He didn’t look at my face.

He stared down at the scuffed toes of his heavy leather boots.

“I had to,” I said.

“The corporate buyers don’t care about the lilacs.”

Walt kept his eyes on the gray stones at our feet.

He was completely cornered by what he had done.

He fully expected me to gloat about winning the auction.

He expected me to tell him he was banned for good from the eighty acres he had sold to the Denver hunter.