"Yes." He set down the cup. He opened his coat, carefully, the way a man does when he knows a rifle is on him, and took from an inside pocket a packet wrapped in oilcloth and tied with string. He put it on the table and slid it to the middle and took his hand back.
Sabra did not pick it up.
"Who's it from?"
He looked at her then, for the first time, full in the face. Whatever he had been carrying up the mountain was in that look, and it was heavy.
"I'd rather you read it, ma'am. I've thought about how to say it every mile from Leadville and I haven't found a way that's better than the letter."
"I'd rather you said."
He was quiet for a moment. The stove ticked. Outside, the wind had begun to come up the bench, and a little skein of snow hissed against the glass.
"Mrs. Hale," he said, "I was told that two winters ago your husband was found dead in a line shack on the Halfmoon trail, and brought down to Corbel, and buried there in the spring."
"That's so."