But in a county this empty, a woman riding the same trail 11 times makes a sound louder than a stampede, and a father always hears it first. You wouldn't happen to know a man breaks horses out this way, goes by Calloway? Ezra Calloway. Keeps to himself mostly. Why do you ask?
No reason. Name just rang a bell. Man I used to do business with back in Ohio had a nephew went by that name. Left home rather sudden as I recall, some trouble with a wedding that didn't happen. Whitfield.
Warren Whitfield. Mercer. Pleasure. This Calloway you mentioned, you're certain of the name? Certain enough.
Small world, isn't it, Mr. Whitfield? You know a Calloway? My daughter does. Calloway.
Mr. Whitfield. I heard something in town today about a man named Calloway. A wedding, Ohio. You heard something.
I heard enough to ask. Then ask. Is it true? Some of it. Probably not the part that made it worth repeating.
That's not an answer. It's the only one I owe a man I've never known 10 minutes. My daughter's not a woman who gets talked out of things. Once she's decided them, so I won't waste breath telling you to stay away from her. Good.
I wasn't going to listen anyway. Whatever happened in Ohio, about who tells her first. A story like that lands different depending on whose mouth it comes from. Sit down, Della. I'll stand.
I met a man in town today. Says he knows the Callaway name from Ohio. Lots of people are named Callaway. He mentioned a wedding that didn't happen. A man who left rather suddenly.
And you believe a stranger you met once over a name he wasn't even certain of? I believe I've watched you ride out to that man's land 11 times in 3 weeks, and I'd rather ask an uncomfortable question. That's not fair. No, it isn't. I'm not being fair.
I'm being your father. I'll ask him myself. Not because you told me to, because I decide what I ask and when. Same as I always have. That's all I wanted, that you ask.
You could have just said that, instead of setting a trap with it. Della Whitfield had built her whole life on reading things carefully before deciding what to trust. A herd, a ledger, a man. She had never once been wrong. She was beginning to suspect this might be the first time.
And the whole county turned out for it. Bride standing at the altar in her mother's dress, and the groom's horse gone from the stable an hour before the ceremony. Never did show his face in that county again. What happened to the girl? Susanna Cole.
Fine family. Never did marry after, far as I know. Some scandals a woman doesn't recover from, even when the fault's not hers to carry. Callaway, that's the name. Same one, if the description's anything to go by.
There's a man in town talking about Mr. Callaway, telling it ugly. I thought you'd rather hear it from me than catch it second-hand in the street. Telling what, exactly? That he left a woman at the altar.
Back in Ohio. That's the shape of it, far as I heard. Thank you for telling me straight. Whatever the truth of it, you'll want to hear his version before you decide what to do with theirs. That's exactly where I'm headed.
You heard? I heard a version. I want yours. Her name was Susanna Cole. Our fathers did business together.
The wedding was arranged before either of us was old enough to have an opinion about it. That's not a crime, Ezra. No. Leaving the night before it happened, that's the part people don't forgive as easy. Why'd you leave?