“So he starves us.”
“Until we leave.”
Caleb’s jaw clenched.
“But why buy my ranch?”
Norah pointed to the final page.
“There.”
A small paragraph.
Caleb read it.
His expression changed.
The ranch wasn’t merely valuable.
It sat directly over the underground channel feeding the reserve.
If Mercer owned the ranch, he owned the access route.
Norah suddenly understood.
“The water isn’t beneath Dry Willow.”
“No.”
“It runs beneath your land.”
“Yes.”
“And the underground reservoir is connected to the spring.”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
“Caleb.”
“What?”
“The reservoir isn’t the source.”
He looked at her.
“The source is somewhere else.”
They returned to the mesa.
This time they followed the underground pipe beyond the reservoir.
It led deeper into the rock.
For nearly half a mile they crawled through a narrow tunnel.
The sound of water grew louder.
Then the tunnel opened.
Norah’s lantern revealed a cavern.
At its center was a natural underground river.
Not a spring.
A river.
Massive.
Fast.
Flowing beneath the earth.
Caleb stared.
“How much water?”
Norah laughed softly.
“Enough to change everything.”
But then she noticed something.
Wooden supports.
Old ones.
And carved into the stone above them was a message.
Her father’s handwriting.
She touched the letters.
IF YOU FIND THIS, DO NOT TRUST THE WATER CONTRACT.
Norah’s breath caught.
Below it was another sentence.
THE FIRST RESERVOIR IS A DECOY.
Caleb stared.
“What does that mean?”
Norah read the final line.
Her father’s handwriting became shakier.
THE REAL WATER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF DRY WILLOW.
She stepped back.
A stone shifted beneath her boot.
Behind it was a small metal box.
Caleb opened it.
Inside was a bundle of papers.
A birth certificate.
A land deed.
And one letter.
Addressed to Norah.
Her hands trembled as she opened it.
The first line nearly broke her.
My daughter, if you are reading this, I failed to protect you.
She kept reading.
Her father explained everything.
Years earlier, he had discovered the underground river.
Mercer wanted exclusive control.
Jonas refused.
So he created a legal trust placing the water rights in the hands of the people living in Dry Willow.
But Mercer threatened him.
Jonas hid the trust documents.
Then he disappeared.
Everyone had believed he died.
But the letter revealed something else.
He had not died twelve years ago.
Norah’s hands began shaking violently.
Caleb read over her shoulder.
The letter continued:
I had to disappear because Mercer discovered the trust. I could not risk leading him to you. I left you with a woman I believed I could trust.
Norah whispered, “Who?”
Caleb looked at the final page.
There was a name.
Ruth Danner.
Norah stopped breathing.
Ruth.
The woman who had given her a room.
