A misfiled ledger surfaces in a dusty county archive. It is stamped with dates, survey lines, and the names someone wanted to forget. Rosa Hernandez knows water by feel — the sound of a sluice, the weight of silt on boots. She reads the pages and finds a map of bargains and erasures. Elena tends the fields. Liam Whitefeather reads the treaties. Jake Monroe brings machines and lawyers. Ethan Barlow argues compromise. Each page rewrites who belongs to the river and why. The fight that follows is not cinematic. It is a slow, stubborn reckoning in mud and meeting rooms. There are moments of quiet grief. There are small, combustible victories. Science collides with memory. Law collides with labor. Justice arrives messy and partial. In the end, survival will be a negotiated rumor of what used to be, and a careful plan for what still can be kept.