He had the polished manners of a man who had learned early that being liked was more useful than being feared and the colder eyes of a man who had also learned that being liked was a tool rather than a virtue. He had offered to buy Silas Aldridge's water rights claim twice. Silas had refused twice, politely and without malice, and Voss had accepted both refusals politely and without malice, and the two of them had maintained a surface cordiality that fooled no one in the valley, but performed itself well enough for public consumption. The rest of the valley knew Voss's pattern roughly the way you know a neighbor's habits without ever sitting down and charting them out. He was careful with the people whose goodwill he needed.
He paid his bills in Redstone Crossing promptly. The mercantile, delivery, the farrier. He made modest donations to the chapel fund. He did not make scenes or raise his voice in public, and on the two or three occasions when one of his hired men did, Voss appeared the following morning to make it right with whoever had been on the receiving end. He was, by any normal measure of community conduct, an acceptable neighbor.
The valley understood that the acceptable neighbor and the man buying up draw water access one family at a time were the same man. But he had been careful enough and gradual enough that by the time a person had the full picture in their head, each individual piece of it looked reasonable. That is how it goes. Usually. Not fire and menace, just patience and paper and a lawyer who knows which county offices to visit and when.
After Silas died, Voss waited 7 weeks. Then he sent his accounts manager to see Nora. The accounts manager's name was Edson Crew. He was a pale, thin-necked man from Ohio who had come west for reasons he never explained, and had found his way into Voss's employ through a chain of connections that said something unflattering about the company he kept. He was not a stupid man.
He was the particular kind of intelligent that substitutes calculation for judgment and thinks it has made a good trade. Crew came to the Aldridge place on a Tuesday morning in late March with a document in a leather case and a pleasant smile that did not reach his eyes. The document claimed that Silas Aldridge had borrowed $800 from the Crescent V Grazing and Improvement Company in June of 1879, secured against the western water rights claim. The document had a signature. The document had a notary stamp.
The document said that with Mr. Aldridge now deceased, the loan had matured and if the estate could not satisfy the balance by the 1st of November, the water rights claim would be surrendered as collateral. Nora read the document twice. She asked to keep a copy. Crew said he would need to take the original and that a copy could be arranged through the Crescent V's offices.
He left smiling. She stood at the window and watched his horse move back down the lane toward the road. He had the easy upright seat of a man who had delivered this kind of news before and found it went smoothly when you dressed it correctly. The morning was already warm. The early spring light flat and yellow across the pasture.