"This isn't your concern, stranger," said the man in the gray coat. He had the voice of someone used to being obeyed by men who worked for wages, not men who didn't. "Cyrus Wren, land agent for the Anglo-Wyoming Cattle Company. This writ was issued by Judge Alden Whitfield on the strength of a properly recorded deed. It is not a matter open to discussion."
"A deed?" Butch said, as a man discussing weather. "Mind if I take a look?"
Wren hesitated, but there were five of them and one of him, and refusing seemed like the more dangerous choice. He nodded to Reed, who handed the writ over with visible reluctance, which Reed slowly. It was a court order, plain enough, directing the sheriff of Johnson County to place the Anglo-Wyoming Cattle Company in possession of the Hargrove parcel on the basis of a deed of conveyance, signed, the writ noted, by the late David Hargrove himself, dated the 11th of February, 1900, and recorded at the county clerk's office in Buffalo the following week.
David Hargrove had died in March, thrown from a horse on a cold morning not two months after the date on that deed.
"My husband never sold this land," Ruth said. Her voice was steady, though her hands, gripping her children's shoulders, were not. "He built this house. He's buried on that rise there. I have the patent inside, if they'd let me fetch it before they carried my house away around me."
The patent proved a homestead claim in 1894.
Wren said, "Nobody disputes that your husband once owned this land honestly. What the court has before it is a later deed in which he sold it. A man may sell land he owns, Mrs. Hargrove. Whatever anyone might wish otherwise."
"Then let her fetch your patent," Butch said. "And we'll all have a look at both papers together."
It wasn't a request. Though he said it like one. Wren's jaw tightened. But he gestured for Reed to allow it. Ruth disappeared into the house and returned a minute later with a folded document, its creases soft with age and handling. Carver took it from her when Butch nodded at him, and read it over.
"Land patent," Carver said. "Signed, sealed, dated 1894. Out of the Buffalo Land Office. Proves the claim. Proves the residency. Proves the improvements. This is real."