Then he whispered something that made Dale stop laughing.
“Good Lord.”
Dale frowned.
“What?”
Ezra pointed toward an old fence post near the eastern end of the planting bed.
“Frank Bennett wasn't marking a garden.”
The men looked confused.
Ezra's voice began trembling.
“He was marking the old water channels.”
Noah felt his heart start pounding.
Ezra turned toward him.
“Son, did your grandfather leave you a drawing?”
Noah slowly lifted the green notebook.
The old man's eyes widened.
“Let me see.”
Noah approached the fence and handed him the book.
Ezra opened it.
The first few pages contained weather notes and soil measurements.
Then he found the drawing.
Six parallel lines.
A weathered fence.
An old cottonwood stump.
And a tiny black circle beside the third post.
Ezra stopped breathing for a moment.
His hands began shaking.
Dale leaned closer.
“What are you looking at?”
Ezra didn't answer.
He stared at the drawing.
Then looked toward the ground beneath the fence post.
“Frank,” he whispered. “You stubborn old fool. You really kept it.”
Noah felt frightened.
“Kept what?”
Ezra slowly handed back the notebook.
Then pointed toward the old wooden post.
“There's an iron cap buried beneath that soil.”
Dale snorted.
“So what?”
Ezra turned toward him.
His expression was no longer patient.
“So that cap belongs to a gravity-fed spring system your grandfather's father helped build more than a hundred years ago.”
The laughter stopped.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then Ezra looked toward Noah.
“Did Frank tell you what was underneath?”
The boy shook his head.
“He said I'd know when I finished the sixth row.”
Ezra's eyes filled.
For a long moment, he stared at the boy.
Then whispered, “He knew.”
Noah frowned.
“Knew what?”
Ezra looked toward the dry fields.
Then toward the distant hills.
Finally, he answered.
“That one day, somebody would need the water badly enough to find it again.”
But Ezra was wrong about one thing.