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I stand when he sits.

No notes—I know this cold.

I walk Colbeck through the delivery log’s own language: no share transfer and file submissions to make my case.

“The water did not leave the ranch,” I state. “It did not change in type of use. It did not constitute abandonment under any reasonable reading of the statute, and the defendant respectfully submits that the plaintiff’s change-of-use argument fails to meet the threshold showing required for this court to find legal standing.”

The judge makes another note. A longer one this time.

I sit down.

The court reporter in the second gallery row—a woman named Denise, who has the fastest transcription speed in western Colorado—has knitted an entire cardigan over the course of various cases I’ve argued before Colbeck, during pauses and breaks.

Aldridge’s second associate is reviewing something on a tablet.

I look at the clock above the door: ten forty-seven.

We’ve been in session for an hour and seventeen minutes.

I allow myself, very carefully, a single degree of something adjacent to confidence.

I’ve been in this room four times. I’ve won three of those four hearings, and the one I didn’t win was a boundary dispute where my client had genuinely moved a fence line and I was trying to make a silk purse out of chain link. This is not that. This is solid ground.

I look at Clara, who is sitting with her back straight. She glances at me during a pause.

“How’s it going?”

“So far so good.”

She exhales.

Aldridge straightens his portfolio.

He’s not done.

I know he’s not done because he always has three things—prior appropriation was the first, Tom Reyes was the second—and the third is the one that’s going to hit hard.

I know this because I trained with lawyers like him, worked alongside them, and understood the structure of how they build a courtroom argument the way a builder understands how a frame goes up.

I don’t know what the third thing is. But whatever it is, I know I can handle it. We may actually win today, and that makes my heart beat fast.

Colbeck glances at the plaintiff’s table. “Does counsel have additional submissions?”

“We do, Your Honor.” Aldridge stands. He places a new document on the table. “Your Honor, we’d like to draw the court’s attention to a procedural defect in the defendant’s 1971 supplemental decree.”

The world pauses.

“The publication notice required by statute at the time of filing ran for fourteen days,” Aldridge says. “The statutory requirement was twenty-one days.”

Behind the plaintiff’s table, the man in the expensive suit, who is not a lawyer and is not from Colorado, leans forward slightly in his seat—the first movement he’s made in ninety minutes—and then as if satisfied with how things are proceeding, sits back.

“We have the publication records,” Aldridge continues, “and the original decree filing, and we submit that the supplemental decree covering the north pasture is procedurally defective and should be considered invalid in the adjudication of this matter.” He slides a document across the table to me. “Defendant’s counsel will find a copy of all supporting materials in the submission.”

I pick it up.

My hands are not shaking, but it’s a close thing.

The publication record.