On the drive home, Casey did not offer a speech about justice. She asked whether he wanted to stop at the diner for coffee, and he said no. Halfway down the county road, he asked her to pull over beside a stand of cottonwoods. He got out, stood in the wind for a minute, and looked toward the distant fields.
"Your grandmother would have called them vultures," he said when he climbed back in. "And then she'd have told me not to let them know how mad I was until the paperwork was finished."
Casey put the truck into gear. "Then we'd better finish the paperwork," she replied. Warren looked at her, and for the first time that winter he smiled without effort.
Mediation began on a cold morning in February, nearly nine months after the first water crossed Warren's field. The conference room belonged to a firm in the county seat, a neutral building with square windows and chairs designed for people who expected to remain uncomfortable. Harlan arrived carrying three binders. Warren brought a small notebook of his own, not because he believed he could outargue the attorneys, but because he wanted to remember the words used when other people described his farm.
Cornerstone sent Elise Garner, its counsel, and an outside risk officer who had not been involved in the original loan decisions. Delta Ridge sent its project manager, an insurer's representative, and two lawyers. Gerald Voss was present for part of the day, but he no longer led the bank's position. Warren noticed the change as soon as the meeting began and found it more satisfying than he wished to admit.
The mediator explained that the parties were not required to agree on every disputed fact to negotiate a resolution. They did, however, need to identify the losses that could be supported, the engineering work needed to prevent further damage, the outstanding loan obligations, and any terms that would protect the parties without forcing an unwanted land sale. Warren listened carefully. He had expected an argument about guilt, but the first hours were devoted to numbers and practical commitments.
Renata summarized the hydraulic findings. Her analysis showed that the revised development outlet had increased the volume and concentration of water entering the Puit basin under rainfall conditions similar to those the farm had handled in earlier years. The change contributed to crop loss and prolonged saturation beyond the farm's historical operating pattern, although the basin also had a natural tendency to retain seasonal water. She identified a route by which the development could manage its stormwater without continuing to send concentrated runoff onto Warren's property.
The developer's engineer challenged some assumptions and argued that the low ground had always been subject to flooding. Renata acknowledged the historical wetness and then showed precisely where the new flow differed from it. She did not attempt to win the argument by calling the other expert dishonest. She put the old plans, new plans, rainfall records, surveyed elevations, and observed water levels on the same screen and asked whether anyone could provide data supporting a different explanation for the repeated surge from the new outlet.