Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

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Frances Silver, a girl of 18, was charged in 1832 with murdering her husband. Lafayette Harkryder is also 18 when he is accused of murder and he is to be the first convict to die in the electric chair. Both Frances and Lafayette hid the truth. But can the miscarriages of justice be prevented?

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She seemed apprehensive, but from time to time when she would steal a glance at her surroundings, curiosity lit her face, banishing the frown of care. She was fine-featured-not as elegant as my Elizabeth, of course; not a lady; but pretty enough.

She has never been to town before, I thought. There are many such girls in the wildwood, born and bred in log cabins, and strangers to the ways of gentlefolk. What a pity that this poor creature should see the sights on such a sad pretext as this.

“This is your prisoner?” I asked Charlie Baker, still doubting the evidence of my own eyes.

He nodded. “Frankie Silver.” He had thanked the man who was minding the horses and the prisoners, and told him to take the mounts to the livery stable. The young fellow holstered his pistol and walked away, somewhat reluctantly, I thought. There was a tale in this strange arrival, and he thought it his due to be in on the telling of it, in return for his services on the trail. He was to be disappointed. Charlie Baker would have the glory all to himself.

“But, Constable, surely this… this child cannot be charged with murder.”

Charlie Baker turned away, probably to hide a grin at my naïveté. “She’s a grown woman, right enough. Married these two years or thereabouts, and left a baby up yonder at the Silvers’ place. A fatherless one now.” He turned to the shivering young woman and untied the rope that looped under her horse’s belly, binding one of her ankles to the other. “Get down off your horse now, Miz Silver. Get up, Miz Stewart. Blackston. We’re to wait in the courthouse.”

Barbara Stewart and her son trudged toward the courthouse steps without so much as a glance in my direction. The mother leaned against the shoulder of the sturdy youth, whether from weariness or despair I could not tell.

Frankie Silver raised her hands from beneath the folds of her cloak, and for the first time I could see that her wrists were bound with hemp rope. Baker held the horse, and I assisted her in dismounting, for the hands of her brother were tied as well, so that he could not have assisted her. She seemed to add but little to the weight of the cloak itself; indeed, I could have carried her all the way into the courthouse without feeling the strain, but it would not have been seemly, and I did not. I set her properly upon the ground, and then, feeling as if I should pass some pleasantry with this small person who was in such straits, I said, “Well, madam, I hope that a stay in our jail will not be too terrible for you. I could wish you better lodging than this on a cold winter morning. They will not grant you bail, of course, but still, guilty or not, it is a great pity to keep a woman in such a tiny, cold room with no windows and no chair, and hardly room to turn around in.”

She looked up at me for a moment, and then she shrugged. “Reckon what do you think I lived in before I came here?”

I had not seen Sheriff Butler that morning, though I thought there was little for him to do on a snowbound Tuesday morning. If he was not at his home, then I thought a tavern the logical place to seek him out. There were several to choose from in Morganton. They offered lodging to those who came to town for the courtEdward Butler of Locust Grove, a prominent landowner and an active participant in the affairs of Burke County. Both of the Butler brothers were often to be found at the Erwins’ social gatherings, and we in turn had broken bread with them at Locust Grove. Will’s late wife had been a lifelong friend of my Elizabeth, who still mourned the untimely death of her childhood friend. Such are the bonds of friendship among the men of business in a small town. I wondered what Will would make of this piece of news.

I greeted such folks as I knew in the tavern, and motioned for Sheriff Butler to accompany me outside. “Your duty calls, sir,” I said, trying not to make the matter sound important. He knew, though, that something was amiss, for he picked up his hat and coat and followed me to the street without a moment’s delay.

“A constable from the west county has brought in three prisoners,” I told him, steering him through the frozen carriage ruts toward the courthouse square.

He heard me out in silence while I told of the warrant and the arrival of the constable. “Indeed I know little of what has transpired,” I said. “But since the jailer cannot be found at the moment, I have put Mr. Baker and his trio of prisoners in the courthouse to await your pleasure. When we have seen the ladies and the boy safely stowed in your custody, perhaps we can prevail upon the constable to tell us the circumstances that brought her here.”

Will Butler permitted himself a smile. My use of the word “us” had not escaped him, but he nodded in agreement to my suggestion. “Yes, we must hear his tale, Burgess.”

“He will have to speak with the tongues of angels to persuade me of the daughter’s guilt. I cannot speak for the other two, for I barely glimpsed them, but indeed I am convinced that an error has been made in arresting her. Wait until you see her, Butler! She looks scarcely more than a child.”

“If the prisoner is, as you say, a pretty young woman, they must be sure enough of her guilt in the west county to bring her in at all. The trial will be in March, though, at the spring term of the court-but if worse comes to worst, the consequences of that trial will not occur until after my time. I don’t envy my successor his job.”

I took his grisly meaning at once, but I doubted his prediction. “It will not come to that,” I told him. “They will not hang a woman.”

I left Will Butler to his duty and went back to my office and my record books. I had extracted a promise from him to fetch me when the prisoners had been safely locked away into Gabe Presnell’s care. The Morganton jail is but a short walk from the courthouse, a two-story log structure with two rooms on the ground floor for the jailer’s lodging, and four rooms upstairs for the incarceration of prisoners. It is hardly a fit place for women to be kept, I thought, but I suppose it is better than the dirt-floored stockade that had served as the jail ten years ago. I had heard my father-in-law, Squire Erwin, speak of it, for he was clerk of Superior Court before me, and for much of his tenure that rude byre was in use as the county’s prison. Once he described to me the stench and the straw and the dirt floor.

“Like a stable,” I had remarked.

“Not at all,” said the squire. “No one would keep good horses in the wet and foul-smelling darkness of that log pen, but Burke County in its wisdom reckoned that such accommodations were good enough for its prisoners. We even locked up debtors in those days, poor wretches. Still, I suppose it was fit enough for most of the villains we got.”

The new wooden jailhouse was a far cry better than the old log pen, and I had made light of its discomforts to the young woman prisoner, but, really, I’d sooner sleep on the courthouse lawn than up there in that tiny room, in too close proximity to the stink and the body lice of the other prisoners. Outdoors could be no colder, and at least the air would be clean.

I went back to my ledger, and my breath still clouded the air above my desk. Still, a new year had begun and I had much to be thankful for, most of it due to my late brother, whose untimely death these two years past still grieved me. I had come to Morganton on Alfred’s coattails, courted his wife’s sister, and won her, though Alfred did not live to see us wed. My bride, Elizabeth, was three years my senior, intelligent, well-spoken, and every inch a lady, for all that she was no great beauty. She was an Erwin, though, and that counted for everything. Erwin was a name to conjure with in Burke County, for the Erwins were Morganton. The two Erwin brothers who settled there in the late 1700s were gentlemen planters, and their numerous descendants owned vast expanses of land, commanding positions of respect and authority throughout the community. After more than forty years in residence, the Erwins looked after the people in Burke County with a benignity that was almost feudal. To a newly minted young lawyer, they seemed the epitome of hospitality and noble friendliness, offering lodging to newcomers and hosting dinners and parties at Bellevue and Belvidere for those who came to town for the circuit court in the spring and fall. To a new son-in-law, they were bountiful. They were kindness itself. When Miss Elizabeth Erwin graciously consented to be my wife, I was summoned to the study at Belvidere to face her father, who duly inquired into my prospects. I was obliged to tell him that but for my education, my profession of law, and my family’s good name-indeed, I had none.

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