American Red

by David Marlett

  Glancing again at the twelve jurymen, she saw they were focused on the next witness. Neva scooted slightly left to see Harry Orchard being sworn in. She knew Harry Orchard. More accurately, she’d seen him before, in Denver. A version of him. Not this version. That man had been a balding, fat-faced louse, a reprobate. This man didn’t seem so dangerous. This Mr. Orchard was neatly trimmed, wearing a tweed suit, bearing a tight mustache, eyes open. He reminded her of a Sunday-school teacher. Well rested—that’s what came to her mind. Yes, this version of Mr. Orchard seemed well rested. A cold-hearted bomber? Of course he was, but one had to strain to see it.

  As did every other person in the packed courtroom, Neva listened intently to each word of Orchard’s testimony. Borah moved him through his particulars: forty years of age; born in Ontario, Canada; came to America ten years ago. Since then, he’d worked at six mines, a mucker and mule wrangler at first, but found a penchant for dynamite—for managing the explosions, if one could manage such a thing. He joined the Western Federation of Miners at the silver mine in Burke, Idaho. What led him to do that? He attended a rally—maybe in 1902—where the president of the Federation spoke, calling men to take up the cause, to do whatever was necessary. That man’s name? Big Bill. Yes, Mr. Haywood. Yes, the defendant, William Haywood. Yes, the man sitting right there.

  After helping others blow up the Vindicator Mine in Colorado, Orchard gave himself over to a new career: union killer. Yes, he’d designed the Vindicator bomb. He’d been paid $500. He’d killed two people with it. Then came a string of bombs, though some hadn’t gone off as planned. In 1904, he was assigned to the team who dynamited the depot at Independence, Colorado, high in the wilderness. Not going to say who the other bombers were. How many died? Thirteen, all non-union. Yes, there were also some failures. Mr. Haywood ordered him to assassinate the governor of Colorado, two Colorado Supreme Court Justices, and the president of a mining company. Why the governor and justices? Mr. Haywood wanted to strike fear in the heart of any politician who might consider crossing the Federation. None of those bombs had been successful. Mr. Haywood got a might angry at those failures. Yes, one of those bombs had gone off accidentally and killed a bystander. Yes, an innocent man.

  As far as Governor Steunenberg, the governor of Idaho—yes, Mr. Haywood had ordered him to do it, and specifically by bombing. Yes, it was Mr. Haywood, the accused, who’d ordered him. Mr. Haywood said Steunenberg had lived too long. Orchard was to get $900 plus a ranch near Fort Collins, Colorado. No, Haywood hadn’t said the dollar amount at the time he gave the kill order, but Orchard knew it, from prior conversations with the man. Yes, since he’d been in the Idaho State Penitentiary, he’d come to realize that he wouldn’t be getting the money, or the ranch.

  Why kill Steunenberg? Not certain—but figured because the governor jailed all those labor boys in Idaho, without trials, after the Bunker Hill bombing. Yes, he’d done the Bunker Hill bombing too. He’d lit that fuse himself. They’d hijacked a Northern Pacific train out of Missoula. Others had packed it with dynamite, on Orchard’s orders. He didn’t know the names of those men. Took it up to Wallace where another man killed someone, and then on up to the Bunker Hill. The other man? Fella named Steve Adams, went by Addis then. Same one as helped him kill Steunenberg. Yes, he thought Haywood had ordered Steve Adams to help Orchard kill the governor.

  Sheriff Sutherland, who for days had been sitting discreetly in the back row, rose and walked out.

  <><><>

  During the second day of Orchard’s mesmeric testimony, a whirlwind blew into the courtroom, upstaging him like none other could: the famed actress, Ethel Barrymore. When the courtroom fell to buzzes of wonder, Judge Wood suspended testimony and greeted the twenty-eight-year-old splendor to his courtroom. She wore a traveling outfit, more Victoria bicycle than common train: an amber silk jacket flared at the hips over striped breeches, with a straw boatman’s hat, cream gloves, and matching Oxfords. She apologized for the unfortunate disruption, said she was in Boise with her touring theatrical company. Don’t mind her. Do continue. She’d thought to just pop into the courtroom to see what all the fuss was about. Oh yes, they were on the return leg of their western tour of Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines (the same one Neva, George, and Winnie had seen in Denver the prior January) and hoped all would come. Then, with a dramatic flourish, she declared the witness seemed the picture of niceness, but that man—she pointed at Haywood—“frightens me half to death.” The room laughed, applauding as she exited stage center through the main doors. Haywood appeared flattered, if anything.

