Step three was formal complaints.
Janet prepared filings for the relevant state environmental regulator, the Blanco County District Attorney's Office, and the state agency overseeing real-estate licensing and development practices.
Each received a complete evidence package.
Everything went out by certified mail.
Janet also walked me through the complexities of Texas groundwater law.
Private groundwater rights in Texas are strong, but they're governed by a mixture of common-law principles, property rights, local groundwater-district regulations where applicable, environmental rules, contracts, and criminal statutes depending on the conduct involved.
Whatever label ultimately applied, nobody had produced a written agreement authorizing Ridgecrest to take water from my system.
Step four was cameras.
I mounted trail cameras around the tap site.
One covered the meter and infrastructure.
The other covered the access path approaching from the Ridgecrest side.
If somebody came near that pipe at night, I wanted a timestamp, a vehicle, and a face if the angle allowed it.
Hank Morrison helped me mount the second camera.
He held the ladder while I secured the housing to a cedar post.
When I climbed down, Hank looked over the meter, the secured valve, and the cameras.
He slowly shook his head.
"Your daddy would've handled this with a shotgun and a shovel."
I laughed.
"You're doing it the smart way," Hank added.
"Dad's way would've felt better."
"Yeah."
Hank looked toward Ridgecrest.
"But patience produces better paperwork."
The last thing I did was petty.
I'll admit it.
Janet advised against unnecessary provocation.
I did it anyway.
I mailed Linda a copy of the cover page from the regulatory complaint.
Not the full evidence package.
Just the case number.
The relevant allegations.
And the words "unauthorized groundwater diversion" printed where she couldn't miss them.
I wanted her to see it.
The certified-mail receipt showed Linda signed for the envelope Wednesday at 10:14 in the morning.
I would have paid good money to see her perfectly manicured red nails open it.
Three days later, she called an emergency HOA meeting inside the Ridgecrest clubhouse.
Naturally, I wasn't invited.
But Roy Bennett was.
Roy was a forty-eight-year-old accountant who had lived in Ridgecrest for six years.
He had become quietly tired of Linda treating homeowner meetings like coronation ceremonies.
Afterward, Roy called me and described everything.
Linda stood at the front of the clubhouse wearing a fitted black dress, hair styled like she was presenting quarterly earnings to shareholders.
She told sixty-two homeowners that the rancher next door, the one with the cattle and the ugly fence, was threatening to cut off their water supply.
Linda called it "environmental hostage taking."
She had a PowerPoint presentation.
The title slide read, "Protecting Our Community's Future."
Roy said the font probably cost more than my truck payment.
Then Linda proposed a special assessment.
Fifteen thousand dollars per household.
The money would finance a lawsuit against me.
Sixty-two homes.
Nine hundred thirty thousand dollars.
Nearly a million-dollar war chest to sue the owner of the well supplying water through an unauthorized connection.
"He wants to leave your children without water," Linda told the room.
According to Roy, her voice cracked at exactly the right moment.
A single tear rolled down her left cheek with such precision it might have been choreographed.
"What kind of man does that to a neighborhood?"
Roy said seventeen people applauded.
He was not one of them.
What Linda didn't tell them was where the water actually came from.