Dismissed, the hand lifts on the wrist, points the fingers out, and curls back in just as easy. It pulls the cut on his palm just enough to remind him it's there, and maybe he shouldn't be offering it anyway. "Nice to meet you, Sam."

If the silence he lapses into along the path is awkward, he doesn't notice. It's always seemed a problem for other people, and not his to deal with. When a thought occurs to him to speak, he speaks: "I've been leaving paper at the inn; did you find it?"