Eli looked at the missing pages.
Nothing.
Ellis tapped the table.
“History is not enough if nobody can connect it to the legal record.”
Eli hated that answer.
But understood it.
Saturday morning, instead of attending another auction, Eli walked the valley.
He brought the old survey.
Compass.
Ruler.
Notebook.
Measuring tape.
The iron marker.
Ellis followed in the pickup.
The old map contained reference points.
Stone walls.
Large trees.
Creek bends.
Road intersections.
Fence corners.
Some survived.
Some did not.
A barn shown in 1928 was now only a stone foundation.
One road had shifted forty feet.
A huge oak used as a reference point had fallen years earlier, leaving a stump broad enough for Eli to stand inside its decayed center.
They worked forward from surviving features.
Measurements.
Angles.
Distances.
The old survey began aligning with the landscape.
Not perfectly.
Land changed.
But enough.
By afternoon, they reached the northern edge of the valley.