She remembered complaining that they should buy a new one.
He had smiled.
"Why buy a new box when the old box still remembers where everything belongs?"
Now she almost laughed at the memory.
She opened the second drawer.
Folders filled the space.
Annual breeding summaries.
Vaccination records.
Pasture maps.
Sales contracts.
And, near the back, a thick leather-bound ledger with her grandfather's initials burned into the cover.
Claire lifted it carefully.
The pages smelled of dust and old paper.
She placed it on the workbench.
The ranch hand stood beside her.
For several minutes, they searched through handwritten entries.
Most contained ordinary information.
Dates.
Animal descriptions.
Breeding records.
Weights.
Health observations.
Purchases and sales.
Then Claire stopped.
A photograph had been tucked between two pages.
She lifted it.
The image showed her grandfather standing beside a young reddish-brown bull in the southern pasture.
The calf was perhaps a year old.
Its shoulders were already broad.
Its horns were beginning to develop.
And on its left shoulder was a distinctive brand composed of two angled strokes and a curved lower line.
Claire stared.
The ranch hand leaned closer.
"Well, I'll be."
She turned the photograph over.
Her grandfather had written a date.
April 2021.
Underneath it were three words.
Last spring bull.
Claire looked toward the open barn door.
Her heart was pounding.
The ranch hand studied the photograph.
"That animal looks familiar."
Claire nodded.
"I remember him."
"You do?"
She pointed toward the horns.
"Grandpa used to joke that he had too much head and not enough patience."
The ranch hand smiled.
"I remember that."
Claire opened the ledger again.
There was an entry for a young bull identified as G-41.
A reddish-brown calf born during the final productive spring before her grandfather's illness worsened.
The record described excellent early growth, strong conformation, and a distinctive left-shoulder brand.
But the entry also contained something Claire had forgotten.
The young bull had been transferred to a regional breeding partnership.
Not sold outright.
Transferred under an agreement allowing another operation to use him as breeding stock for a defined period.
Claire stared at the wording.
The ranch hand frowned.
"I don't remember that."
"Neither do I."
She turned the page.
A carbon copy of the agreement was attached.
The receiving operation was Southline Range Partnership.
Claire recognized the name.
The company had once operated a breeding facility west of Beeville.