He was a decent man. He witnessed that document without hesitation because Henry asked him to and because it was the right thing to do. He'll do it again. Amos nodded. He looked at the list again.
At the bottom, two names she had written and not yet asked about. Witnesses to the construction. He said, "If you're willing," she said. "You and Jesse and Tommy, you all saw the work in progress. Dated specific statements about what you saw and when would make Dunar's prior claim argument collapse entirely.
You don't have to ask for that," he said. His voice was level, but there was something under the evenness, something that had weight to it. "You don't have to calculate what you can ask me for, Clara. Not for this." She looked at him. I calculate everything.
She said it's how I function. I know. He said, I'm not asking you to stop. I'm staying on this. You don't have to.
He paused. Whatever this costs, I'm in it. Not because I want something from you. Because what Dunbar is doing is wrong and he knows it and he's doing it anyway because he thinks he can get away with it. I've been watching men like him do that to people who have less than they do for 20 years.
And I am tired of it. She held his eyes outside. The wind moved through the pines on the north boundary. The sound that had become the sound of this place, her place. Write the statement, she said.
Dated, signed, specific. What you saw and when? I will, he said. And when you find Cole, she paused. And the pause had something in it she did not usually put into pauses.