Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

The pronouncement of death was a familiar formula, never varied, and my hand flew across the page as I noted it down. When I looked up again, Frankie Silver was being led out of the court by Mr. Presnell, with two other constables flanking him as guards in case of trouble. Her cheeks glistened with tears, but she never made a sound.

Woodfin motioned for the officers to stop. “Your Honor,” he said, “the prisoner wishes to appeal the judgment of this court to the Supreme Court of North Carolina.”

Judge Donnell frowned, and I fancied I knew the cause of his annoyance. It cost money to make an appeal to a higher court, and the defendant did not impress that worthy jurist as a person of means. “And whom does the prisoner give as security for the bond?” he asked.

I think that Nicholas Woodfin would have paid the costs out of his own pocket, for I saw a glint in his eye that spoke of foolhardiness to come, but before he could encumber himself with that reckless pledge, Isaiah Stewart’s voice rang out from behind him.

“I’ll stand her bond, Judge. Her brother Jackson and I will answer for it.”

“Who are you, sir?”

“I’m her daddy,” said the grizzled old hunter, looking at his daughter, not at His Honor. I knew that the words had been directed at her.

“Very well, then,” said the judge. “If you will guarantee the bond, the verdict shall be appealed.” He turned to me. “Mr. Gaither, you will have the goodness to write a summary of the trial to be sent on to the Supreme Court in Raleigh, and have it ready for my inspection before the departure time of tomorrow’s stagecoach.”

Traditionally the presiding judge wrote a précis of the trial for the appellate court, but in practice they often delegated this task to underlings-that is, to me. Lowly clerks of Superior Court often found themselves wielding the pen and burning the midnight oil to complete the task of summarizing the case for the appeal. “I will do it gladly, sir,” I said with careful politeness, but my heart was heavy as I thought of the evening of drudgery that lay before me, when I had hoped to forget about the cares of my office at one of the Erwins’ dinner parties.

I lingered over my papers, for I wanted to make sure that I had all the information that I would need to write the trial summary. A few feet away from my table, Nicholas Woodfin was taking his leave of the condemned prisoner.

“We have appealed the conviction,” he told her. “Do you know what that means?”

She shook her head. She looked like a poleaxed calf, I thought, for she stood quite pale and still beside him, staring numbly at the ground as if she could envision it rushing up to meet her dangling feet. I put the thought from my mind. It would not come to pass. Nicholas Woodfin is her champion, and he is not without connections.

“An appeal is a request for a higher court to review the trial procedure.” He stopped, trying to find simpler words. “We must get the court in Raleigh to say that they cannot hang you.”

She nodded wearily, and I thought that she held out no hope, but that she had no strength left to argue about it. Will Butler told me once that after a trial is over, the prisoner sleeps soundly for the first time in weeks, for even if the worst has befallen him, at least the uncertainty is over. Frankie Silver was finished with us now. She had gone to some other place, where we could not follow.

“I haven’t given up on you, Frankie,” said Nicholas Woodfin. His voice was tinged with urgency, and I was gratified to know that honor as well as skill had comprised the defense of this poor young woman. “We will get you a new trial, and then we will carry the day!”

She nodded once more, and when the bailiff took hold of her arm to lead her away, she went willingly, and with downcast eyes. She did not look back, though Nicholas Woodfin stood and watched until the oak doors of the courtroom swung shut behind her.

She never saw him again.

DEPUTY SPENCER ARROWOOD was spending another late night working at his desk when the call came in. The hamburger, seeping grease through its waxed-paper covering and onto the paperwork beneath it, was supposed to be his dinner, but it had long since congealed into a sodden lump, and he could not bring himself to touch it, even to throw it away.

When the phone rang, he was so groggy from lack of sleep that he picked it up to reinstate the silence rather than to talk to anyone.

“Uh-Wake County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Mr. Miller?”

“No. This is his deputy.”

“Oh. Spencer. It’s Harmon here, out to the truck stop and all. How you been?”

“Fine, Harmon. What can I do for you?” They had been in high school together, nodding acquaintances now, not much more than that then.

“Well, Spencer, the radio station was talking about those murders out on the trail. Terrible thing. I hated to hear that-a pretty young girl and all. And, you know, they said that you wanted people to report anything suspicious.”

“Yes?”

“There’s been a kid down here at the truck stop. Probably nothing, but I thought I’d better call you.”

“A child? How old?”

“Not a child. A kid . Well, seventeen or so. Not somebody you’d sell a beer to without having a mighty long look at his driver’s license.”

Spencer tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. He didn’t have time for liquor-law violations. “So what about him?”

“He’s been going around trying to sell jewelry to one or two of the truck drivers in here.”

“What kind of jewelry?”

“A gold chain, a woman’s watch with a band of gold and silver intertwined, and a ring.”

“Wedding ring?”

“Looked like a high school class ring to me. Big silver-colored one with a blue stone, and some carving on the side. I didn’t get much of a look at it. He shoved it in his pocket when he saw me coming down to that end of the counter.”

It was probably nothing, Spencer thought. At best, it would turn out to be evidence of an unreported burglary. Some vacationing couple would call soon to report their hotel room robbed, or their home burgled. Still, he had to check it out. There weren’t any other leads to follow.

“Is he still there?”

“Yeah, he’s playing pool with a couple of the truckers. I think he’s betting on the game. He’s putting up the jewelry, and the truckers are betting cash. You’d better get here before he loses it all, and your evidence rolls out of here six ways from Sunday.”

“Keep an eye on him. I’m on my way.”

Sometimes you get lucky, Nelse Miller had said. In the small hours of the morning, Nelse had been apt to find philosophy at the bottom of a shot glass, or in the glow of his last cigarette. He maintained that for every case that stays unsolved by chance-no one happened to see anything, no one happened to find the weapon-there is another case that is solved by the same random luck. “This time the coin came up your way,” he’d said when he got back to find the suspect already in custody and the evidence tagged for trial.

Now Spencer wondered whose luck it had been-his windfall or Fate Harkryder’s misfortune? He found the kid at the truck stop, still shooting pool with a couple of truckers. Harmon pointed him out. Spencer recognized the scraggly youth with the peach-fuzz mustache as one of the Harkryders, and he’d asked to see the jewelry the kid had been trying to sell. The kid had made a move, as if to put his hand into the pocket of his jacket, but instead he had shoved the player with the cue stick against Spencer Arrowood and made a run for the door. He’d been about three truckers short of a getaway, and instead of making it to his car, he found himself facedown on the sticky floor of the truck stop, while the deputy cuffed his hands behind his back.