The arithmetic of it does not favor Caleb unless you're calculating the other arithmetic. The one that says Voss is a businessman, not a killer, and his whole operation in this valley, his permits, his relationships with the county commissioner, his standing before the circuit judge in Santa Rosa, his ability to do business in this county for the next 10 years depends on him not being the man who publicly drags a bride off chapel steps in front of 20 witnesses, and then shoots the groom when he points out the forgery. That arithmetic was running in Voss's head, and it was running fast, and it was not coming out in favor of the Guns. Voss said, "You're claiming the lien is fraudulent?" Caleb said, "I'm not claiming it. I'm showing it the county recorder's stamp is on the back." February 1882.
Mr. Aldridge died in January 1882. "Those dates don't move." "I was not aware," Voss said with a careful flatness, "of the specific mechanism by which that document was prepared." Caleb looked at him for a moment. "I believe that," he said, and he said it in the particular tone that meant what it said. The acknowledgement that Crew might have executed the forgery below Voss's direct instruction, which was a legal distinction that mattered, and which Caleb was deliberately giving Voss room to claim.
Voss understood what was being offered. He was not a man who failed to recognize a clean exit when one was presented. One of the men by the chapel steps shifted his weight. His hand moved toward his belt. Not quite a draw, but the beginning of an intention.
"Don't." Felix Guard said it from 6 ft away, off to the left, having moved during the conversation in a way that nobody had tracked because everyone's attention was on Caleb and Voss. He was not reaching for his own gun. He was just standing there in range with an expression that did not need any elaboration. The man looked at Felix. Then he looked at Voss.
Voss looked at Felix. Something passed between their eyes. Not quite recognition, but the assessment of a man looking at another man who is no longer positioned where he is supposed to be. "Felix," he said carefully, "what exactly are you doing?" "Settling something," Felix said. "That's all." Voss was quiet for a moment.
Then he looked at the thin-necked man sitting a horse behind the rest of the group. Edson Crew. Who had ridden out with Voss's second party and was now trying very hard to be invisible. Which is not a thing a thin-necked man on a horse in a churchyard is capable of achieving when a very particular quality of attention has just been turned in his direction. Crew looked at the ground.