"I only file what's brought to me properly," Halloran said, which wasn't quite a denial.
Carver had been busy in a different direction, drinking coffee in the newspaper office and asking questions a stranger with an easy manner could get away with asking. He returned with more than gossip.
"Anglo Wyomings bought out four homesteads along the Powder River since spring," he said. "All the same shape, a deed turns up, dated to a man who's since died or moved on, recorded quiet months after the date it claims. Newspaper ran a piece calling it aggressive but lawful expansion. Nobody's proved different yet."
"Four families," Ben said, not just the widow.
"Which means whoever's behind these deeds has done it enough times to make it look routine," Butch said. "Except for a notary commission that expired before he ever swore to this one."
Curry had said little on the ride, which was its own kind of statement. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat in a way the others knew to take seriously.
"That boy in the yard," he said, "six years old, watched strangers carry his mother's kitchen table into a wagon like she was nothing. I've done plenty I ain't proud of. I never once put a child through that for money that wasn't even mine to take."
Nobody answered him right away. Curry rarely spoke about children and never like that.
"Wren believes his own paper," Sundance said. "I watched him yesterday. He wasn't play-acting when Butch questioned the deed. He thinks it's genuine."