The attorney hesitated.
“We’ll need to review.”
May knew.
They did not.
David knew too.
He said only:
“Do that.”
The sheriff sealed the tractor from sale pending ownership review.
May’s seventy-five-dollar bid disappeared into legal uncertainty.
By afternoon, the county knew everything.
By evening, somebody had posted photographs online.
By the following morning, antique tractor forums across the Midwest were discussing XFD-17-004.
Most people declared it fake.
Others argued violently that the frame features matched an obscure experimental series.
One collector from Iowa offered May ten thousand dollars without seeing it.
Another from Wisconsin offered thirty.
She declined both because she did not own it yet.
Henry arrived at the Cutler farm that morning with coffee and three binders.
May met him inside Samuel’s old workshop.
The room still smelled faintly of oil, dust, and wood smoke.
Henry placed the binders on the bench.
“What are those?”
“Old Deere records, magazine copies, dealer bulletins, collector notes.”
“You keep all that?”
“I have hobbies.”
“This looks like an illness.”
“That too.”
They searched.
The experimental prefix appeared twice.
A 1971 service bulletin referenced a group of field-development units built during evaluation of a hydraulic and transmission configuration.
Serial prefix XFD.
Twenty units.
Most returned to factory.
Four assigned to regional evaluators.
One listed as:
004 — Nebraska field service, custodian S. Cutler.
May sat down.
“My dad.”
Henry nodded.
“How did he get it?”
“Maybe he wasn’t just repairing neighbors’ tractors back then.”
“He would’ve been seventeen.”
Henry frowned.
“Samuel born fifty-four?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe your grandfather?”
May checked.
S. Cutler.
Samuel.
But perhaps records reused custody later.
Henry read again.
“1974 update.”
Unit 004 retained offsite for extended service evaluation under Cutler Repair Cooperative.
Samuel had started working with his uncle at Cutler Repair around nineteen.
Possible.
May found another note.
Handwritten by Samuel years later.
004 never formally reclaimed. Ownership transferred through dealer settlement? Need title search.
The question mark bothered her.
He himself had not known whether he legally owned it.
Then another page fell from inside a manual.
An envelope.
May recognized Samuel’s handwriting.
MAY — IF YOU EVER CARE ABOUT OLD GREEN IRON
She stared.
Henry quietly stepped away.
May opened it.
The letter was short.
May,
If you found this, either you finally became curious or Henry talked too much.
Henry called from across the shop:
“Unfair.”
May laughed through sudden tears.
She kept reading.
There is one tractor I never finished sorting out. Unit 004. Your grandfather and I worked on it when I was young. Deere left it with the regional dealer during a field program. Years later the dealer failed, inventory changed hands, and nobody came looking for 004.
Your grandfather bought several assets from the settlement, including what everyone believed was ordinary used equipment. I found the factory number much later.
Calvin Rusk learned about it in 2004 when he bought records from the old dealership estate. He tried three times to buy the tractor. I refused because I wanted proof of title before selling anything rare.
May’s hands shook.
I moved 004 to the south shed because the main barn leaked. When your mother got sick, I sold the south parcel to Calvin. The contract excluded machinery because I intended to move it later. I did not. That was my mistake.
If I’m gone and he claims the tractor was abandoned, look in the red ledger under 1976. Your grandfather paid for it.
May lowered the letter.
Henry stared.
“Red ledger.”
She was already moving.
Samuel had kept dozens of ledgers.