“It sits on the property line between our place and Abram’s farm. About half a mile thataway.” She motions toward the earthen dam that bridges the creek. “Used to be an old two track that ran along the fence line.”

I point in the direction of the house. “Go back inside, Mrs. Kaufman.”

“Abigail wouldn’t go back there.” She glares at me, angry because she knows she won’t be able to keep up with me and I’m not going to wait.

Turning away, I jog toward the dam, my eyes on the buggy tracks in the soil. The jug-o-rum bellows of bullfrogs echo within the canopy of the trees as I cross the dam. I feel the humidity rising off the mossy surface of the water, smell the mud baking on the bank. It’s so quiet I can hear the flies and mosquitoes buzzing. Pig frogs grunt from within the cattails.

On the other side of the dam, the ground is soft and spongy beneath my boots, and I find the shod hoof marks of a horse bracketed on either side by wheel ruts. The tracks are fresh, and though the path is overgrown, the trail is easy to follow.

The terrain is rolling and crowded with saplings, brush, and mature hardwoods, which makes it difficult to see more than fifty yards in any direction. The sun beats down with merciless intensity, and I find myself wishing I’d looked at an aerial view before venturing out, but of course I didn’t realize I was going to be tromping through an overgrown pasture this afternoon.

I crest the second hill, and the rusty tin shingles of a roof loom into view ahead. I traverse a dry creek bed, elbow my way through a patch of reeds on the other side, and get my first good look. The structure is a dilapidated bank barn with a swaybacked roof and wooden siding the color of old bone. Several shingles have been peeled back by decades of wind. Much of the wooden siding has fallen to the ground, where the earth is slowly reclaiming it. The rear portion of the gambrel-style roof has collapsed. Through the opening, I see the top of a tall concrete silo with a missing dome.

I’m looking down at the faint trail through the weeds, when I hear the snort of a horse. Thirty feet away, through a stand of saplings, a bay horse is looking at me, its ears pricked forward. The animal is still hitched to the buggy. I’ve startled him, and I can tell he’s thinking about bolting.

“Whoa,” I whisper as I approach. “Easy.”