Chapter 8 - The Clerk’s Choice
The afternoon sun cut through the high clerestory windows of the courthouse, casting long, dusty beams across the crowded benches. Judge Miller had recessed the hearing for twenty minutes to examine the physical characteristics of the inks used in the 1884 record books.
Elijah Vance sat alone at the defense table. Vernon Shade had stepped outside onto the side porch under the pretext of consulting his legal counsel from Santa Fe, leaving his clerk to face the silent scrutiny of half the valley.
Nava walked slowly down the aisle, stopping three feet from the defense table. Cormack remained standing near the front railing, his eyes locked on Vance.
“You’ve been signing records in this town for eighteen years, Mr. Vance,” Nava said, her voice entirely devoid of malice. “You remember when my father laid out his surveyor’s stakes. You recorded the initial fee in the small leather book with the brass clasp.”
Vance kept his head down, staring intently at the grain of the wood table. “That book was destroyed in the flood of eighty-six.”
“No,” Nava said, laying her hand on the edge of the table. “It wasn't. Because my father taught me how to bind paper with waxed linen thread so water wouldn't rot the spine. Shade told you to burn it, but you didn't have the stomach for a bonfire, so you stuck it in the back of the coal bin under the stairs.”
Vance’s head snapped up. His eyes widened behind his greasy spectacles. “How did you—?”
“Garrett remembered where you stored your scrap ledgers,” Nava said quietly. “He saw you carry a bundle down there the night after the transfer was filed. It’s still there, Mr. Vance. Under three sacks of anthracite.”
Shade walked back into the courtroom at that exact moment, his boots clicking sharply against the pine floorboards. He took in the scene instantly—Nava standing close to the table, Vance looking pale and cornered, the whispered murmurs running through the back benches.
“Vance,” Shade said sharply, his voice cutting through the room like a whip. “Pack your things. We are leaving.”
The clerk didn't move. He looked from Shade’s polished boots up to his cold, demanding eyes—eyes that had controlled Dry Mesa’s political and economic survival for longer than Vance cared to remember. But then Vance looked toward the back of the room, where three local ranchers who had lost their grazing patents three years prior were standing with folded arms.
“I can't, Mr. Shade,” Vance whispered, his voice cracking slightly. “The ledger... the ledger’s still in the cellar.”
Shade’s face darkened with a sudden, violent fury that he didn't bother to conceal. He reached out and grabbed Vance by the lapel of his coat, jerking him halfway across the table. “You miserable, weak-minded fool—”
Before Shade’s hand could tighten further, Cormack was across the aisle. His heavy hand gripped Shade’s wrist with the vice-like strength of a man who spent his life breaking wild horses. He didn't punch the commissioner; he simply applied steady, irresistible pressure until Shade was forced to let go of the clerk’s coat and step back, gasping slightly for air.
“Keep your hands off the office help, Vernon,” Cormack said, his face inches from Shade’s. “The judge is coming back in.”
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True to his word, the heavy door behind the bench swung open, and Judge Miller stepped back into the room, followed by Arthur Pendelton carrying the small, soot-stained leather ledger Vance had hidden fifteen years ago.
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