Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“I see.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said dryly. “Apparently, these friends have convinced the poor creature that her only hope of survival is to tell the truth about what transpired on the night of Charles Silver’s death. Her advisors think that if her story is brought to light, the governor can be persuaded to spare her life.”

“Do you think so?”

“It is possible, I suppose.” He said this with no apparent conviction. “It is worth trying. I have been summoned to hear Mrs. Silver’s narrative, and I want another witness. In this situation there should be two listeners to corroborate the testimony.”

“That seems fitting,” I said. “Will you ask Sheriff Boone?”

“I think not,” said Thomas Wilson, after a moment’s hesitation. “He is already suspected of being too lenient toward the prisoner. I think you would be the proper witness. As clerk of court, you are the ranking official in the county, since the circuit judge and the district solicitor are not from Morganton. Besides, I was one of Mrs. Silver’s attorneys, but you are a disinterested observer-a most desirable thing in a witness. Will you hear her confession?”

“I will, gladly,” I said, getting to my feet. “Shall I come with you now?”

“Now is as good a time as any. Bring writing materials with you. We shall want a record of the prisoner’s statement.”

I stopped by the courthouse to fetch ink and paper, and we proceeded across the lawn to the wood frame building that served as the county jail. John Boone was expecting us, it seemed, for he met us at the door himself and ushered us up the stairs to the prisoner’s cell with very little comment beyond a civil greeting.

She must have heard our footsteps on the stairs, for as we neared the second floor, I heard a clank of chain that indicated the prisoner was stirring in her cell. “Can you unchain her while we talk with her?” I asked the sheriff.

John Boone would not meet my eyes. “No,” he said.

I did not protest further, for I knew that the escape had forced him to be vigilant. He let us into the cell and locked it behind us, placing the iron key back on his belt. “Really!” I said to Wilson as the door slammed shut. “The sheriff can hardly think we mean to effect an escape with the prisoner.”

“He is taking no chances,” said Wilson. “I cannot fault him for that.”

I thought with sorrow of the pretty young woman who had prattled on about tomatoes and apples last summer. She was gone. The gaunt and haggard creature who huddled near the window of the cell bore no resemblance to that blue-eyed girl who had held her own against the Erwin sisters many months ago. She did not turn to look at us as we came in. I think she no longer cared for visitors.

Thomas Wilson said, “Good afternoon, madam. We have been summoned to speak with you. I believe you know Mr. Burgess Gaither?”

She nodded, and turned to look at me. “I remember him.”

“I was asked to witness your statement,” I told her. “Do you want to tell this story in your own words, Mrs. Silver, or would you like us to ask you questions?”

“I’ll just tell it straight out, I guess. It’s been bottled up inside me so long now, I feel like it’s poking out my stomach. Let me tell it.”

I sat down on the camp bed, took out my writing materials, and set my quill to paper. “Whenever you are ready,” I said, with what I hoped was an encouraging smile.

The tears flowed freely down her pale cheeks. “I killed him,” she said.

I drew in my breath. I knew, of course, that she must have done it, and the jury had pronounced her guilty more than a year ago, but there is still a chill that comes when one hears a murderer say quietly, I killed him. I waited for her to continue, but she simply sat there looking at us.

“We must know more,” said Thomas Wilson.

She nodded, and looked back toward the window and the green mountains in the distance. “Charlie… I was sixteen when I married him. He was handsome enough, and I reckon that’s why I said yes when he asked me. Folks were always saying what a handsome pair we were. And I was wanting to get away from home anyhow. Seems like all there ever was to do was chores, and I thought, I may as well do the washing and the cooking for my own man in my own house instead of letting Mama boss me every whipstitch doing the selfsame tasks at home. I wish I hadn’t of now.” She looked at me. “You ain’t writing,” she said.

“No. I will only set down what pertains to the crime itself,” I told her. I could not write as fast as she spoke, and at any rate I thought this preamble would be of little value for our purposes. “You may say whatever you like, though, Mrs. Silver. I will read it back to you when we are done.”

She nodded. “Where was I? Oh, Charlie. You’d think with his mama dying a-borning him, that he wouldn’t be spoiled by his stepmother, but I reckon he was. Or else he was just naturally trifling. He didn’t hardly lift his hand to help with the work. He’d chop wood and feed the cattle, and he called himself hunting when he’d slip off for hours at a time while I tended to everything else.”

Thomas Wilson scowled at her. “Madam, did you kill your husband because he was lazy?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I didn’t mind him much most times, but the thing was, Charlie liked to get drunk, and the liquor turned him mean.”

“How so?”

“He’d come home cold-eyed and set in his jaw, looking for things to find fault with. I answered him back a time or two at first, but he’d hit me across the face with the back of his hand and split open my lip. Or he’d black my eye and say I’d earned it. I learned to keep out of his way when he was drinking. There’s many a woman does the same, sir.”

“He had been drinking on the night in question?”

“The night and most of the day as well. He went over to George Young’s to get liquor, and he must have put away a jugful before he ever started home. He came in after dark, toting his pistol and letting the cold wind in the cabin when he pulled the door open, and Baby woke up a-bawling.”

I wrote: The prisoner avers that Charles Silver did come home intoxicated on the night of December 22, 1831.

“We had words then, sir, for I was fit to be tied that he had been gone so long, leaving me to tend the fire and the cattle. I reckon I hollered at him: It’s about time you got home, or some such words, and he shoved me away. I fell against the cradle, and the baby yelled even louder. Charlie scrunched up his face like the noise hurt his ears, and I was still talking too loud to make myself heard over the din. He pulled out his pistol then, and said, I’m sick of both of you, by God I am! I wouldn’t have taken much notice of that, for he was always full of talk, except for the look on his face, which wasn’t red like anger, but gray, like somebody who was cold all the way to the bone. He looked down at my baby then, sir, and he says to me, Frankie, if you don’t shut that baby up, I reckon I will. ”

“He pointed a pistol at his own child?” I said. Mr. Wilson gave me a withering stare, and I mumbled an apology for forgetting myself and went back to setting down her testimony.

“Charlie pulled the hammer back, and I knew he meant to do it. He wasn’t himself at all. He was mad with drink, and we’d been shut up in that cabin most of the winter on account of the deep snow, with the baby colicky and crying day and night. Charlie likes a good time, sir. He wasn’t one to suffer bad times. He would have been sorry afterward, most likely, if he had killed the baby, but it wouldn’t have been no use then.”

Mr. Wilson said softly, “And what did you do?”