There was really nothing we could do. He was right. He wasn't about to let us out of his sight, so the show of force might dissuade the other guys.

"Fine, but don't try to screw us."

"I won't. My word is good."

Two minutes later Emil stopped.

"This is it," he announced.

It didn't look much like the painting. The scene in the painting was stark—one tree, one house, and the gravestone. In real life, eighty-five years later, the house was gone—well, almost. The foundation remained, but the walls were essentially gone, and what was left of the roof lay in the foundation. The gravestone was gone, and the one tree had become a dozen. If we hadn't been told by Eva that this was the place, we would have walked right by it.

"Where to start?" I asked.

"Do you think the mark would still be visible on the tree?" said Sabrina.

"Maybe. Let's start there."

Sabrina showed Mario and his men, as well as the two shovelers, the picture of the painting so they could see the tree.

"The famous painting," said Mario. "You were right, not much of a clue."

With many pairs of eyes, it didn't take long. It was one of Mario's men who found it. Much of the bark had grown around it, but there was no doubt about it, it was the tree in the painting. I suddenly had shivers down my spine. This was the very tree drawn by John. Eighty-five years ago, John stood in in this exact spot. All around him was the bustle of a town in all its short-lived glory. Now it was dead quiet. Could he have ever imagined that it would take so long for someone to return to the site? If he had known that, would he have bothered? Very surreal.

"Where do we dig?" asked Mario, breaking the silence.

"I guess we find the headstone. X marks the spot," I said.

The grass was about a foot high and there were various species of vegetation mixed in. Emil said something to one of the locals, who pulled out a machete from his belt and went to work on the area around the tree, hopefully making our search a bit easier. When he was done I took one of the shovels and carefully tapped the ground, hoping to hear the clank of metal hitting concrete.

Nobody said a word as I worked. At first I concentrated on the area indicated in the painting, but as time went by, my search area increased. Ten minutes passed with no clank. Then Emil asked the other local for his shovel and proceeded to tap the ground. Another ten minutes passed. Finally, Emil leaned on his shovel and held up his hand for me to stop.

"We're being too gentle."

"I didn't want to break the headstone," I said. "Not sure why."

"I can understand why," he answered. "Historically, this has great meaning for you. Having the headstone intact is important. But I just thought about what Eva said. She indicated that the headstone fell down a long time ago. So it's possible that it has years of dirt covering it. We need to be more aggressive. The shovels have to go deeper."