  Darrow—enraged that Judge Wood not only allowed Miss Barrymore’s interruption, but her statement about Orchard and Haywood—launched into a cross-examinatory onslaught of Orchard: twenty-seven hours of blistering attacks and insults. Darrow parsed every word of Orchard’s testimony, levering the sentences open like cracked lobsters, pulling out morsels of lies and fleshy disgusts to feed to the jury one bite at a time. He painted a picture using Orchard’s own blood and shit: beyond being America’s most prolific murderer, Orchard had abandoned his family, become a bigamist, a drunkard, a liar, thief, whoremonger, gambler, and cheat.

  At one point, Darrow leaned close and said, “What we know, Mr. Orchard, is that you carry no sympathy for your victims, no remorse for your sins.”

  “Not true. I’m born again in Jesus Christ,” Orchard declared. “My sins are forgiven.”

  “Forgiven!? You sit here and tell us that you—” Darrow checked himself. “Yes, so you say. For the God-fearing, decent among us, rebirth in the Savior is a transformation of the soul, a beautiful ascension to the family of Christ. But for you, no, I think it’s all a ruse. All a lie. You don’t have a care in your heart for the lives you’ve taken. You’re just on that stand to say whatever you can to save your own neck. Isn’t that right?”

  “No. I’m going to prison for the rest of my days for what I done. I’m telling the truth of it all because this here is when I can. And because I’ve gotten right with the Lord.”

  “But you’ve not ‘gotten right’ with your fellow man,” said Darrow. “That would take a hanging.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You knew that if you created this imaginary story about Mr. Haywood, you’d escape the noose, correct?”

  “I reckon I’ll receive what I deserve.” Tears began streaming down Orchard’s cheeks.

  “Answer my question, Mr. Orchard. Isn’t it true that you’ll not be executed for your murders, because of this wild yarn you’re spinning today?”

  “That’s true ... not that it’s a yarn. But I won’t hang.”

  “I understand your tears. It must weigh on you. You thought you could bring peace to your soul by having someone else hanged in your stead, didn’t you?”

  “No, Sir. No, Sir. I’d no thought of getting out of it, not by laying it on nobody else. I just began to think about the unnatural monster I’d been. That’s why the waterworks. That’s why.”

  Two hours later, Darrow moved Orchard to the subject of Steve Adams. “You lied earlier, didn’t you, Mr. Orchard, when you said you believed Mr. Haywood instructed Steve Adams to commit the same act of murder as you. To kill the governor. Isn’t that right?”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “You have no knowledge of that, isn’t that right?”

  “I think—”

  “I’m not asking you what you think. I’m asking what you know. What you directly witnessed. Not what you guess. But the truth of what you know. Not suppositions—like you thinking Mr. Haywood gave some such order or another to Mr. Adams. You don’t even believe that! You said Adams is an idiot, a simpleton. Mr. Haywood didn’t give you or Adams any such orders, did he?”

  “He gave me orders.”

  “Well, as we’ve already made clear to this jury, you have no evidence, do you? No mysterious piece of paper that you supposedly kept. Where? In the
band of your hat, you said? You’re just saying these things to save your skin, are you not? Just making them up as you sit there. Right? And you think Senator Borah needs a second witness to testify similar to you, all so the wrong man might hang for your crimes. Isn’t that correct?”

  “Which question am I to answer?”

  “Oh, go ahead, give this jury your best lie to any of them.” Before Orchard could speak, Darrow continued, “I think you know that when that Adams fellow is sitting right there in that chair, that he won’t agree with you—so you’re scared. Because when he tells us the truth, that he had no orders to assist you in any way, that your lies will be made clear. You know that, don’t you? You’ll be on your own, alone with your sins, before God, exposed for the lying murderer that you are.”

