"Yes. A terrible thing. I've thought about it many times. Have you?" Two words, flat and even.
Nothing in them for Cage to grip. Cage looked at him for a moment. Then he lifted his hat brim slightly and settled it back. He appreciated the cooperation, he said. If anything unusual turned up, Tobias should get word to the office right away.
"First thing," Tobias said. He stood on the porch and watched them take the ranch road back toward the Presidio cut. He watched until the dust settled and the road was empty. Then he went to the root cellar, moved the shelf panel, and knocked twice on the false floor in the pattern they had agreed on. Bitsy came up from the dark below slowly, pale from the blood loss and from the hour in the confined cold.
But her face held the same level quality it had carried in the barn on the first night. She stood and breathed steadily for a moment. Then she walked to the kitchen and sat at the table. He put the kettle on. "He'll be back."
Tobias set out the cups. Not the kind of man to leave something unresolved. Her hands wrapped around the cup when he poured. "The relay station," she said. After the conviction, Cage had come back there, gone through Nathan's bunk looking for anything he might have missed, taken what he found.
Next time he brought men here, he would not knock first. Tobias was quiet for a moment. Tobias was quiet for a moment, thinking about his land, the dip east of the old water tank that offered a clear sightline over both approach routes simultaneously. The barn loft window that looked directly down the road approach. Seven years of knowing every gully and rise and sightline on this property.
Three or four riders, standard pattern for a search. Two sides, spread the flanks, close the center. A pause. But he doesn't know this ground. I do.