Louise raised one finger.
“Before anyone starts laying pipe, we establish legal ownership.”
Wade pointed toward Hannah.
“It’s on her farm.”
Otis pointed toward the plate.
“Our marks are on it.”
Frank looked between them.
“And that is how wars begin.”
Louise nodded.
“Exactly.”
The search began.
Hannah drove to the county courthouse.
Basement archive.
Property records.
Water rights.
Cooperative charters.
Nothing.
The clerk, Eleanor Price, searched three databases.
“No Red Willow Valley Water Cooperative.”
“It’s stamped on iron.”
“That does not guarantee surviving paperwork.”
“What about 1936?”
“Half those records burned in the courthouse fire of 1962.”
Hannah’s stomach dropped.
Eleanor continued.
“Some were reconstructed.”
“Water documents?”
“Maybe.”
They searched.
No cooperative.
No spring.
No gate.
Nothing.
Then Hannah found a 1974 geological report.
RED WILLOW SPRING STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE.
She read it standing in the aisle.
According to the report, a subsurface failure had permanently blocked the spring.
Water production ceased.
Restoration deemed economically impossible.
Agricultural properties advised to seek well development.
Signed by:
Merritt Geological Services.
Consultant:
Arthur Vale.
Hannah stopped breathing.
Arthur Vale.
Clayton’s father.
She photographed the page.
Eleanor noticed.
“Something?”
“Maybe.”
Hannah searched land sales.
Three farms sold.
Two eventually became part of Vale Agricultural Holdings.
The prices were low.
Very low.
Drought prices.
Panic prices.
She stayed until closing.
That evening, Wade came to Red Willow.
Alone.
He carried a cigar box.
“My mother kept everything.”
Hannah opened it.
Receipts.
Old seed invoices.
Photographs.
Letters.
Wade pulled out a folded paper.
“My father signed this in 1975.”
Hannah read.
WAIVER OF HISTORIC WATER ACCESS CLAIM.
Consideration:
$3,500.
Purchaser:
Vale Land Development Company.
Hannah looked at Wade.
“He sold the water rights.”
Wade shook his head.
“He told us the spring collapsed.”
“Then why buy rights to dead water?”
Wade sat.
Hannah read again.
The waiver referenced an original document.
1936 Red Willow Valley Cooperative Charter.
“Here.”
Wade leaned forward.
She tapped the line.
“They knew the charter existed.”
Wade’s face hardened.
“My father took thirty-five hundred dollars.”
“In 1975.”
“Still.”
“He believed the spring was dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Because why would anyone sell functioning water for that?”
Wade looked toward the pond.
Water now covered half the old basin.
“My father was many things.”
He swallowed.
“Stupid wasn’t one.”
Otis arrived the next day.
He carried receipts from his grandfather.
Frank came after lunch.
He brought memory.
“I was twenty in seventy-four.”