Inside the coffee can was a bundle of papers wrapped in oilcloth, along with three photographs and a small brass key. The papers were dated between 1988 and 1991, and every one had been folded carefully before being sealed away. I recognized the handwriting from the original owner’s maintenance notes that were still tucked inside the tractor’s toolbox.
The first photograph showed the tractor sitting exactly where I’d found it, but there was a second man standing beside it. On the back he’d written a name I didn’t recognize and a date from 1989. The second photograph showed the same man opening the fuel tank, and the third showed a wooden building I’d driven past dozens of times without ever knowing what it was.
The key had a number stamped into it. I called the previous owner’s son and asked whether it meant anything to him. He went silent when I gave him the number. Then he asked me where I’d found it and whether I’d opened the papers. I told him yes, and he said his father had made him promise never to look inside that tractor.
I asked why. He said his father had always claimed the tractor was just an old machine he’d forgotten about, but he’d never let anyone scrap it or sell certain parts from it. Then he asked me to photograph the last page of the papers. I did. When he saw it, he called me back immediately and said, “You need to stop restoring that tractor until you find the building in the third photograph — because that’s where my father told me the rest of it was hidden…”
