Lucas bent down and picked up another rock. This one was smooth, although one side had cracked, leaving a sharp edge. “This one will work,” he said, and dropped it into the canvas bag, where it clattered against the others.

“I’m having no luck at all,” said his friend Rex. Rex was on wildflower duty, but a late frost two nights ago had left a lot of the flowers brown and withered.

“Couldn’t we buy Karl a wedding present? Like normal people?” asked Pete. He was supposed to be on the lookout for fallen feathers.

Lucas stood and scowled. "Sure, let’s go buy him a can opener. That’ll be a lot more meaningful than reminders of when we were all kids playing out here together.”

“At least the can opener would involve us going inside where it’s warm.”

“This is important,” said Rex. “First Simon gets engaged, now Karl is the getting married…our little circle of friends just gets smaller and smaller.”

“No sense getting weepy about it,” said Pete. “We’re the last of our breed, and that’s the way life is. Three lone wolves, enjoying our solitude.”

Lucas laughed. “Lone wolves? Really?”

“Howling at the moon on a desolate mountaintop,” said Pete.

“I mean, I know what wolves are. But there are three of us.”

Pete nodded. “Right. Three lone wolves.”

“Do you even know what the word lone means?” said Lucas.

“Well, I miss both guys,” said Rex. “By now, Karl would be telling us that picking flowers and taking away rocks was destroying the environment, and Simon would be chiding Pete for not dressing warmly enough.”

“Hold on,” said Lucas. Something had caught his eye in the distance. Small things, bright orange, artificially bright.

Pete and Rex came up beside him and looked where he pointed.

“Survey flags?” said Rex.

“Looks like it,” said Lucas. “Come on.”

They were deep into Lucas’ property now. Well, not his, not yet. The land still belonged to his father. But the Phelps property had been in his family for generations, and he’d been coming out here since he was tiny. It felt like a part of him, and he knew every inch of it. So these orange flags were a surprise. Surprises only meant one thing: trouble.

As they reached the flags, more evidence surrounded them. Lucas stared at the tire tracks and footprints on the ground. “They were busy, whoever they are,” he said.

“Pretty recently, too,” said Pete, nudging the toe of his shoe against the dirt. “Look how sharp the tracks are.”

Much of the Phelps land was flat, with rich dark soil that had sustained their farm and their fortune for nearly two hundred years. Here, though, near the boundary-line, the land began to roll, to get rockier, until it turned into the foothills and quarries of the neighboring property.

“Isn’t that…Cray land?” Pete asked, pointing off into the distance.

The Crays. Lucas was immediately uncomfortable, just hearing their name.

His family and the Crays had been feuding since they first settled the county, ages and ages ago. Bitter enemies, generation after generation, each new child taught the litany of all the Cray sins.

The guys were looking at him now. He knew what they were expecting: A sneer, a scowl, some symbol of his hatred of the Crays, especially the two Cray brothers, Ash and Callum.

Sometimes I wish I’d been born into a different family, he thought. It was so much effort, people expecting you to have arch-enemies. How do you have an enemy, when you’re an adult? How do you hate anyone? Life was busy enough, without harboring those kinds of feelings.

But he sneered at the boundary-line, as though Ash and Callum were standing there glaring at them.

It was then, while staring at the boundary, that he realized the survey flags crossed over from his land to theirs.

Okay, that is weird.

“Are these flags something to do with the Crays?” asked Pete.

“Not everything that happens in the world is part of a Cray plot,” said Lucas, although it was pretty puzzling. “Why would they be on my property? More to the point, how could they be on the property, without me or my dad knowing?”

Rex looked down to their right, where the land gently sloped down. “Maybe it’s for utilities? Could they be planning power-lines through here?”

Lucas shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so…again, seems like my dad would have told me.”

Although I really don’t want to ask my dad about it. He has gotten so hard to talk to lately.

Pete said, “As much as I’d like to stand here and speculate about what the Crays are up to this time, maybe we should forget about it, and get back to collecting our big Nature Presents for Karl’s wedding. Because, as I’ve pointed out a few times now, brrrr I’m cold.”

