Outside, the main street of Coldwater Creek went about its business. Bootsteps, a horse at the hitching post, the distant sound of the smithy working. Normal sounds. The sounds of a town that had been deciding for years not to look at certain things too closely. "Martha," Holt said finally.
His voice had changed. Not much, but enough. The careful arrangement had slipped. Underneath it was an older expression. Something more like the man he'd been before he'd learned to be careful.
I need you to tell me was Harold Yes. She said it simply, without drama, without tears. For ten years quietly, patiently, and in ways that left nothing visible she held his eyes. I know you liked him. I know this is difficult.
I'm not asking you to change everything you believed about Harold Briggs today. I'm asking you to look at my wrists and ask yourself whether the story Wade told you accounts for this. Another silence. Longer this time. Sam watched Holt's face work through something.
The particular painful process of a good man reconciling what he wanted to be true with what the evidence in front of him insisted was true instead. It was not a quick process. Sam had seen men go their whole lives without completing it. Holt completed it in about 3 minutes. Sam had not expected to respect him but he did.
"What do you need from me?" Holt said. Martha let out a breath. "Thomas Garrett arrives from Denver in two days. He's going to need character witnesses.
People who can speak to who I am and how I conducted myself in this community. People Wade can't buy or pressure into silence." She paused. "You married Harold and me. You baptized Lily.
You've known me for eight years, Reverend. That testimony matters. Wade will say I'm biased toward you. Wade will say whatever serves him. That doesn't mean you stay silent."
She looked at him steadily. "It just means that when you speak the truth you speak it clearly enough that the bias argument doesn't stick. Holt looked at his hands. Then he looked at Lily, who had been sitting with her customary patient silence, watching him with those eyes that apparently unsettled every adult who held them long enough. "Do you know what I remember most about your baptism?" he said to her.