Crane’s face flushed scarlet. He lunged toward the bench. “A technicality! A sham marriage arranged to evade honest debt!”
“A marriage recognized by territorial statute, Mr. Crane,” Clara shot back, her amber eyes locking onto the attorney with terrifying precision. “Unless you wish to tell this court that the territorial seal on this certificate is a forgery?”
Judge Vance scowled, waving his hand impatiently. “The certificate is valid, Mr. Crane. The woman has standing as co-respondent. What is this audit, Mrs. Ward? Be brief. The court will not indulge domestic theatrics.”
Clara opened the oilcloth satchel. She did not bring out tears; she brought out cold, immovable iron in the form of black ink.
“Your Honor,” she said, stepping to the clerk’s rail. “We do not seek an indulgence. We seek a criminal indictment for fraud, forgery, and grand larceny against the Shoshone Ditch Company and Silas Crowe.”
The entire courtroom erupted into pandemonium. Men jumped to their feet, shouting across the benches. Judge Vance hammered his gavel furiously against the oak desk, his face turning the color of an overripe plum.
“Silence! Silence in this court, or I will have the deputy clear the room!”
Silas Crowe did not shout. He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing into cold slits as Clara drew out the charred, water-stained daybook of Samuel Pike.
“Take the witness stand, Mrs. Ward,” Judge Vance commanded, his gavel still vibrating on the wood. He glared at Silas Crowe, then at the two Chicago investors who had stopped writing in their notebooks and were staring at the front of the room with sharp, uneasy interest. “And you had better have something more than reckless accusations, madam, or I will hold you in contempt and remand you to the county jail.”
Clara walked to the wooden witness box with measured, unhurried steps. She took the oath from Deputy Bell, her hand resting firmly on the worn leather of the Bible, and sat down. She did not look at the crowd; she arranged her papers on the narrow wooden shelf before her with surgical precision.
Thaddeus Crane stepped to the front of the rail, his hands tucked behind his coat tails, radiating disdain.
“Mrs. Ward—if that is indeed what you call yourself,” Crane began, pacing before the jury box. “You claim to be an expert in accounts. Yet your credentials, such as they are, derive from a dusty mission school and a cabinetmaker’s shop in the territory of New Mexico. Are you asking this court to believe that you, a stranger to Wyoming who arrived seventy-two hours ago, understand the financial transactions of the Shoshone Ditch Company better than its licensed directors?”
“I am not asking the court to believe me, Mr. Crane,” Clara answered, her voice calm, even, and perfectly audible in every corner of the packed room. “I am asking the court to believe the entries made by Silas Crowe’s own hand.”
She lifted the charred daybook, its cracked leather binding showing where Samuel Pike had kept it hidden against his bleeding ribs.
“Objection!” Crane barked, his voice cracking slightly. “That volume has not been authenticated! It is an unverified notebook of unknown origin!”
“It was kept by Samuel Pike, foreman of the Crowe Syndicate for nine years,” Clara said, turning toward the judge. “And Mr. Pike is sitting at that table, ready to swear to every line.”
Judge Vance frowned, looking toward the defense table where Pike sat, his head bowed, his hands resting flat on the baize. “Overruled. Proceed, Mrs. Ward.”
Clara opened the book to a page marked with a white ribbon.
“On June fourteenth, eighteen sixty-seven,” Clara read, “the Shoshone Ditch Company billed Black Creek Ranch the sum of three hundred and forty dollars for dredging the primary canal. In the bank ledger submitted by the plaintiffs, this amount was added to Elias Ward’s principal mortgage at twelve percent interest.”
She paused, looking directly at Silas Crowe.
“However, in Mr. Crowe’s private operational daybook, on that exact same date, appears the following entry: Paid to crew foreman J. Galt: forty dollars for constructing timber bulkhead at upper fork to stop water flow into Ward bottomland.”
A sharp gasp rippled through the gallery.
“That is a lie!” Crowe shouted from his seat, half-rising before Crane pulled him back down by the arm.
“There is more,” Clara continued without missing a beat, her finger moving down the column with unrelenting speed. “On August third of the same year: Paid to Deputy Surveyor H. Vance—two hundred dollars in gold for altering territorial coordinates on Record 412.”
The courtroom froze.
Judge Horatio Vance’s jaw dropped. His bloodhound jowls went slack, his face draining of color until he looked like a wax mannequin in the morning light. The surveyor mentioned in the book was his own younger brother, Harold Vance, who had left the territory for San Francisco two years prior.