Even if she found a current, the farm still needed money, repairs, and water-management decisions.
But she hoped to establish one useful fact.
Whether the old south lateral had a hidden point of inflow.
When Calvin began laughing, she tried not to take it personally.
When Otis asked whether she'd gone crazy, she ignored him.
And when Raymond suggested she should've bought fertilizer, she reminded herself that she had already made the decision.
Then she opened the valve.
The water rushed out.
The fish entered the ditch.
And within minutes, the older men stopped laughing.
Now Calvin was staring at the rusted metal edge beneath the muddy water.
Eliza stood beside him.
Her heart was pounding.
The thin upwelling continued, and the fish remained concentrated near it.
She held one hand over the water.
It felt cooler than the stagnant runoff farther down the ditch.
Calvin stepped closer.
Then stopped himself.
For several seconds, he seemed to struggle with a memory.
Eliza looked up.
"Mr. Rusk, what is that?"
He swallowed.
"Looks like the old south junction."
She frowned.
"There's a junction under here?"
He nodded slowly.
"Or what's left of one."
Otis stared at him.
"Calvin, what're you talking about?"
The older farmer removed his cap.
For a moment, he looked twenty years older.
Then he said quietly.
"Samuel and I saw something like that back in '98."
Eliza froze.
"1998?"
Calvin nodded.
"I was helping your father clear brush along the ditch after the flood."
She stared.
"You never told me."
He looked toward the field.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then answered.
"At the time, we didn't know what we'd found."
Eliza pointed toward the metal.
"Why didn't Dad keep digging?"
Calvin's expression tightened.
"Because somebody told us to stop."
The words hung in the afternoon air.
Raymond looked toward him.
"Who?"
Calvin hesitated.
Then glanced toward the eastern fields.
The large Bellwether property lay beyond the tree line.
Eliza felt her stomach tighten.
"Was it Bellwether?"
The older farmer shook his head.
"The company had a different name back then."
For several seconds, he remained silent.
Then said.
"But the people managing it were the same people your father kept arguing with."
Eliza stared into the water.
The rusted edge was partially concealed again by muddy sediment.
The fish moved in small circles around the upwelling.
And the old junction seemed to be doing something that it hadn't done visibly in years.
She looked toward Calvin.
"Why would they care if Dad inspected a pipe on his own property?"
Calvin's jaw tightened.
Then he answered.
"Because the old system didn't belong to one farm."
The original irrigation network had been organized through a cooperative arrangement in 1953.
Eliza learned that much from her father's papers.
But Calvin knew the history before the documents.
His father helped maintain the water channels during the early years.