Who built the original barn?
Why did the south fence make a strange angle near the pecan tree?
When was the lower field first drained?
Who taught Eli to sharpen saw blades?
What did his father mean when he called one depression the "boat hole" even though no boat had been there in living memory?
Some answers connected to records.
Others existed only in Eli's memory.
Some had no answers.
Norah learned to leave blank space without treating it as failure.
The riverwood continued to enter family life in smaller ways. Eli kept several narrow offcuts from Log 11 after sales and milling. One became a shelf in the workshop. Another became a simple frame for a copy of the 1936 photograph.
Raymond objected when Eli cut the frame stock himself.
"Crooked," Raymond said.
"Handmade."
"Crooked handmade."
"Adds history."
"Adds poor joinery."
Norah listened to them argue for ten minutes before taking the frame away.
She hung it beside the old timber block.
Under the photograph she placed a typed card Clara had prepared:
AMos Bell and family, August 1936. Riverwood recovered during unusually low water from the former west chute near Bell land. Photograph and handwritten note preserved by the Bell family.
The card made the workshop look almost like a museum.
Eli hated that description.
"It's still a shop."
"Museums can have tools."
"Museums don't have mice."
"You've never seen the historical society basement."
He conceded the point.
The most significant marked trunk stored above ground, Log 3, remained intact through the following year. Clara occasionally brought researchers to photograph it. Dr. Carver returned once with students studying wood anatomy and river preservation. Norah listened while they discussed growth conditions, anaerobic burial, extractives in cypress heartwood, and the difficulty of dating recovered material without pretending scientific precision that samples could not provide.
One student asked Norah what the log was worth.
She smiled because the question had become familiar.
"Depends what you mean."
The student laughed. "Money."
"Then depends who buys it and what they can recover."
"What do you think?"
Norah looked at the old mark.
"Enough that we didn't sell it when we needed money."
"Why not?"
"Because we couldn't buy it back after we understood it better."
The student nodded slowly.
That answer satisfied Norah more than any dollar amount could have.
Marcus Sterling did eventually work on the Bell property again. Two years after the flood, a smaller buried cypress trunk needed extraction because erosion exposed it near a drainage repair. Eli called Marcus because his tracked loader could reach the site with less damage than heavier equipment.
When Marcus arrived, Norah stood by the gate.
"How much are you going to tell us it's worth?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I knew this job was a mistake."
"Answer."
"Extraction only. Hourly rate. Timber stays yours."
"Good answer."