Martha drank her second cup of coffee and looked at his kitchen and began making a list in her head. Your sister wrote me a letter. Silas said, "I know. She wrote me one, too. She didn't tell me much about you." Martha looked at him.
"What did she tell you? That you were a widow. That you could cook and keep house." He looked at his plate. That I needed somebody who could do more than that and that you were somebody who could. Martha was quiet for a moment.
Did she tell you I helped my husband run a freight repair operation for 9 years? Silas Fork paused. No, he said. Did she tell you I can identify 23 common wagon faults by sound and visual inspection? No, he said.
Did she tell you I have never once in my life allowed a wagon to leave my care with a repair I wasn't certain of? He put his fork down. She said you were a housekeeper, he said slowly. Martha reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a folded letter. She found the last page, the page she was looking for, and laid it on the table facing him.
She told you everything, Martha said. But it was four pages, and you read what you expected and stopped. She watched him read it. She watched his expression as he read it, and she saw the exact moment he reached the part his sister had written that spelled out plainly and precisely what Martha Whitaker had actually spent the last decade of her life doing. He set the letter down.
He looked at her. I owe you an apology, he said. You owe me fair wages and a fair chance, Martha said. The apology I'll take as a courtesy. Something moved at the corner of his mouth that might have been the very beginning of a smile.
You're not what I expected, he said. No, Martha agreed. I imagine not. She stood up and began clearing the plates. There are families on the other side of Blackwater Pass, she said, carrying the dishes toward the basin.
Your sister mentioned it in her letter. An early cold front coming. Provisions low. You were planning to take that wagon through today. Still am, Silas said.