Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

I tried to picture the little house. Surely in its entirety it could have fit into Squire Erwin’s parlor at Belvidere; yet I knew that families with eight or ten children lived in similar dwellings, not only in the mountain wilderness but among the humbler folk in Morganton. I glanced at Mrs. Silver to see what her reaction was to hearing her meager possessions thus outlined before a room full of strangers, but she remained impassive.

“It was clean,” said Jack Collis, noticing perhaps the faint distaste in Mr. Alexander’s expression.

“So you went into this one-room abode to look around, sir. And what did you find?”

“Well, I couldn’t see much to begin with. The fire was out. It was almighty dark in there. And cold. I went over to the fireplace to see about starting a fire, so’s I could see better, and when I knelt down it struck me that there was too much ash in the fireplace.”

“Could you tell us what you deduced from that?” I suspected that the prosecutor’s bewilderment was not entirely feigned. William Alexander had never cleaned out a fireplace in his life.

“Somebody had burned up a lot of wood without cleaning out the fireplace. Seemed like a lot of logs had been burned in a hurry, and I wondered how come, so I commenced to sifting through the ashes.”

“What did you find?”

Jack Collis told how he lit a new fire to heat the water in the kettle, and how the grease bubbles told him that flesh had been burned upon the logs, which prompted him to make a more careful search of the cabin.

“Once the room warmed up, the smell told me something was wrong.”

“What smell, Mr. Collis?”

“The smell of butchering,” Jack Collis said, scowling at the memory. The courtroom shuddered with him.

“What did you do then, sir?”

“I went and found Jacob Hutchins with the search party, and took him back to the cabin. He helped me take up a plank of the puncheon floor next to the fireplace.”

“And what did you find, sir?”

“Blood. A dried-up puddle of blood in the dirt underneath that plank.”

William Alexander smiled indulgently. “A rabbit, perhaps, or a deer?”

“You butcher animals outdoors.”

Several of the jurors were nodding in agreement. Most of them had hunted in the deep forests of Burke County at some time in their lives, and they knew the truth of Jack Collis’s words. William Alexander looked pleased with himself as he nodded to Nicholas Woodfin and returned to his seat. “Your witness.”

I was watching the defendant. She sat perfectly still, staring past the jury as if she were so deep in prayer or meditation that the words did not reach her. I fancied, though, that I saw her wince when Jack Collis spoke of butchering.

When Nicholas Woodfin stood up to question the old man, Mrs. Silver’s blank stare wavered, and for a moment she regarded her lawyer with shining eyes, but the look was gone in an instant, and she resumed her pose of indifference to the proceedings around her.

I wondered what Mr. Woodfin would make of this witness. The legal strategy would be to discredit Jack Collis, if he could, by questioning the old man’s eyesight or establishing Collis’s close ties to the Silver family and his animosity toward the young widow. I would have hesitated to take such a course of action, though, for I had seen what a forthright fellow the witness was, and I thought that he had won the respect-and therefore the trust-of that simple jury. They would view with disfavor any attempt by a town lawyer to impugn this man’s testimony.

Woodfin must have felt as I did, for after one or two perfunctory questions concerning the circumstantial nature of the grisly discovery, he dismissed the old woodsman with grave courtesy.

I looked about the courtroom for familiar faces. Charlie Silver’s family was represented by his uncle Mr. Greenberry Silver, himself a prominent landowner in the western reaches of Burke County. One of the constables had mentioned that Charlie’s stepmother had a new baby, born only a few weeks ago, and I surmised that either Jacob Silver had chosen to be with his wife, or else he had not cared to venture down from the hills to hear the particulars of his son’s murder detailed before uncaring strangers. Other Silver relatives waited in the hallway for their own turn as witnesses.

I caught sight of Isaiah Stewart midway back in the throng. His face bore that look of composed grief that one often sees at funerals, and I wondered whether he had accepted his daughter’s guilt or if he thought that she was doomed despite her innocence. I could not decide which burden would be the more terrible for a father to bear.

At Stewart’s side was a husky, sandy-haired fellow who looked like a twenty-five-year-old version of his companion. The younger man’s emotions were not so well controlled as those of Isaiah Stewart, for I could see rage in every line of his face. His eyes were narrowed, his jaw set in a clenched scowl, and his body put me in mind of a coiled spring as he leaned forward, straining to catch every word of the testimony. I hoped that he had not managed to smuggle a weapon into the courtroom. This is the elder son, I thought. The one who was away on a long hunt with his father at the time of the murder. What was his name? It was not written in any of the court documents, for he was not involved in the proceedings in any way, but someone had spoken of him. I had it now! Jackson. Jackson Stewart, married to a Howell girl, who was surely some kin to the Thomas Howell on my witness list. Surely that would cause dissension in the ranks of the family. I felt that regardless of the outcome of this case, the ripples of pain and ill will would course through that community for years to come. In one sense, a trial is the end of a crime, but in another way it is only the beginning of a protracted torment more cruel than the hangman’s rope. The survivors suffer at leisure.

Mr. Alexander took charge again, asking that Miss Nancy Wilson be brought forth to testify. Gabe Presnell opened one of the great oak doors at the back of the courtroom and ushered in a sharp-faced young woman in black. She moved in no great haste, serenely indifferent to the stares and murmurs that arose as she passed. Her head was held high, her countenance white with anger. I noticed that the jurors sat up straighter when they caught sight of her. This is a personage, I thought. She is no older than the defendant, but this is a lady who knows her own mind, and woe betide the traveling drummers, bears, or Indians who get in her way.

On her way up to testify, the stern young woman passed little Mrs. Silver, and I could feel the enmity crackle between them. They glanced at each other, scorn on both sides, and quickly looked away.

When Nancy Wilson had been duly sworn, William Alexander began his questioning with a reassuring smile. “Now, Miss Wilson, speak up. There is no need to be afraid.”

She flashed a look at him that said fool louder than I could have shouted it, but she made no audible reply. I glanced at the defendant. She did not direct her gaze toward the witness, but her face no longer bore the vacant stare that she had effected for most of the morning; now, although she would not look, she was listening.

“You are Miss Nancy Wilson of the Toe River section of western Burke County?”

“I am.”

“And, for the record, are you any relation of Mr. Thomas Wilson, an attorney in Morganton.”

This question caught her off guard, for she had been stoking herself up to talk about the murder. She blinked once or twice while she got her bearings, and then said, “I don’t believe so. My brother is named Tom Wilson, but he’s no lawyer. We don’t know any Wilsons in town.”

There was soft laughter around the courtroom at the lady’s confusion, and I saw Mr. Wilson the attorney shake his head, smiling.