“Yup, got dust,” Lincoln answers. “I tried three times. The stick said there was water each time, but maybe it was too deep for the drill to reach.”

The field is a mix of winter and spring. Patches of frozen snow lie here and there like mini-icebergs between yellow-green tufts of grass. The sun is bright but it’s cold out.

I hold the forked stick with the bottom of the Y pointing ahead and start walking, waiting for something to happen but not knowing what that something might be.

I take one small step and then another, walking in different directions the way I’ve seen my father and Lincoln do. I walk toward the places where they drilled and then in the opposite direction.

I walk slowly with my stick out in front of me, even with the ground. My palms hold the ends of the V.

Nothing happens.

“No hurry, take your time.” Lincoln stands next to the rig, watching.

I walk over the chunks of ice frozen on the ground and through small puddles. I see the school and the library in the distance, and the backs of the stores on Main Street. I forgot my hat, and my ears hurt from the cold.

I don’t feel anything. I start wondering how my nature might change if nothing happens. I look over at Lincoln. I wait.

“It’s all right, Henry. You can always try another time.”

It feels like Lincoln is saying it’s okay to give up, that Braggy would be happy to have company in the gravel pit when I’m older. Someone to work the rock crusher while he delivers gravel.

I turn away and keep walking. I grip the dowsing stick, but it feels like any other stick I’ve ever held.

I look over at Uncle Lincoln again.

“My ears are cold. I left my hat in the rig,” I say to him.

Lincoln doesn’t answer back, Keep trying, I’ll get your hat for you.

Instead, he climbs into the driver’s side of the rig, and while I pull my hat out from under the seat where it fell, he opens his lunch bag and passes me a piece of molasses cake wrapped in wax paper. Uncle Lincoln makes the best molasses cake. It’s sticky on the outside and I lick my fingers when I’m done. He eats a piece himself, then unscrews his thermos stopper, fills the cup with coffee, and offers it to me. I take a sip. It’s hot and sweet. Uncle Lincoln likes condensed milk better than sugar in his coffee, so it’s a different kind of sweet than the cup Dad gave me after James got hurt.

Lincoln takes another piece of molasses cake from his bag, alternating sips of coffee with bites of the cake.

I open my door, step down, and slam it before I can change my mind.