“Win This Case, I’ll Resign As Judge,” He Sneered — Widow’s Daughter Did and Stunned the Frontier

Chapter 8

Page Forty-Two

The guards stepped in front of her before she reached the door, arms crossed, boots planted wide.

“Building’s closed to the public, little lady.”

Clementine raised her voice so every man in earshot could hear her. “I am Clementine Boon. I’ve come to accept Mr. Arthur Vance’s settlement offer for my father’s ranch. Go and fetch him.”

The two guards exchanged a confused look. This was exactly what the bosses wanted, was it not? A settled case, a quiet widow leaving, a closed door.

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” Clementine added, stepping forward.

“Hold on.” One guard put his hand on her shoulder. “I said you’ll come back later —”

Around the back of the building, a second-story window eased open and a shadow dropped inside.

The front guard hurried off to find the manager. His partner stepped away to light a cigarette, hunched against the wind. Clementine stood on the boardwalk, counting seconds. Her heart hammered against her ribs. If Hosea was caught, they would hang him. If she failed, her mother would be homeless by sundown.

She reached into her apron pocket and closed her fingers around her grandfather’s compass.

Hold the line. Hold the line.

Inside the building, in a room that smelled of stale tobacco and dead dust, Hosea knelt in front of a massive iron safe. He pressed his ear to the cold metal, closed his eyes, and began to turn the dial.

He had spent his youth hunting outlaws through these hills. He knew how to listen to the tumblers of a lock the way other men knew how to read a river.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The handle gave with a sigh of old iron, and the door swung open.

Outside, the guard returned. “Mr. Vance ain’t here right now. Come back later.”

“I’ll wait,” Clementine insisted.

“I said —” the guard’s hand came down hard on her shoulder —

— and the back alley door banged open.

Hosea Brooks strolled out, dusting off his coat with unhurried hands. He walked straight past the staring guards, tipping his hat.

“Morning, Miss Boon. Fine day for a trial.”

He kept walking. Clementine backed away from the shocked guard’s hand and followed.

Two streets over, when they were alone, Hosea opened his coat.

Tucked into his belt was a thick black leather book.

“Insurance,” he said.

Clementine took it in both hands. The pages were filled edge to edge with Thomas Crane’s meticulous, recognizable handwriting — dates, names, sums. Bribes. Payoffs. Forged deeds. Thirty carved-up families whose names had been priced like cattle.

And there, on page forty-two, in the exact center of the whole rotten web:

May 12. Forged signature per A. Vance. Ledger buried.

Clementine stared at the ink until the words stopped blurring.

“Papa,” she breathed. “We’ve got him.”

Hosea drew his revolver and loaded it with a loud, final click.

“Then let’s go hang a judge.”

Courtroom 7B was suffocating in the heat. The gallery was packed shoulder to shoulder — ranchers and merchants and rail hands and girls with braided hair and dust on their shoes. The whispers rose like a swarm of locusts and died the instant Judge Thomas Crane entered from his chambers.

He looked pleased. Deeply, indulgently pleased.

He had spoken with Vance. He knew Levi Morgan had fled. He knew the foolish girl at the defense table had nothing left, nothing at all — no witness, no evidence, no hope. His robes billowed as he sat, and the smile he turned on Clementine was the smile of a man about to close a long, profitable account.

“Proceed.”

Reed was on his feet before the echo faded.

“Your honor — seeing as the defense has failed to produce a single credible witness, the Cornwall Railway Company moves for immediate dismissal. We ask the court to formally recognize the Boon deed as valid.”

Every head in the room turned to Clementine.

Crane looked down at her, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “Miss Boon. It appears you are out of options. For the sake of the court’s time — do you concede?”

The room held its breath.

Clementine stood.

She did not tremble. She did not look away. She reached for the thick black leather book and stepped out from behind the defense table.

“I concede nothing.”