She did know.
From the kitchen window she could trace the curve.
Past the old fence corner.
Through the low depression.
Toward the three marked logs stored under cover near the workshop after careful partial recovery.
Log 3 had been moved intact.
Log 2 remained largely intact except for the evaluation cut at its damaged end.
Log 1 stayed partly buried, protected and mapped.
Eli built a simple roofed rack for the smaller historic sections and hung a handwritten sign above it: RIVERWOOD - DO NOT CUT WITHOUT ASKING NORAH.
Norah found it after school.
"Why my name?"
"Because apparently you're management now."
"You hate management."
"I hate bad management."
She ran her hand over the old block from Amos Bell's generation, now stored beside documented samples from the new recovery.
The objects connected four moments in time.
A nineteenth-century timber drive.
The 1936 low-water recovery.
The 1989 flood.
And Norah standing in a cold workshop realizing history was not arranged in neat eras until after people stopped living through it.
In January, Clara invited Norah to speak at the historical society's annual dinner.
Norah refused immediately.
Eli accepted for her immediately.
They argued for two days.
"I already did the school presentation."
"Those children were legally required to listen."
"Exactly. Better audience."
"Clara asked because you've done the work."
"You can speak."
"They didn't ask me."
"Because they know you'll say maybe for forty minutes."
Eli smiled. "Then save them."
The dinner took place in a church fellowship hall with folding tables, ham, green beans, rolls, and enough coffee to keep local history alive indefinitely. Norah stood behind a wooden lectern while nearly eighty adults watched.
She recognized farmers, teachers, shopkeepers, and people who had come to the museum exhibit.
Marcus Sterling sat near the back.
That made her more nervous than she wanted to admit.
She began with the line she had written for Clara's bulletin.
"The first useful thing we found was not expensive wood. It was a reason not to throw away the question."
Then she told the story carefully.
Flood.
Mark.
Marcus's visit.
Maps.
Newspaper.
Raymond.
The 1936 photograph.
The Bellamy & Cross registry.