The Seed Librarian Brought Receipts To A Meeting About Vegetables

Leila did not touch my phone.

"Save the message before you answer," she said.

I saved it, with the time showing. Then I called Orson back.

"Those cases aren't yours."

"Everything underground was Amos's. Everything of Amos's is mine. It's simple."

"The deposit slips say otherwise."

"Then bring me a judge by six."

He ended the call.

We spread papers across my kitchen table. Leila put a clean towel beneath her binder because my table still held limestone dust. She did it without a word. That small care made me feel worse than Orson's shouting had.

I should have checked the power the morning after the funeral. I had let grief make a calendar with no dates.

"You didn't throw the switch," she said.

"I knew he wanted the land."

"Wanting land doesn't require taking other people's beans."

She wrote the number of each case from Orson's picture. Cases fourteen, twenty-two, and thirty-one. Their contents appeared on nine pages, with each lot assigned to a grower.

The full vault held 117 lots for twenty-four families. Three cases could carry a great deal of someone else's spring.

I called Ruth Danner, a local lawyer who had once hired me to find where a sinkhole crossed a boundary.

"Can you see us today?"

"What kind of today?"

"Before six."

She gave us twenty minutes at two thirty.

On the drive through Mountain View, I passed people unloading fiddle cases near the square. I had grown up hearing music drift between parked trucks. That day, every open case made me think of a lid left up in warm air.

Ruth's office had a crooked screen door and a clock that clicked hard enough to hear from the hall.

She read the will first.

"He can leave you out," she said. "Was there a newer will?"

"Not that I know."

Then she read my deed.

She moved her coffee away from it.

"When did you record this?"

"Four years ago. Amos went with me."

"And you accepted the gift?"

"Signed the receipt. Paid the recording fee. Took over the repairs."

The deed described a chamber in three dimensions. It also granted access along the existing lane and passage, plus the right to maintain power and ventilation. A land surveyor named Ellis Rowe had prepared the attached description from surface control points and my underground measurements.

Amos had hired Ellis himself. He had told me that my work deserved another set of eyes before it became a boundary.

Ruth looked at the date, the acknowledgment, and the recording stamp.

"I want a certified copy directly from the circuit clerk," she said. "And the full title record. This is a strong place to begin. It isn't a reason to cut his lock yourself."

"I brought ice. That's as bold as I got."

She almost smiled.

Leila opened her binder next.

"These families kept ownership," she said. "He has no right to charge for release."

Ruth read the slips. She took down the names of growers willing to join the case and testify. Then she asked for Orson's invoices and the power notice.

"What can you afford today, Jasper?"

"Twelve hundred dollars."

It was the money for new tires and a replacement laser rangefinder.

"I'll take that as a retainer. We'll keep a cost sheet."

Leila called growers while Ruth worked. Nobody had to guess what was being asked. They could send their slips, state what they owned, and choose whether to join.

Six had already paid Orson $350 each.

One was a widow named Willa Pike. She had used money set aside for her propane tank.

"Tell her to keep the bank receipt," Ruth said.

I went to the clerk's office before it closed. The woman behind the counter found the instrument number. I watched her compare the book image with my copy.

"Need the attached drawing too?" she asked.

"Every page, please."

She turned the monitor toward me long enough to check the address. My name appeared beside the chamber description. It had been there all four years, whether Orson bothered to search for it or not.

The seal made a hard little dent in the certified pages.

I had carried surveying gear through water above my waist. I had never carried anything back to my truck so carefully.

At five sixteen, Ruth called Orson with us sitting across from her desk.

"Preserve all deposits and return access," she said. "You have the documents by email."

"Five thirty," he said. "Your boy pays by five thirty now."

Ruth wrote the new deadline on her pad.

Then her printer woke behind her, and the first page slid out bearing the words Complaint For Injunction And Declaratory Relief.