This wasn’t something Lucas could forget about, or put out of mind. Maybe it wasn’t something he could explain to anyone else, because what Pete was saying made sense: They needed to finish this up.

This was Lucas’ land, though. Land was important to him in a way that Rex, Pete, and his other friends would never understand. When your name has been on a piece of property for centuries, it becomes a part of you. Its concerns are your concerns, and they’re important.

He realized, looking down at the soil, the tracks didn’t stop here. He stared down at them a while longer, puzzling over something. “Does this strike you as odd?” he asked them, pointing at the ground.

“What, the tires?” said Rex.

“Yeah. There’s only one set.”

“So?” asked Pete. “Maybe it’s just one truck?”

“Okay,” said Lucas, “but then why aren’t there two sets, one coming onto the property, and one leaving?”

They all looked into the distance, watching the tracks disappear deeper into Phelps property.

“You think…they’re still there, whoever they are?” asked Rex.

“If they are,” said Lucas, “they're going to wish they’d left already.”

* * *

It turned out to be two guys, one plump and one bone-thin, both encased in safety vests the yellow-green of tennis balls. “Hey!” Lucas called out as soon as they were in sight. “What are you doing out here?”

Maybe it sounded more hostile than he meant it. Hell, maybe he was feeling more hostile than he realized, with all this talk of Crays. Having his two friends flanking him sure could have added to that impression. Whatever it was, by the time they reached the surveyors, the two men had their backs up.

“Help you?” said the heavier one. His heart hat seemed to fit badly atop his head, and Lucas wondered what it’d be like to knock it off, to just reach out and flick it to the ground.

“You can help me by telling me what you’re doing on my land.”

Heavy looked at Skinny, then back at Lucas. “Your land?”

The problem with taking a deep breath to calm yourself, is that everybody sees you taking that breath, and it gives them a warning that you’re on edge. Lucas kept himself as still as possible. As much as he wanted to antagonize them, for all he knew, they were here for a perfectly innocent reason.

“This is Phelps property,” he said, his voice quiet and steady. “Starts at County Road 1, where you came in, and keeps going until you reach Little Cray Creek. You’re smack in the middle of it right now.”

The guy stared at him a moment, then glanced down at his clipboard. “Mm. Phelps,” he said. Then he did something with his foot. He dug his toe into the ground. It didn’t make any sense to Lucas; he thought of the way a bull will paw the dirt, lowering his head before charging.

It took a second to realize there was something under the man’s boot, something being revealed as he scrubbed his toe over it. Lucas knelt down.

“What is it?” asked Rex.

“Survey marker,” said Lucas. “An old one.”

US Coast & Geodetic Survey, it said. A year was imprinted on it too: 1936.

“All right,” he said, standing back up, “what’s it mean?”

“We met Mr. Phelps, and he ain’t you,” said Skinny. “We’re here to draw a line, just like we was asked to by the lawyer. County Road 1, to this here marker.”

It was like dealing with children. You had to be slow and patient. Small words, simple sentences.

“Okay,” said Lucas, “but why? The man you’re talking about is my dad, and there’s no reason he’d need this patch surveyed.”

Skinny shrugged. “Hell if I know. Usually they call us when land’s about to go up for sale.”

Lucas felt his blood freeze.

“Did…did you say sale?”

* * *

“What did they mean?” Lucas asked his father. “They wouldn’t tell me anything!”

He wished his friends weren’t here with him. He could hear them shifting awkwardly behind him. He didn't like bringing people over to his dad's house, but he’d been in a rush, panicked over the thought of someone buying his land.

Jed Phelps looked up from his desk, afternoon light from the French doors casting a glow around him, making him look benign and wise. Tricky, that light. “Surveyors, you say? I remember something about that…a letter, somewhere.” He began casting around as though the letter might be atop his desk. He absently reached for his forehead and pulled down his wire-framed spectacles.

“You knew about this?” asked Lucas. “You didn’t think to mention it? This is why they were saying the land isn’t ours?”

“Not ours?” asked Jed. He stopped opening desk drawers. “What’s not ours?”

