"I'll have him at the office by noon," Nathan said.
Hart nodded and was already writing again. Margaret sat down, pulled a fresh sheet of paper toward her, and picked up her pen. She wrote the date at the top of the page. She wrote the first line: On the 4th day of March, 1887, my husband, Henry James Lawson, died of a pulmonary illness at our ranch property outside Red Hollow, Wyoming Territory. The following account begins on the 6th day of March, when Caleb Mercer first came to the house.
She wrote for four hours without stopping. By midday, she had eleven pages in her close, precise handwriting. By the time Nathan returned with Pete McAllister's sworn statement and two more from other neighbors she hadn't expected to come forward—Ed Loomis from the mill, who had witnessed Mercer threaten the previous owner of the feed store over associating with Margaret, and Clara Briggs, who had brought her own account books and was trembling slightly, but had not wavered—the document was seventeen pages long.
Hart read every page. He read it in silence, moving his lips slightly on the technical passages, making small marks in the margins. When he finished, he set it down and said, "This is the best client statement I have ever received."
Margaret said, "It's just the facts."
"That," Hart said, "is precisely why it's the best."
Nathan came back through the door in time to hear that last exchange, and he set Pete's statement on the table and poured himself the last of the morning's coffee, and he didn't say anything. But Margaret saw the expression on his face and looked away before she could examine it too closely.
That afternoon was the first time she felt the tide had genuinely turned. It was also, predictably, when Caleb Mercer decided he had been patient long enough.
Roy Cutter came to the ranch at 3:00. He didn't ride up casual this time the way he had before; he came with four men, which was two more than he'd brought to the recorder's office, and he came to the door instead of the fence line, which told Margaret that Mercer had made a decision. She went to the door. Nathan was a step behind her and to the left—not in front of her, not shielding her, just present, his hands loose at his sides.
Cutter looked past her to Nathan first, then back to her. "Mr. Mercer would like to make a final offer," Cutter said. "Before this goes further in the courts."
"Mr. Hart handles all communication from Mr. Mercer," Margaret said.