That was not their determination to make. But they referred the matter to the territorial prosecutor with a recommendation for further criminal investigation, which was the closest thing to the word that a civil hearing could produce. They ordered Crane to pay Martha's withheld wages in full within 30 days. They ordered the tool chest and all its contents confirmed as Martha's personal property. And they entered into the formal record a finding that the design work of Henry Whitaker, mechanic, was not at fault for the accident of November 1,884 that resulted in the death of Robert Aldrich.
Martha heard that last part and she felt Silas's hand tighten on hers and she held on and breathed. Henry Whitaker's name was cleared. She walked out of the courthouse into the cold November air carrying her bag and her tool chest and nobody called her a thief and she stood on the courthouse steps for a moment and looked at the mountains in the distance. The bitter root rained sharp and white against the sky and she breathed the cold air in and let it out and let it be over. Silas came and stood beside her.
He didn't say anything. Neither did she. They stood there in the cold and looked at the mountains. And after a while, he said, "You hungry?" She almost laughed. "Yes," she said terribly.
They ate at the boarding house where they'd stayed before, the same table. And Martha ate with the particular appetite of someone whose body had been running on anxiety and was now catching up with itself. And Silas ate with her and watched her. With that expression she still hadn't entirely categorized and she looked up and caught him at it. What?
She said nothing, he Silas. He looked at his plate. Then he looked back at her. You walked in there today with four months of work and one notebook and you took apart everything he'd built against you. He said, "Piece by piece without asking anyone to do it for you.
I asked you to testify." She said, "You asked me to tell the truth about what I saw." He said, "That's different." He held her gaze. "I just want to make sure you know what you did today." "I know what I did," she said. "Good." He said, "Then eat your dinner." She ate her dinner. They rode back to the ranch in the early evening, the mountains going pink and then purple in the way they did at this hour. And Martha sat beside him on the bench and thought about what came next, the workshop she had been thinking about since before she came to the ranch.
The money that would come from the recovered wages. The lease she had seen advertised in town for a small space beside the supply road that would be exactly the right size for what she had in mind. She had been thinking about it carefully and specifically, and she was now in a position to do something about it. She was also sitting beside a man whose hand she had held in two different places today without either of them making it complicated. She needed to make it complicated.
Not because she wanted to, but because she had learned in 11 years with Henry and 2 years without him that the things you didn't say clearly had a way of becoming the things you regretted most. I'm going to open a repair shop, she said. Silas looked at the road ahead. I know, he said. You know, Eleanor mentioned you'd been looking at the lease on the Miller space off the supply road.