"I think," she said carefully, "that I would like to sit down."
There was a bench against the depot wall. Nehemiah Morgan carried her carpetbag and her hatbox to it without being asked, and she carried the leather case herself, and they sat at either end of the bench with the bags between them like a fence. The station agent, a round man with sleeve garters, came out onto the platform, looked at them, and went back inside with the air of someone who had seen a great many things arrive at Elkhorn Siding and had learned to let them sort themselves out.
"I want to say something first," Nehemiah said, "so it's said. I didn't write to you. I didn't know you existed until four minutes ago. I came down here today because Fenna Gault at the post office told me on Saturday that a telegram had come for Caleb Morgan saying a lady would be on the Tuesday train, and Fenna thought somebody had better meet it. I thought it was some kind of mistake. A cattle buyer's wife, maybe, or somebody he owed money. I didn't know what I'd find. I'd have come regardless."
"Who sent the telegram?"
"Fenna said it came from Omaha. From you, I suppose."
"I sent it from Omaha," Linnet agreed. "He asked me to. In the last letter. He asked me to wire from Omaha so that he would know the day." She looked down at the letter still in her hand. "Mr. Morgan, who reads your brother's mail?"
"Nobody reads it. It goes to the post office and sits in the box. I pick it up when I'm in town, which is every two weeks or so." He stopped. "Or I did. Since spring I haven't been in as often. There's a lot of work with one man less."
"So someone else might have picked it up."
"Fenna wouldn't hand Morgan mail to just anybody."