  “Ask Adams then,” said Orchard, worn down but not defeated.

  “Oh, I will. I hope you’re ready for that.”

  “I hope you are,” Orchard murmured under his breath.

  A Collier’s reporter would write that Orchard had been “the most remarkable witness that ever appeared in an American court of justice.”

  ***

  That evening, over dinner and found Sherry, both Borah and McParland were worried. Especially Borah. Why would Darrow talk on and on about Adams, their hidden-away witness? Saying Adams’s yet-to-be-heard story might differ from Orchard’s. What nerve. They already had Adams’s confession. What game was Darrow playing? What gave the great orator such confidence to even mention Adams by name, much less seed the idea that Adams’s upcoming testimony might not align with Orchard’s? This was especially perplexing as an easier, far-less risky option had been available to Darrow: Say nothing. Then, on Monday, work with whatever Adams said when he took the stand. But by presenting the idea now, that Adams’s yet-unheard testimony might not match Orchard’s current testimony, Darrow seemed to be setting himself a lethal trap: If he was wrong, then Adams’s testimony would only ring louder, amplifying its damage to Haywood. After their dinner, they returned to the penitentiary and spoke to Adams, getting confirmation that his upcoming testimony in court would indeed match what he’d said in writing. Yes, Adams assured them, it’d be the same: Haywood ordered him to help Orchard kill the governor.

  The prosecution team also discussed Darrow’s wife, Ruby, who had been in the gallery for most of her husband’s scorched-earth, cross-examination of Orchard. McParland had seen her when she arrived a few days earlier, and both he and Borah met her soon thereafter. Had she affected Darrow’s behavior? Was Darrow feeling cocky in front of his wife? Showing off? Surely such a courtroom ace would never showboat for his wife, and, by so doing, risk so much for his client. A virtuoso conductor doesn’t embellish the crescendos in Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” simply because the conductor’s wife is in the audience.

  Then their conversation turned to the accused. Haywood had appeared in fine spirits throughout Orchard’s marathon testimony—adding to Borah’s stress. Haywood was an unrepentant denialist. His canine stoicism, in the face of damning odds, carried weight to the uninitiated. Might that include the jurymen who surely expected some element of despair on the man’s face? McParland weighed in: Borah should not let Haywood’s calm deportment bother him. It further evidenced Haywood’s moral vacancy. Nothing more.

  ***

  That night, surrounded by three guards, Darrow and Ruby took a walk. Neither mentioned her friend at Chicago’s Hull House. They returned to their room in the Saratoga Hotel and cranked the windows slightly, letting in the perfect amount of chilly spring air.

  ***

  At the Idanha Hotel, George had slipped into Neva’s room, where they discussed little, but said plenty, him holding her all night, whispering that he loved her too.

  ***

  In the sheriff’s jail cell, Haywood shuddered, tugging at his blanket, lost in the hinterlands of sleep, traipsing through a fogged-out landscape where pockets of dark trees sapped blood and bore noose-shaped fruit.

  ***

  At the Occidental Hotel, Lloyd Lillard enjoyed his second night on clean sheets. Well, they were, before the prostitute arrived, courtesy of Captain Swain.

  ***

  Back at the Idanha, the Gordian knot in Borah’s stomach kept him tossing, rolling his mind on the rocks of scattered slumber.

  <><><>

  – 61 –

  MONDAY

  May 20, 1907

  The next Monday morning, the rattle of hobbling chains being removed indicated Steve Adams was in the court’s anteroom. Then a deputy entered, followed by Adams, and then another deputy. As Adams made his way to the witness stand, his freshly provided brown suit and slender black tie slumped against his thin frame, a sail luffing in an absent wind. He was sworn in, and, for the first time in his life, prepared to actually tell the truth, or at least tell of truth’s shadow.

  Before rising from his chair, Borah studied Darrow’s placid face, and then Haywood’s. Something felt wrong. Over Sunday’s break in the trial, the dispiritedness in Haywood’s expression seemed to have caught a virus of calm. Worse yet, Darrow seemed to have caught it as well—a too-easy smile, a secret knowing, a dangerous indifference—all spinning Borah’s stomach. Borah stood, approached Adams, got him to say his name, and asked, “Where are you from, Mr. Adams?”

