Whatever May knew, it still was not enough. That became obvious when she began writing letters.
She mailed one to an old John Deere collector in Iowa, another to a historical machinery group in Illinois, and three more to families connected with long-closed farm-equipment dealerships. Rachel paid the postage and refused to ask why. Weeks passed without useful responses.
One collector wrote back explaining that old tractors often accumulated stories that could not be verified. Serial plates were damaged, engines were swapped, dealer decals were repainted, and owners sometimes remembered events more dramatically than they occurred. He advised May not to confuse possibility with proof.
She taped the letter above the workbench. Harvey asked why she kept discouraging mail.
“Because he’s right.”
“You enjoy that?”
“No.”
“Then why display it?”
May looked at the tractor. “So I don’t start believing something just because I want it to be true.”
Daniel would have been proud of that. Rachel knew it but did not say so because sometimes praise added pressure a child did not need.
The tractor became mechanically complete enough for a first attempt at starting near the end of summer, almost a year after the auction. Harvey wanted to try immediately. May refused.
“Why?” he demanded.
“We’re missing something.”
“It has fuel, compression, ignition, and oil pressure.” “Not that.”
Harvey threw both hands into the air. “Machines require fewer philosophical conditions than you think.”
May smiled. “Wait one week.”
The reason appeared four days later in an email from a woman named Susan Kellerman. Susan’s grandfather, Edward Hansen, had once worked at Hansen Equipment, a John Deere dealership that closed decades earlier after changing ownership several times. She had inherited boxes of papers when her mother died and had nearly thrown them away.
May read the name Hansen twice. Then she looked toward the faint yellow letters still visible near Lot 117’s rear axle.
She called Susan with Rachel beside her. Susan said she had invoices, photographs, employee lists, sales books, and folders she could not identify.
“Do you have anything from the early 1950s?” May asked.
“Probably.”
“Anything about Everett Pike?” Silence followed.
“Who?”
May explained as carefully as she could. Susan said she would look.
Three days passed. Then five.
May checked email before school, after school, before bed, and once at two in the morning until Rachel caught her. Nothing arrived.
On Saturday morning Susan called. “I found Everett Pike.”