Then asked the question she'd been holding back.
"Could this mean the original water source still exists?"
Lena considered her answer.
"Yes. It could."
Eliza felt hope rising.
But the engineer continued.
"It could also mean a damaged pipe is leaking from some other active system. We need to trace the flow and establish its legal and physical source."
Eliza nodded slowly.
She understood.
The fish had shown them something worth investigating.
Nothing more.
But after twenty years of people insisting there was nothing under the ditch, that was already a remarkable change.
The first major obstacle was the county archive.
The original irrigation cooperative had dissolved decades earlier.
Its records were scattered among the county courthouse, former member farms, and old private files.
Some documents had never been digitized.
Others were difficult to locate because the cooperative changed names twice.
Eliza spent four days searching.
The courthouse clerk, a sixty-eight-year-old woman named Evelyn Banks, eventually took pity on her.
Evelyn had worked with land records for more than thirty years.
She knew which drawers contained the old subdivision plats, which books included easements, and which handwritten indexes had never been entered into the computer system.
When Eliza explained the old irrigation ditch, Evelyn looked surprised.
"South Lateral?"
Eliza nodded.
The clerk stared toward a shelf behind the counter.
Then smiled faintly.
"Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while."
She led Eliza toward an older record room.
There were rows of shelves, bound ledgers, and cabinets containing oversized maps.
Evelyn opened one drawer.
Then another.
Finally, she removed a thick folder.
Inside was a 1953 cooperative agreement.
Eliza leaned forward.
Her grandfather's name appeared among the original participants.
So did several neighboring landowners.
The document described a shared supply system and allocated maintenance responsibilities.
It also referred to recorded rights associated with the delivery of water to participating parcels.
Evelyn pointed toward a page.
"Here's your family's property."
Eliza studied the legal description.
The southern acreage was included.
Then she turned the page.
A hand-drawn diagram showed the old supply canal branching toward the Hart land.
The junction beneath the fourteenth row appeared as a small circle.
Beside it was an identifying number.
J-14.
Eliza felt her heart begin racing.
"That's where the fish gathered."
Evelyn looked toward her.
For a moment, she seemed puzzled.
Then Eliza explained.
The clerk listened.
Finally, she smiled.
"Well, that's an unusual way to find an old junction."
Eliza laughed.
"You're telling me."
But the discovery didn't end there.
Near the back of the folder was a reference to an amendment filed in 1998.
Evelyn checked the index.
Then frowned.
The amendment wasn't attached.
It had been recorded under a separate instrument number.
She retrieved the relevant volume.
Opened it.
And stopped.
For several seconds, she studied the page.
Then she looked toward Eliza.
"That's strange."
Eliza leaned closer.
"What?"
Evelyn pointed toward the recording reference.
"The index describes a modification to the cooperative distribution agreement."
She paused.