The next morning I got up, got dressed, took a wire brush and my reading glasses out to the rock above the brook, and cleaned off the old brass survey disc set beneath Evelyns reading bench, the one we found in 1968 the day we bought the land and never told a soul about, and what it proved sent the timber company off my hill.
The foresters GPS had told him my east line was off by six hundred feet, that the whole stand of pine along the brook was on the companys land, that theyd cut it this winter, that I had a bad knee and they had lawyers.
He did not know about the disc under the bench.
The brass disc Evelyn and I found in 1968 is the original federal survey monument, the true corner of our property, and it proves the real line runs six hundred feet the companys way, which means the pines along the brook are not just mine, part of the stand the company planned to cut is on my land, not theirs.
A GPS survey guesses from the maps. An original monument set in stone is the law of the land, and it beats any new survey every time. Evelyn and I found it the day we bought the two hundred acres, a little brass disc in the rock she later set her bench on, and we kept it our secret, because it felt like ours.
I had a licensed surveyor come out, an honest one, and he found the disc and tied it in and confirmed it. The company had their line six hundred feet wrong, in their own favor, and if anybody was cutting on somebody elses land it was them planning to cut on mine.
When the forester came back with his blue paint, I did not argue. I handed him the surveyors report and I showed him the federal monument under Evelyns bench and I said, we will see, I told you. The real corner is right here in this rock, and its been here since before your company drew its map. Those pines are mine, six hundred feet of your claim is mine, and if a single one comes down this winter, your lawyers and mine will have a lot to discuss.
They rechecked. They apologized, which timber companies rarely do. Not a tree came down. The stand along the brook still stands.
Youve got a bad knee, he told me, like that settled it. I have a bad knee and a brass disc Evelyn and I found in 1968, and the disc outranks the knee. I still limp out to her bench above the brook every morning. I can still feel her there, among the pines a survey nearly stole, the pines she loved, standing safe because we kept one small secret set in stone for fifty-seven years.