“Mrs. Ward—” the judge stammered, his gavel trembling in his hand.
“And on October eleventh of last year,” Clara pressed on, her voice rising with the majestic weight of an unassailable truth, “forty-two head of Black Creek steers were delivered to the freight siding. The rail bill of lading shows forty-two head. The bank ledger, prepared by Mr. Crane’s office, records only thirty-four head. The missing eight head—prime four-year-old Durham crossbreeds—were rebranded with Crowe’s Bar-C iron at the stockyards and shipped under the name of the Shoshone Cattle Company to Chicago. The draft for two hundred and forty dollars was deposited directly into Silas Crowe’s private account at the First Territorial Bank.”
She set the daybook down and turned to the two men in the bowler hats in the front row.
“Gentlemen,” she said directly to the Chicago investors, “the collateral you are preparing to purchase does not exist. It is built upon stolen water, fraudulent invoices, and altered cattle tallies. If you wire fifty thousand dollars to this syndicate today, you are purchasing a federal felony under the Interstate Commerce Act.”
The two Chicago men closed their notebooks with a synchronized snap, stood up without saying a word, and pushed their way through the murmuring crowd toward the double doors.
“Wait! Gentlemen, return to your seats!” Crane pleaded, sweat glistening on his pale forehead as he waved his arms frantically. “Your Honor, this is an outrage! This testimony is based on hearsay and stolen private records!”
“Call Samuel Pike,” Clara said quietly, looking down from the witness box.
Tom Bell helped the old foreman to his feet. Pike shuffled forward, leaning heavily on the wooden railing of the witness stand. He raised his right hand, his knuckles scarred from fifty years of ranch work, and swore the oath before God and the territory.
“Samuel,” Elias spoke from the defense table, his voice cutting through the panic. “Did you witness Thomas Ward sign the quitclaim deed to Black Creek’s water rights in sixty-eight?”
Pike closed his eyes for a second, then looked straight at Silas Crowe.
“No,” Pike rasped, his voice trembling with a mixture of shame and liberation. “Thomas Ward never signed that paper. He was dying of the lung rot in his bed that summer. Silas Crowe brought that paper to the forge. He had a clerk from the hotel forge old Tom’s name with an iron nib, and he gave me twenty dollars in silver to put my mark down as a witness.”
A roar went up from the crowd—a furious, guttural bellow from the small ranchers who had watched Crowe squeeze the life out of the valley for a decade.
“Liar!” Crowe roared, his composure completely shattering. He leaped to his feet, kicking his chair backward into the wall. “You drunken, thieving old dog! I took you out of the gutter!”
“And you put a bullet in my ribs three nights ago to shut my mouth!” Pike shouted back, ripping open his flannel shirt to display the raw, blackened wound and the blood-soaked linen bandages. “Look at it, Judge! Look at what Crowe pays his men with when the lies run out!”
Judge Horatio Vance looked at the bloody wound. He looked at the entries in the daybook bearing his brother’s name. He looked at the two empty seats where the Chicago capital had been sitting five minutes before.
He picked up his heavy gavel.
“The petition for foreclosure,” Judge Vance pronounced, his voice trembling as he struck the oak desk with a thunderous blow that cracked the sounding block, “is hereby denied! The court orders the immediate impoundment of all records of the Shoshone Ditch Company, and directs the sheriff to place Silas Crowe under arrest for forgery, subornation of perjury, and attempted murder!”
Crowe did not wait for Tom Bell’s hand. He drew a small, nickel-plated derringer from his waistcoat pocket, aimed it at the bench, and backed toward the side door of the judge’s chambers.
“Don't move, Tom!” Crowe snarled, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “Don't any of you move!”
He threw open the chamber door, slammed it behind him, and bolted the heavy brass lock from the inside.
The panic in the courtroom was instantaneous. Men trampled one another trying to reach the hallway stairs, women screamed, and Deputy Tom Bell threw his heavy shoulder against the stout oak of the judge’s chamber door, his revolver drawn, shouting for the town constable.
Elias did not join the crush at the door.
He leaped over the low railing, seized Clara by the waist, and swung her off the witness stand, shielding her body with his own as the crowd surged toward the exits.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, his hands gripping her shoulders.
“I’m whole,” she said, her breath coming in short, fierce gasps, her fingers clutching his lapels. “Did he have a horse behind the building?”