Curtis Heard His Future Read Back From My Mineral Deed

By the time the title hearing came, the county roads had been plowed into long white walls. Miriam and I drove north a day early. Nora met us at the courthouse in Weston County.

She had filed a separate case there to clear the recorded claim against my mineral interests. High Basin and Tessa had been brought into that case. The divorce would settle the marital estate back in Laramie.

"Today is about the false transfer," Nora told me. "We keep the questions straight."

Curtis sat at the other table. Tessa sat behind her own lawyer, no longer beside him.

Our exhibits had already been exchanged. Curtis had seen them all. Still, he looked annoyed that morning, as if I had brought him out of town over a bill he planned to pay eventually.

Before we went inside, I held a quartz section up to the lobby window.

"Which one is that?" Miriam asked.

"Practice sample. No client number."

Light passed through the grains. I put it in its sleeve and walked into court.

Nora began with Ruth's estate record and the certified deed. Miriam explained the chain of ownership in her measured voice.

"Did Mr. Adler appear as an owner in that chain before the disputed instrument?" Nora asked.

"No."

"Did High Basin?"

"No."

The original division orders followed. The operator's records showed my owner numbers, the share due under each lease, and the later switch to High Basin's bank account.

Curtis leaned toward his lawyer.

The document examiner described the copied signature and stamp. The notary testified that he had never witnessed my supposed signature. My Casper records fixed where I had worked that day.

Then I took the stand.

"Did you sign this release?" Nora asked.

"No."

"Did you give Curtis authority to transfer your mineral interests?"

"No. I let him handle payment records."

His lawyer asked whether I had trusted Curtis to act for me.

"To manage the mail and account information," I said.

"You benefited from his work, didn't you?"

"I haven't received the fourteen months of royalties shown here."

"You knew the company existed?"

"I learned its name after he emptied our household account."

He asked whether my small shop could have paid our bills alone.

Nora objected. The judge told him to stay with the alleged transfer.

My work wasn't on trial. I felt my shoulders settle when I understood that.

Curtis testified after lunch. He said he had worked for months to make Ruth's scattered interests useful.

"She didn't understand them," he said. "I took care of the details."

Nora put the original North Draw order in front of him.

"Whose name appears as owner?"

"Deborah's."

"Who signed it?"

"She did."

"And who signed the release?"

He looked toward his lawyer.

"I believed I had consent to arrange the business."

"That wasn't my question."

He would not give a clear answer. The judge asked him to answer it. At last, he admitted I had not signed the page in his presence and he had submitted it for recording himself.

Nora introduced the emails from Tessa's account, along with the records showing when they were sent. Tessa's lawyer had agreed the copies were genuine.

Curtis said the words about my old signature had been taken out of context.

"What was the context?" the judge asked.

He asked for a moment with counsel.

When the hearing resumed, Nora placed a simple map beside the three royalty totals.

North Draw: $64,480.

Cottonwood Bench: $79,760.

Dry Creek: $42,180.

Below them, Willow Flat showed the proposed $48,000 bonus, never paid.

The house income, Tessa's consulting promise, her planned business loan, and the new bonus all came back to the same deed.

Curtis had called me a woman with a little rock-cutting job. I held the inherited mineral interests under every tract he had offered for his next life.

I didn't need to say it aloud. Nora asked who owned each interest before the false release, and Miriam gave my name four times.

The judge took the matter under review. She kept the restrictions in place.

Two weeks later, Nora called. The written ruling found that I had not signed or authorized the transfer. It ordered the false instrument cancelled and confirmed my inherited ownership against their claims.

Miriam arranged to record a certified copy in the county land records. The operator would receive one too.

I set the ruling beside my saw, clear of the water tray.

For a while, I just read my name on it. I had seen that name on a false paper, on unpaid bills, and under a proposal meant to make me leave. This page said what Ruth's deed had said from the start.

I called Miriam before I called anyone else.

Then Ellen called.

"I've finished tracing the $205,060," she said. "We can account for every dollar, including what Tessa kept."