He introduced the original deed. He read the relevant section aloud. He noted for the record the discrepancies between the actual deed terms and the reversion clause Mercer had filed with the county court two days prior.
Alderton read the deed himself. He looked at Mercer's filed notice. He set both documents on his desk and looked at Aldridge.
"Counsel," he said, "I would like an explanation of how your client filed a legal instrument describing reversion terms that do not appear in the actual deed."
Aldridge was very still for a moment. "Your Honor, there may have been a research error."
"'A research error,'" Alderton repeated, in a tone that assigned that phrase its precise weight and found it extremely light. "I see." He set the documents aside and returned his attention to Hart.
Margaret came down from the witness stand and returned to her seat. Thomas pressed his arm briefly against hers as she sat—a small, private gesture that nobody saw, and that meant, from her son, everything it was possible for such a gesture to mean. She pressed back once and let go.
Hart called one final witness. He called Henry Lawson's doctor.
She hadn't known about this. Hart had not told her, had kept it back, and she understood now why: he hadn't wanted her to anticipate it, hadn't wanted the emotion of it to be visible in her face before the testimony. And he had been right to withhold it.
Dr. Samuel Price had come from Laramie, where he had relocated after leaving Red Hollow the previous year. He was a careful man, fifty-ish, with the specific gravity of someone who has testified before and knows the value of precision. He had been Henry's physician in the final months.
He testified that Henry Lawson, from October of 1885 forward, had been cognitively affected by his illness in ways that would have made him unable to reliably review financial documents. He testified that any contracts or financial agreements entered into during that period would have required exceptional clarity of presentation to be valid. He testified that, in his professional opinion, a man in Henry's condition during those months would not have been capable of independently verifying account balances or disputing presented figures.
He testified that he had told Caleb Mercer this directly, in a conversation at Mercer's store in November of 1885, when Mercer had come to ask about the prognosis.