Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Prison is a village, and now it was his hometown. He had lived here for twenty years, and soon now he would die here.

Burgess Gaither

HABEAS CORPUS

Frankie Silver and her mother and brother were under lock and key in the wooden house that served as Morganton’s jail, and all the town was talking about the dreadful crimes that had happened in the wild land beyond the mountains. The old folks harked back to the time of the Indian raids forty years ago, and those of a religious turn of mind quoted Scripture verses about demons in mortal form. It would be two months before that fair-haired girl and her kinfolk would answer for the crime, and I wondered where an impartial jury could be found in all of Burke County, and who among my colleagues would be fool enough to defend them. Surely he would never draw up a deed or will for an upstanding client again after linking his name with the infamous one of Frankie Silver. I was well out of it, I thought, for having taken the clerkship instead of establishing a private law practice.

The morning after Constable Charlie Baker brought his prisoners down the mountain to Morganton, he headed home again, back past Celo Mountain and into the valley of the Toe River, named for the legendary Cherokee maiden Estatoe, a star-crossed Juliet of the Indian nation. It was a good day’s ride up the Yellow Mountain Road even in high summer. Now, with a foot of snow on the trail, and winds like knife blades whipping through the passes, it was bound to be a bitter journey, but at least the constable could travel faster and easier in his mind without three dangerous prisoners in tow.

Before he left Morganton, though, Charlie Baker must have spent some time in Mr. McEntire’s tavern-fortifying himself for the long ride back over the mountains. No doubt an innkeeper’s bill for lodging, food, and drink (mostly the latter) would be submitted to the county treasurer with the constable’s record of expenses for bringing in the prisoners. Charlie must have told his tale many times before the innkeeper’s fire, and I’ll wager that he bought very few of his own whiskeys. By the time Baker and his companion had set their horses westward on the Yellow Mountain Road, the town was humming with the news of the gruesome murder in the west county.

With all the conviction of eyewitnesses, the tavern gossips recounted the grim tale of the finding of poor young Charlie Silver: bits of his bones and skin in the fireplace ashes, and sundry limbs and body parts scattered about the woods near the cabin. They never did find all of him. The snow was still deep, and general opinion was that bits of the corpse would continue to turn up well into the April thaw, when the last of the spring snowmelt revealed the most deeply covered pieces.

“They buried what they found,” one traveler remarked. “But there’ll be more come spring.”

“Reckon they’ll have to start over,” said another.

Even greater than the unseemly interest in the gory details of the tragedy was Morganton’s fascination with the widow-and accused slayer-of the murdered man. The jailer’s wife had done her share of gossiping as well, letting all and sundry know that a handsome young woman was locked away in the upstairs jail cell. News of Frankie Silver overshadowed talk of the other unfortunates, her kinfolk, for a mature woman and a youth were less interesting subjects for speculation.

Even my Elizabeth pressed me for details about the case, but I was able to tell her only what I had heard from the constable, and even that I softened for the ears of a gentlewoman.

“They say that she cruelly murdered her young husband and chopped his body to bits,” said Elizabeth. She had met Constable Presnell’s wife Sarah on the street and had stopped to “pass the time of day,” the term used by our womenfolk for the giving and receiving of local gossip. “Can this be true, Burgess?”

“That is for a jury to decide,” I said, hoping to deflect her attention from the matter. “There are two other souls in custody for the crime.”

“But the body was found in pieces?”

“Constable Baker said that it was,” I said grudgingly. My efforts to protect my wife from the unpleasantness of this case were proving futile, thanks to the incessant curiosity of the town folk.

Elizabeth leaned forward, her eyes shining, eager for news. “And you have met this creature, Burgess? What was she like?”

“She is small and fair. No more than eighteen years of age. She spoke but little. I saw no hint of madness in her.” I shrugged. “She seemed like any backwoods girl.”

“So she is not mad.” Elizabeth considered this. “That makes the story all the more strange. Whyever can she have done it, then? Or do you think her brother did it to protect her honor?”

“I have heard nothing to implicate the boy,” I admitted. “He is but fifteen, I think.”

“And the mother?”

“Little has been said about her. It is the young widow Silver who was caught in a lie, saying that her husband was gone from home when in fact he lay in pieces within the cabin.”

Elizabeth had obviously heard these details before, for she evinced no dismay upon hearing the particulars from me. “Perhaps her husband was paying court to another woman? That is the only reason I can think of to take an ax to him.”

“I shall take your warning to heart, madam,” I said, smiling.

“See that you do, Burgess Gaither,” said Elizabeth, and she laughed at my expression of mock alarm. But the levity left her almost at once. “It is a terrible crime. Do you know what her motive was?”

“The trial is two months away, Elizabeth,” I said. “Let us not convict her or her family just yet. You are a lawyer’s daughter. Must I remind you that it is the job of the prosecution-not the town gossips or the clerk of court-to fix upon a motive?”

“I think it must have been jealousy,” said my wife, as if I had not spoken. “Men are too cruel. Perhaps he was unfaithful to her. And I have heard that the unfortunate couple has a child. Was anything said about that?”

“The prisoner has a baby girl, according to Constable Baker.”

“Poor child! Is it imprisoned with its mother, then? Have you seen it?”

“No. Frankie Silver had no child with her. I suppose it is with its father’s family.”

“How cruel for both mother and infant!” cried Elizabeth. I knew that she was thinking of our own child William, who was not much older than the Silver baby, and it made me shiver to think that any fellow feeling could exist between my wellborn wife and that ignorant girl in Will Butler’s jail. I could not imagine William deprived of his parents and left with a legacy of shame, and I wondered what would become of the child of the murderess.

“Do not forget the fate of the baby’s poor young father,” I said. “Charlie Silver was nineteen, and his family grieves for him, you may be sure.”

“A pretty young woman with a baby daughter,” said Elizabeth. “How could she have committed such a crime?”

“They live in a savage wilderness. They are not like the gentlefolk in your society, my dear. How can we hope to understand their ways?”

Two days later I was back in my office, working once more on county legal business. As clerk of court, I had deeds and wills to record, and a thousand points of law to commit to memory, for I was expected to advise the judge and members of counsel in the coming term of the circuit court. My father-in-law had forty-four years in which to make himself an authority on the law and the affairs of the county, while I had only a few months’ time to prepare to succeed him in a competent fashion that would reflect well upon his choice of a successor.

Once more my labors were interrupted by more pressing business.