The simple contact of one person, telling another person, "I'm here. We're in this together. You are not alone." Then he took his hand back. Clare kept her eyes on the table for a moment.
"Now we wait," she said. Now we wait, he agreed. They didn't have to wait as long as they expected, and the news came from a direction neither of them anticipated. Morrison sent word on Wednesday through his delivery boy that there was something Thomas needed to hear in town. Thomas went alone.
He came back 2 hours later. He came in and the look on his face was not the face of a man who had received good news or bad news. It was the face of a man who had received news that required a moment of stillness to absorb. Clare waited. He sat down.
Holt filed his report yesterday, he said. And Clare said, and apparently he filed a report that Whitmore did not expect. Thomas looked at her. Morrison heard it from the county clerk's son who works in the filing office. The report found the Walker Ranch to be a viable operation with no legitimate basis for invoking the acceleration clause.
The kitchen was very quiet. He told the truth, Clare said. He told the truth, Thomas confirmed. He paused. Morrison says Whitmore was in the county offices yesterday afternoon and he was not quiet about his reaction.
Good, Clare said. And she meant it. A quiet Whitmore was a careful Witmore. An angry Whitmore might make mistakes. There's more, Thomas said.
He looked at her steadily. The county board is meeting Friday. Morrison says three of the board members have requested that Whitmore's banking practices as they relate to property acquisition in this county be discussed. He paused. Morrison talked to more than just one person.
Apparently, the Hadley family, the Widow Jansen, the Pratt brothers. They all hold notes at Whitmore's bank. They've all been watching what happened to us. Clare stared at him. Morrison did that, she said after I talked to him last week.
Morrison's been waiting for a reason, Thomas said. We gave him one. The thing that had seemed like the weakest move going to a general store owner rather than a lawyer talking to a community rather than a court had turned out to be the strongest move because banks survived on community trust. And community trust was exactly what was now moving against Richard Whitmore. He's not done, Clare said.