She hadn't expected that. "Why?"
"Because Mercer's case is built on what Henry owed him. And before I can help you argue the numbers, I need to know what kind of man Henry was with money."
She wrapped both hands around her cup. The honest answer was complicated, the way honest answers about people you loved always were. "Henry was a good man," she said. "He was generous. Too generous. He believed in people past what the evidence warranted sometimes. And he'd extend credit at the ranch to hands who didn't earn it, and buy equipment on promise when the cash wasn't there. But he wasn't reckless. He kept records. He always kept records." She pushed the main ledger across the table. "Every transaction for twelve years, every dollar in and every dollar out."
Nathan opened it. He had the hands of a man who'd worked with them, scarred across the knuckles, the kind of strength that didn't announce itself. But he turned the pages of the ledger with a careful attention that surprised her.
"What are the figures Mercer's claiming?" he asked.
She slid Mercer's papers across. "$430, allegedly borrowed over eighteen months. But look at this." She turned to the page she'd marked with a strip of ribbon. "March of '86, Henry records a payment to Mercer's account of $70. Right there, his handwriting, his figures. But in Mercer's ledger—" she pointed to the corresponding entry in Mercer's papers, "—there's no credit applied. The balance doesn't drop, like Henry never paid it."
Nathan looked at both. He looked at them for a long time. "That's not just a discrepancy," he said.
"No, it's not."
"That's fraud."
"I believe so. But believing and proving are different animals." She folded her hands on the table. "I need someone who can read these documents and speak to them formally. A lawyer or an assayer. Someone with credentials a territorial judge will listen to. I've been trying to get one out of Laramie for two months, and Mercer's been..." She stopped.
"Been what?"
"He has people at the telegraph office," she said flatly. "Every wire I send either never arrives, or the reply says the lawyer in question is suddenly unavailable. I can't prove it, but the pattern is consistent."