“Small county.”
“What do you want?”
“Just checking on my neighbor.”
“You’re not my neighbor.”
“Close enough.”
Norah looked toward the washout.
Garrett continued.
“Farming’s hard.”
“Yes.”
“Old infrastructure’s worse.”
“Yes.”
“Tell you what.”
She already knew.
“I’ll give you twelve thousand.”
Norah laughed once.
“You paid twenty-one.”
“I know what I paid.”
“Then consider the difference tuition.”
She looked toward the sluice gate.
“Not today, Garrett.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“This may be your best chance.”
“No.”
She hung up.
Norah did not reopen the system for three days.
Instead, she inspected every visible foot of the old distribution network.
Flashlight.
Chalk.
Notebook.
Hammer.
Probe.
She cleared silt.
Cut roots.
Marked cracks.
Mapped branches.
Some channels were beyond use.
Others remained astonishingly strong.
Amos had poured many of them directly against compacted subgrade and reinforced vulnerable corners with stone.
Norah bought mortar.
Stainless hardware.
Cable.
Grease.
Sealant.
She repaired the largest crack.
Then another.
At the washout, she rebuilt the section with a more controlled spillway so future overflow had somewhere safe to go.
She did not attempt to make the system modern.
She attempted to make it functional.
That distinction mattered.
A modern contractor might have replaced much of it.
Norah preserved what still worked.
When she finally opened the gate again, she moved it only six inches.
Then waited.
One hour.
She walked the entire first channel.
Listened.
Watched.
Measured seepage.
Nothing failed.
She increased to nine inches.
Waited again.
The channels carried water.
A few weak spots appeared.
She marked them.
Closed the system.
Repaired.
Opened again.
For days, restoration followed that rhythm.
Water.
Inspection.
Closure.
Repair.
Water again.
Norah began understanding Amos through his decisions.
He had built bypass points where sediment could settle.
He had shaped corners to reduce erosion.
He had used stone in sections where the soil would not support concrete well.
He had placed simple manual control gates at key branches.
Each decision seemed obvious only after Norah discovered why it existed.
Halfway through the restoration, she found something else by accident.
She was walking the lowest corner of the pasture when her boot struck flat stone beneath several inches of soil.
The impact sounded hollow.
Norah stopped.
She cleared the surface.
A rectangular slab emerged.
Not natural.
She dug around the edges.