He could feel the turned heads without seeing them, the stillness that had replaced the morning’s busy hum. Fitch straightened his jacket and dropped his voice low, which was worse somehow than if he’d raised it. “Mr. Boone. Take a seat and wait until I’m available, or come back another day. Those are your options.” A pause, precise and deliberate. “I’d choose one.”
Elias looked at him for a long moment. He thought about his grandfather breaking that soil by hand. His father’s twenty acres. Every drought, every loss, every morning before sunrise because the land didn’t care how tired you were. He thought about Margaret at the kitchen window with her coffee, watching the east field like it was something worth watching.