We made a separate ledger for every cost arising from the interruption. Sam's extra hours went into it. So did the electricity for the emergency well, the water hauler's invoice, the portable filter rental, and the time spent moving irrigation zones through the night. We logged the parts Shane repaired directly, but marked them differently from expenses I had actually paid. If his insurer repaired the ditch lining, I was not going to charge somebody else for the same concrete later.
I had no idea then how important that distinction would become.
Two days after the pipe was disconnected, a woman named Nora Bell came into the farm store carrying a paper bag of peaches and looking as if she regretted having driven up the road. She lived in Canyon Lake Estates. I knew her only by sight, mostly from community events where the subdivision's residents bought fruit and asked questions about frost dates.
"I bought these yesterday," she said. "I haven't come to complain. They're lovely."
"Good to hear."
She set the bag on the counter anyway. "I actually came about the lake. Denise told everyone you sold us temporary water, and now you're refusing to honor the agreement because you want more money."
I felt my jaw tighten. "Did she tell you she had a signed document?"
"Yes."
"Did she tell you who paid me?"
Nora looked puzzled. "She said the association did."
"I have never received a payment for that lake. I have never signed away my irrigation delivery. My lawyer is going to deal with the document she showed you, because I believe it was made using an old signature of mine."
Nora stood quiet for a few seconds. Then she said, "She's telling people your orchard isn't suffering at all. She says farmers always exaggerate water emergencies."
I pointed out through the window toward the west block. "If you'd like, Sam can show you the soil readings from yesterday. I won't ask you to take my word over hers."
She shook her head. "That's not why I came. I came because I realized I don't know anything about how the lake gets water, and neither do most of my neighbors. We just see it when it's low."
She hesitated before adding, "Denise has a way of making you feel irresponsible if you ask too many questions."
I recognized that feeling. It was a smaller version of what I had experienced on the dock, when she behaved as if a missing water-rights transfer was an inconvenient technicality rather than the whole problem.
"Ask them anyway," I told Nora. "It's your association. Those are your dues. The lake belongs to your community, not to Denise."
Nora thanked me and left with her peaches. Watching her drive away, I understood that the people in Canyon Lake Estates might not be my enemies. Most of them had never seen my irrigation lateral. They had been told a plausible story by someone whose job was to speak for them. If they wanted the truth, they were going to need more than my anger to find it.
The first significant opening came from the HOA's own treasurer, Linda Park.