“You said not enough.”
“That’s different.”
Elias hated that the man was right.
The inspector continued.
“If you can prove the structure existed before district authority and the source is isolated inside your property, you’ll have a much stronger position.”
“Where do I find that?”
“Old surveyor.”
“County archives.”
“Hydrology studies.”
The inspector closed his notebook.
“Sometimes records exist.”
“Sometimes they don’t.”
After he left, Elias sat on the porch.
Ren came outside carrying Otis’s trunk contents.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking.”
“For?”
“Proof.”
Ren sat.
She did not understand all of the water law.
She understood enough.
Garrett wanted something.
Adults needed paper.
She started opening books.
Two hours passed.
Almanac.
Receipts.
A cattle-vaccination booklet.
Then she found folded paper inside an agricultural almanac from 1961.
A torn survey fragment.
The edge had been ripped diagonally.
Ren unfolded it.
“Daddy.”
Elias barely looked up.
“What?”
“This says spring.”
He took it.
Old survey symbols.
Boundary measurements.
Then a typed note:
Protected spring structure built 1938 within Marsh boundary...
The rest was missing.
Elias stood.
“There’s more.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I mean there has to be more somewhere.”
The surveyor’s stamp showed a name.
Pruitt Land Survey.
The business had closed decades earlier.
The current county office clerk recognized the name.
“Louise Pruitt.”
“She alive?”
The clerk looked offended.
“She’ll outlive all of us.”
Louise lived twelve miles outside town in a white house surrounded by pecan trees.
She was seventy-six.
Sharp eyes.
Silver hair.
A walking cane she appeared to regard as optional.
Elias showed her the fragment.
She adjusted her glasses.
“My father drew this.”
“You have the rest?”
Louise laughed.
“You think I throw surveys away?”
Elias did not know whether that was a serious question.
She led him to a detached building.
Inside were shelves of document boxes arranged by year.
Four decades.
Maybe more.
The first visit failed.
The second nearly failed.
Then Louise stopped beside a box marked 1958.
“Marsh.”
She pulled a rolled sheet.
Unfolded it across a table.
There.
Complete survey.
Springhouse.
Property boundary.
Structure entirely inside Marsh land.
Documented three years before the modern water district formed.
Elias stared.
Louise looked at him.
“You look disappointed.”
“No.”
“You look like a man who thought paper would feel more exciting.”
Elias laughed.
“This might save my farm.”
“That’s exciting.”
She tapped the survey.
“But don’t stop.”
“Why?”
“Because location proves where it comes out.”
“Not necessarily what feeds it.”
Elias looked at her.
“Garrett’s lawyer says shared aquifer.”
Louise snorted.
“Garrett says many things.”
“You know him?”
“I surveyed half his father’s ranch.”
She walked to another shelf.
“Let’s see what the county already paid someone to know.”
Three hours later, they found a 1990s hydrology assessment.
Fractured limestone pocket.
Localized recharge.
Hydrologically isolated from the larger drainage channel serving the Voss and Marsh irrigation ditch.