“The land, Dad, weren’t you listening?”

He was painfully aware of the guys being in the room. Even though they all came over to his place for game night, they never came here, into his dad’s house.

What kind of son is ashamed of his dad? A bad one. Bad friend, bad son…you’re really batting a thousand, dude.

But that wasn’t quite it. He wasn’t ashamed of his dad. He was sure there was nothing physically or mentally wrong with him. It’s just, his dad enjoyed being absent-minded. He always had. It let him escape from all the duties and responsibilities of adult life.

Times like this, it was infuriating. Which just made Lucas feel even more like a sullen, ungrateful teen, instead of the grown man he was.

“Ah!” said his dad finally. He reached into a stack of papers and pulled out a letter. “Yes, I remember it now. A gentleman was interested in buying a few acres. I thought it was silly, of course. Who would want a plot of hills and rocks? He wasn’t even interested in the farm.”

Lucas felt shaky. He reached out and steadied himself on the back of a chair. “When were you going to tell me? How are we going to stop him? Who is it?”

“Oh, we get these offers now and then, you know. Normally I ignore them and they go away. On the other hand, the family fortune isn’t what it once was, Lucas! The coffers are running low.”

Please, no, not this conversation again, he thought. Not in front of the guys. They don’t need to know we’re not nearly as rich as everyone in town thinks.

“We’ve talked about this,” he whispered. "We should open the farm back up. Convert to organic produce. We could triple the amount Grandpa used to—”

His father certainly didn’t whisper back. Not on this topic. “Business! Business! You’re as bad as the rest, Lucas! Profits and revenues and futures and shares! I never asked for any of that! All I ever wanted was to be allowed to live in peace on this land, and if I have to sell a few acres to keep that peace—”

“But who, Dad? Who is trying to buy us out?”

At this, his father looked surprised. “Do you know, I couldn’t say.” He peered down at the letter, his bushy eyebrows lifting as he read it. “This is from a lawyer. Wants to make an offer, contingent on a survey—oh, the words these businessmen use—on behalf of…well, there you are.”

“On behalf of who?” asked Lucas.

“Whom,” said Pete.

“Shh!” Rex said to Pete.

“It doesn’t say,” said his father.

Lucas took the proffered letter. Sure enough, no one was named. On behalf of my client.

“The Crays!” said Pete.

Rex started to shush him again, then blinked and looked at Lucas. “Do you suppose it could be?”

“Come on, who else would it be?” asked Pete. “Anyone else would have no trouble announcing who they are. But the Crays are sneaky bastards. They’re surrounded by lawyers, they know how to keep things hush-hush. What if they’re coming to nibble away at your land, Lucas?”

Can I go a day in my life without talking about the Crays?

He let the letter fall back onto his dad’s desk.

“It makes sense,” said Rex. “Now that their dad is in jail, maybe Ash and Callum don’t feel like there’s anything stopping them from a takeover.”

“They could own the whole county, if you’re not careful,” said Pete.

“You boys take this feud too seriously,” said Jed. “All that violence was a hundred years ago, two hundred. We and the Crays have been at peace for years.”

They all stared at him. He didn’t know about the Battle of Cray’s Quarry, when Lucas and his friends had fought Ash and Callum. It was back in high school, but the memory was as fresh as if it’d happened yesterday.

You’ve been at peace, maybe, Lucas thought. You didn’t mind giving up, Dad, letting the Crays win. As long as nobody asked you to do anything, as long as you never had to go out of your way, you were happy to sit here in the house collecting interest, ignoring what we went through as kids, and letting the Crays build their business into an empire while our own legacy withered on the vine.

But were the Crays coming for his land? It was impossible. It didn’t make sense to him, not really.

Unless Ash wants to punish me. A little late for that.

He looked nervously at his friends. He didn’t even like to think about Ash, with other people around. Those memories were too painful.

But you’re going to have to talk to him, to find out if he’s the one buying the land. Somehow. He didn’t even know how to contact Ash anymore.

The guys were staring at him, and he realized he’d been standing there silently for a long time.