There was still no approved mitigation bank, no released credit, and no buyer's money in Warren's account. Miriam said those facts plainly at the beginning of the meeting because she did not want anyone to confuse technical promise with a completed financial transaction. What she offered was a serious path toward a restoration project if Warren chose it and if the necessary agencies approved. For a man who had once believed the only honest output of a field was a harvested crop, even that path represented an astonishing change.
Warren asked whether a permanent easement would mean he could never plant soybeans on the lower acreage again. Miriam told him that, within a protected restoration area, agriculture incompatible with the conservation terms would be restricted, and those restrictions would bind future owners. She encouraged him to speak with his family and with an attorney representing his interests alone before committing. Warren sat through the rest of the meeting almost without speaking.
When everyone left, Casey found him at the kitchen window looking toward the low field. "You don't have to decide today," she said.
"I know," he answered. "That's what makes it hard."
He had lived most of his life with decisions that arrived already constrained by weather, machinery, and the need to make payroll. Now he had a choice that could change the meaning of eighty acres for generations. It was not a small choice, and the fact that it might save him did not make it easier. He looked at Casey and asked her to bring the old photographs downstairs again, because he wanted to see the land as it had looked before his father laid the first drainage tile.
The records from the developer did not arrive in a neat envelope with a confession tucked between the pages. Harlan had to send preservation notices, request the underlying permit documents, and follow the procedures available in the dispute before he could assemble a reliable picture of who had approved what. Delta Ridge responded through counsel, offering some construction files, disputing responsibility for the losses, and insisting that its drainage work had been intended to protect the new development from ordinary stormwater. The company did not admit that Warren had been wronged.
Renata compared the first batch of plans with her own surveys. Several elevations matched, and several construction notes explained small changes she had already observed. But the revised outflow route had been adopted after a design meeting that the permits referenced only briefly. The missing minutes were not proof of a conspiracy, yet they were exactly the kind of missing record that made Harlan unwilling to accept the company's account on faith.
"Why does every useful answer seem to be on the next piece of paper?" Warren asked during a meeting at Harlan's office.