She looked back at him without expression and sat down. She did not look at him again until she had to. Briggs opened for Orson's side with a narrative he'd constructed, the struggling husband, the desperate decision, the California plan that had been derailed by bad partners and worse luck, the intention always to send for his family once he'd established himself. He was smooth about it. Miriam gave him that.
He had the practiced ease of a man who had made similar arguments many times, and knew which words landed and which ones didn't. The character witness from Billings, a man named Prior who had a business in cattle brokering, testified that he'd known Orson in California, that Orson had spoken of his family, that Orson's plan had always been to reunite with them. Foss cross-examined Prior with a specificity that was almost surgical. When did Orson speak of his family? What did he say?
Did he take any concrete steps in Prior's presence to send money or correspondence to his wife and children? Had Prior ever seen any evidence of active effort to communicate with them? Prior had not. Foss let the silence after that last answer sit in the room long enough for everyone to understand what it meant.
When Foss presented Miriam's case, he started with a note. He read it aloud. Six children are too many mouths. I cannot build anything here. I am going to California to make something of myself.
Do not follow me. He read it in the flat, precise tone of a man reading a document, not performing emotion. The words didn't need performance. They sat in the courtroom and did their own work. Then he walked through the documentation with the same flat precision.
The date Orson left. The inventory of what remained. The witness accounts: Denny's, August's, Ferris's, Mrs. Callaway's each one describing what they had observed. When Miriam and the children arrived at Red Spur Ranch, he called Bramwell to testify, and Bramwell gave his account in the same direct, unadorned way he said everything, looking at Judge Aldrich, and answering each question without elaboration and without editorializing, and Miriam watched the judge's face as Bramwell spoke, and saw something shift very slightly in his expression. When Briggs cross-examined Bramwell, he made the mistake of suggesting with careful indirection that Bramwell's interest in the situation was not entirely neutral.
Bramwell looked at him. "I hired Mrs. Hensley because I needed someone to run my household, " he said. "She works for wages. She has since November. Everything I've said today, I would say about any employee in a similar situation.
" He paused. But if you're asking whether I care what happens to those six children, then yes. I do, and I don't consider that a conflict. Briggs moved on.