Then, beyond the worst barrier, the ground opened. The brush was still tall, but it stood in smaller islands around the trunks of large trees instead of forming one continuous wall. Nora could see several yards between the nearest rows. She walked slowly, realizing that the spacing of the newly exposed trunks matched the intervals marked in Tess's ledger.
There were more than they had imagined. Some stood tall and healthy beneath crowns crowded by vines. Others were hollow shells with living branches attached to one side. Still others had fallen years ago and lay beneath a tangled roof of blackberries. Stumps occupied missing positions in the rows so consistently that Tess no longer felt embarrassed drawing them as part of the pattern.
Near the middle of the cross lane, Clover stepped onto a hard edge beneath the leaves and stopped. Nora heard the change in sound and went to look. A corner of pale concrete showed through the soil, worn smooth on one side and broken on the other. She cleared the leaves and discovered that the edge extended farther than a stone or discarded foundation block should.
They worked carefully around it until the outline of a low slab emerged. Several rusted bolts still rose from the surface, and a pipe ran from the slab toward the numbered tree rows. It looked like the remains of a pump platform or an equipment stand, though the machinery itself was long gone. The concrete was cracked and invaded by roots, and a broad patch of moss covered its northern edge.
Tess stood beside the slab, holding the measuring tape. "That makes the old water line harder to explain away."
"It does."
"Somebody built this for the trees."
"Probably."
"Mom."
Nora smiled. "All right. Somebody probably planted the trees and probably watered them. Can we agree to let Wade tell us what they are?"
Wade arrived late that afternoon with a folding saw, a hand lens, and the kind of slow interest that made Nora suspect he had been waiting for this invitation. He inspected the slab first, tracing the direction of the pipe into the ground. Then he studied the tree positions, the low trunk swellings, and the bark ridges, stopping beneath a branch where several old husks still clung high overhead.
He used his saw only to remove a dead vine blocking his view. He did not cut into living wood. At the fifth tree, he lifted a fallen husk and turned it between his fingers. Its shape made him look up again, searching the canopy as though verifying the last piece of a thought he had been carrying from one tree to the next.
"This is a working pecan orchard," he said at last.
Tess made a sound halfway between laughter and a gasp. Nora stared at Wade, waiting for the qualification he always attached to hopeful statements. For once, he did not offer one immediately.
"Grafted trees," he continued. "The swellings are old unions, though some have nearly grown over. Somebody chose and planted these with production in mind. The spacing is orchard spacing. The irrigation line and equipment base fit the same picture. You've got mature pecans under all this."