She sat with the note in her lap and looked at the rails running east from the depot, two bright lines that got closer and closer until they met in a point that was not really there. Then she went.
The Commercial Hotel had a long front porch with rocking chairs, and Whitcombe was sitting in one at the far end, alone, with a glass of whiskey on the rail and his portfolio on his knees. He had changed his shirt. He looked composed and a little grave. Only his hands gave him away. They would not stay still on the leather.
He stood when he saw her. "Miss Lindqvist. Thank you. Please sit."
"I'll stand, thank you."
"As you like." Down the porch, two drummers in checked suits had stopped talking. Whitcombe lowered his voice. "I've wired the Governor. A disgraced surveyor with a grudge and a debt, in league with a family that has tried for ten years to take land they lost fairly. I expect the special agent will see it for what it is."
"And if he doesn't?"
He paused. "Then I want you to think very carefully, before you speak tomorrow, about what you want for those children."
"I want them to have a school."
"Then hear me." He leaned closer. She could smell the whiskey and the bay rum. "If that contest succeeds, the knoll goes to the Red Willows. Not to the district. To Amos Red Willow. You think he'll let white children study on his land, after all this? The district cannot afford another building, and Abner Pruitt will not give another lot to a teacher who helped take his land. Your pupils will be walking six miles to the Crossing school, those that can, and the rest won't go at all. That's what's at stake. Not a few chains of creek bottom. Children."
He was very good, she thought. If she had not seen his face when the link hit the paper, she might have believed him for the rest of her life.
"You told me this morning," she said, "that all you wanted me to say was that the school had always been the children's."
"And it has."