And she certainly didn't know that the rancher who had publicly humiliated her for purchasing the bull would soon appear at her gate with a check large enough to pay every debt on her family's property.
All she knew that morning was that her grandfather had been right about one thing.
Sometimes, before you can understand what's happening on the ground, you have to look toward the sky.
Three days earlier, however, there had been no birds.
Only laughter.
And one thousand dollars Claire could barely afford to lose.
The Beeville Livestock Auction was crowded that Monday afternoon, with cattlemen leaning against the metal railings, ranch trucks filling the dusty parking area, and the smell of hay, leather, livestock, and diesel exhaust drifting through the building.
Claire had arrived shortly after eleven.
She was twenty-four years old, with fair sun-kissed skin, clear green eyes, and long auburn hair braided loosely over one shoulder. A light tan cowboy hat shaded her youthful face, and she wore a fitted blue denim button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, high-waisted jeans, a thick brown leather belt, and worn cowboy boots that had belonged to her since she was nineteen.
She looked beautiful in a way that attracted attention wherever she went, but beauty had never helped her persuade an equipment lender to delay a payment or convince a feed supplier to extend credit.
Neither had youth.
If anything, being a young woman operating an old ranch without a husband, father, or wealthy family behind her seemed to encourage certain men to speak to her as though she had wandered into the wrong building.
Claire had grown accustomed to that.
She was not accustomed to having quite so many people laugh at once.
The afternoon sale had progressed normally until the auctioneer announced Lot 63.
A trailer gate opened.
Two handlers carefully guided an enormous reddish-brown Beefmaster bull into the sale ring.
The animal was magnificent in size.
Even exhausted, it carried the frame of a powerful breeding bull. Its shoulders were broad, its chest deep, its legs heavily muscled, and its head crowned with thick, curved horns.
But the bull's condition was dreadful.
Dense clusters of ticks covered large areas of its skin. Its hair was rough. Its ears drooped. Its tail flicked constantly, and every few moments it shook its head as though trying to escape something invisible.