  “The Idaho State Penitentiary.” (chuckles in the courtroom)

  “I meant, before that.”

  “Austin, Nevada. You know, where your Pinks attacked me.”

  “You attacked them,” barked Borah. “And in San Francisco. There you killed a Pinkerton man, and an entire family.”

  “Ah, you don’t know. Hoe your’n row.”

  “How’s that?” began Borah.

  “One murder at a time, Mr. Borah,” said Judge Wood. “How about you stay with just the governor? For now. Then ... we’ll see.”

  Borah agreed. Harry Orchard had talked openly in court about his many other killings because they were part of his sixty-four-page written testimony. But Adams’s written testimony was a third of one page and only said that Haywood ordered Adams to participate with Orchard in the bombing of Governor Steunenberg. “Why do you think you were arrested,” asked Borah. “Why are you here, Mr. Adams?”

  “Cause those deputies pulled me from my cell. I’d eht only a bit of my biscuit.” (chuckles, but Wood ignored them as he was smiling too)

  Frustrated, Borah decided to go to the point directly. “Are you familiar with the bombing of the governor of Idaho, Governor Steunenberg, last Christmas?”

  “Heard bout it.”

  “To be exact, Mr. Adams, you more than heard about it. You were ordered to participate in the assassination. Isn’t that right?”

  Adams’s eyes disappeared into slits, which, along with his long, crooked nose, and half-slung mouth, gave him the look of a confused stork. “Don’t right reckon I know what you’re talkin bout.”

  “What?” Borah froze. “What did you say, Mr. Adams?”

  “Ain’t sure what—”

  “No, Mr. Adams, you know precisely what I’m referring to. You were ordered by the defendant, Mr. Haywood”—Borah pointed at Haywood—“to assist a man by the name of Harry Orchard in causing the death of Governor Steunenberg. Isn’t that true?”

  “Don’t know that man,” Adams said, appearing to be pondering Haywood. “He ordered me to do what?”

  “You know damn well!” Borah boomed, cheeks flushing.

  Darrow got to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. The State is badgering its own witness. This poor man—”

  Senator Borah wheeled on Darrow. “Goddamn you, Clarence.” (gasps in the gallery)

  Judge Wood pounded his gavel. “Mr. Borah! Senator! I’ll not have such language in my courtroom. Especially not against another officer of the court.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” huffed Borah. He grabbed a piece of p
aper from his table and turned to Adams. “Permission to treat the witness as hostile, Your Honor?”

  “Yes, I would imagine so,” said Wood.

  “Mr. Adams,” Borah pounced, handing him the paper. “I’m handing you your own written statement, which you gave, under oath, freely, no more than six weeks past. Do you recognize this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That is your testimony, is it not?”

  “That’s my mark, but I didn’t write them words on that part.”

  “But you did sign it?”

  “Guess so. Looks that way.”

  “Read the second to last sentence, Mr. Adams.”

  “Last one?”

  “Second to—” Borah took the paper and placed his finger on a line. “That one.”

  Adams stared quietly at the paper.

  “Out loud, Sir!”

  “Can’t rightly, can I?”

  “Why not?”

  “Can’t read.” (more chuckles)

  “Then what were you just— All right, Mr. Adams. I was there, was I not? I was there when you signed your attestation to this statement. At that time, you said it was true and correct.”

  Darrow objected. “Your Honor, is Senator Borah now giving his own personal testimony? Regardless, this man is obviously not certain what Senator Borah is trying to get him to say.”

  “I’m not trying to get him to say anything,” Borah protested.

  Adams clucked his tongue and said, “Hell you ain’t.”

  “Mr. Adams,” said Judge Wood. “You’ve sworn to tell the truth on pain of being charged with perjury. Therefore, I’ll ask you, do you see the defendant, sitting before you?”

  “The one-eyed feller?”

  Judge Wood hesitated. “Yes ... that would be the one.”