Well, he said, "Well, Martha agreed. Three separate tamperings on one wagon. Yes. He sat for a moment, holding the resins, not moving the team forward yet. Someone really wanted me not to make this run or not to make it back from it.
Martha said the difference between those two possibilities sat between them in the cold mountain air. Silas picked up the rains. We're still going, Martha said. The families need I know Silas. She looked at him directly for the first time in a few miles.
I already told you I was coming. I didn't change my mind when I found the leather strip and I haven't changed it now. I'm just making sure you understand that whoever did this is not finished and we should both be paying attention. He held her gaze for a moment. All right, he said.
They moved. The pass itself was brutal that day in the way mountain passes were brutal in the fall. Not dangerous exactly, the road still open, but the wind coming off the high peaks with a cold edge that promised what was building behind it. And the sky that particular flat white that Martha had learned meant weather was deciding whether to commit. The horses worked steadily.
Silas handled them without drama. And Martha watched his hands on the res, the small adjustments, the way he read the road through the animals and responded before the animals had finished telling him what they'd found. Henry had driven a team the same way. She made herself stop thinking about Henry. Your sister said you've run this ranch alone 12 years.
Martha said more to have something to say than because she needed the answer. 13. Come spring. Silas said you have ranch hands. Two brothers.
They're down in the valley this week. Kept picking up winter supplies. He paused. I was supposed to wait for them to come back before I made this run. But the weather pushed up faster than expected.
So you were going to take this wagon alone? Martha said, "Over this pass alone, I've done it before with a wagon that someone had tampered with three separate ways. He was quiet for a moment. I didn't know about the tampering." "No," Martha said. "You didn't." She looked at the road ahead.