"That's what I'd worry about."
Everyone looked toward the earthen dam.
Until then, the rising water had looked like rescue.
Ray changed the feeling.
He walked the entire pond.
He inspected the dam face.
Dry.
No obvious seepage.
"Good."
He said.
"But watch it."
Toby asked, "What are we watching for?"
"Wet spots."
"Soft ground."
"Cloudy water coming out somewhere."
"Anything new."
Ray looked toward him.
"And don't pull that rope again."
Toby nodded.
For four days, nothing alarming happened.
The pond continued rising.
The cattle drank.
Walter repaired fence.
Helen ordered hay.
Toby almost believed Ray's warning had been overly cautious.
Then Walter found wet ground below the dam.
It was just after sunrise.
He came into the kitchen without removing his hat.
"Helen."
She looked up.
"What?"
"Get Toby."
They went outside.
Walter led them downhill.
The wet patch was no larger than a kitchen table.
Dark soil.
No standing water.
But the surrounding ground was dry.
Walter knelt.
Pressed a finger into it.
Water appeared.
Helen's face tightened.
"Is that bad?"
Walter looked toward the pond.
"I don't know."
Toby followed the slope.
Ten yards farther down, he found another damp strip.
Then another.
A line.
Ray arrived within an hour.
He did not smile this time.
He walked back and forth.
Checked the dam.
Used a steel probe.
He pressed it into the ground.
Pulled it out wet.
"Water's moving."
Helen asked, "Through the dam?"
"Maybe under."
"Can it fail?"
Ray looked at her.
"Anything can fail."
Toby's stomach dropped.
Ray continued quickly.
"Doesn't mean it will."
"But we don't dig blind."
"Don't touch gate."
"Don't lower pond fast."
"We find where the old diversion ran."
Toby looked at the ledger.
The faded line suddenly became their most important piece of paper.
For two days, they searched.
The drawing referenced a sycamore.
No sycamore remained.
Walter remembered it vaguely.
"Big tree."
"Lightning hit it?"
"Maybe."
"Cut down in fifties."
Fence lines had moved.
Pasture had been reshaped.
Nothing matched exactly.
Toby carried the ledger copy through the lower field.
He looked at slope.
Ground.
Grass.
He stopped.
One strip was different.
Not green.
Nothing was truly green anymore.
But darker.
Thicker.
It curved downhill.
Exactly like the old line.
"Grandpa!"
Walter came.
Then Ray.
Ray crouched.
Pulled grass aside.
"Soil's cooler."
They followed the strip to a shallow depression filled with field stones.
Ray smiled slightly.
"There."
"What?"
"Outlet area maybe."
He brought his small excavator the next morning.
He removed dirt layer by layer.
Nobody spoke much.
Three feet down, the bucket exposed curved orange-brown material.
Clay pipe.
Toby climbed closer.
Ray stopped him.
"Stay back."
The pipe was six inches wide.
Cracked.
Packed with soil.
Roots grew through it.
Walter touched one exposed section.