who had driven in that morning.