The contractor, a quiet man named Dale Fitch, arrived within the hour with his laptop. He showed us two surveys. The original matched my deed exactly. The one Cordelia handed him had been edited to push the boundary eleven feet east, giving her room for a pool house. She had paid a draftsman a few hundred dollars to doctor it, then told Dale the neighbors had agreed. He had trusted her until he saw my pins.

The surveyor confirmed everything in writing. Because the concrete was only days old, the saw cut through it cleanly, and the excavator broke the encroaching section into pieces before noon. Cordelia stood at the edge of her own lot, silent, watching the dust settle. Everything on her side of the line stayed, and everything on mine came out. I did not touch an inch more than the survey allowed.

Her attorney arrived at four and read the documents twice. He advised her, quietly, to stop talking. The county fined her for building without a valid permit, and the draftsman, once questioned, admitted who had hired him. Forging a survey was a crime, and Cordelia chose a settlement over court. She paid for the demolition, my legal fees, the cost of restoring my soil, and a sum for the trespass.

Megan and I used part of that settlement to build a proper fence along the true line, with a gate wide enough for a horse trailer. By spring, two mares were grazing behind it, and Megan named the younger one Concrete. Cordelia sold her house that summer. The new neighbors waved the first time they saw me, and I handed them a copy of the survey, just in case.