Then he thought about Grandpa's notebooks.
The old drawings.
The carefully recorded dry years.
And the covered chamber beneath the stones.
He remembered something Daniel said when Eli was eleven.
You don't spend your savings just because you know where they're buried.
At the time, Eli thought Grandpa was talking about money.
Now he wondered.
Maybe Daniel had deliberately avoided developing the North Bed more intensively because the seep was limited.
Maybe he wanted to preserve it for a difficult season.
Or perhaps there was another reason.
That evening, Eli opened the notebook again.
He turned to the oldest entries.
Most dated from the early 1990s.
One page described a year when the seep had nearly stopped flowing.
Another recorded a particularly wet spring when the lower garden became saturated.
Then he found a note he'd never paid much attention to.
The water answers the seasons. It doesn't answer the farmer.
Eli read it twice.
Then looked toward the barn.
Grandpa hadn't been hiding a miracle.
He'd been learning patience.
The North Bed didn't create abundance out of nothing.
It provided a small opportunity when conditions allowed.
And Daniel had understood that using an opportunity wisely was more important than squeezing every last benefit from it.
Eli smiled faintly.
Then he wrote a new sentence beneath Grandpa's note.
The stones help only when there's moisture worth saving.
He closed the notebook.
For a moment, he felt strangely peaceful.
Then headlights swept across the kitchen window.
A vehicle stopped beside the driveway.
Sarah looked up from the table.
“Who's that?”
Eli glanced outside.
A white truck stood near the gate.
Its doors carried the logo of Prairie Gate Resources.
Three men stepped out wearing work boots and fluorescent safety vests.
One carried a survey tripod.
Another had a bundle of marking flags.
Sarah stood.
Her expression hardened.
“What are they doing here?”
Eli looked toward the driveway.
For a moment, his stomach tightened.
The men were walking toward the North Bed.
Sarah reached them before they crossed the fence.
“Excuse me.”
The lead worker stopped.