Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

As they lowered Waightstill’s coffin into the earth, I heard the drone of flies about my head and I could not help thinking about another “brave little soldier” who had died on a July day many years back, and who lay in unconsecrated ground somewhere up the mountain, unmourned and unremembered. I wish I could have taken just one rose from the mound of flowers on William Waightstill Avery’s coffin and laid it on the grave of Frankie Silver.

IWANT TO SHOW YOU a grave,” said the sheriff.

Three rocks stood alone in the little mountain graveyard: smooth stubs of granite, evenly spaced about four feet apart. The stone pillars were uncarved, weathered from more than a century’s exposure to the elements and farthest away from the white steepled church in the clearing at the top of the mountain.

Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and Nora Bonesteel had said very little to each other in their journey across the mountain into Mitchell County, North Carolina. Early that morning Spencer had appeared at the door of the white frame house on the ridge on Ashe Mountain.

“I need to know about Frankie Silver,” he told her.

He had a longer drive to make tomorrow, but first he needed to go to Kona. At first light that morning, LeDonne had called him, knowing that he slept no more than they did. “We’ve made an arrest,” the deputy told him. “Guy with an earring. One of the other hikers noticed him. We found the murder weapon in his possession. He’s eighteen years old.”

So the sheriff was back where he started, with no new evidence, only a feeling that there was something he didn’t understand about the Harkryder case. He had asked LeDonne to continue the check on the names he had given him, but Spencer could not sit still and wait any longer. They were almost out of time. He promised himself that instead of sitting by the phone, he would see the place where the Silver murder happened, and if there was anything to be learned from that ancient riddle, he would do his best to find it.

Spencer asked Nora Bonesteel to go with him, and without asking a single question, she went. Later he would remember that when she answered the door, she had on her walking shoes and the little blue-flowered hat she sometimes wore to church. She knows when you are coming, people said of Nora Bonesteel, but the sheriff did not believe it. He believed in coincidence.

It’s unofficial, he told himself. The case is a hundred years old. It’s not as if I’m using a psychic to consult on a police investigation. This is a private thing. He was not driving the patrol car. He was still officially out on sick leave, and the pain in his side reminded him from time to time that this should be so.

Spencer escorted the old woman to the passenger seat of his white sedan and waited for her to fasten her seat belt before he took off down the winding Ashe Mountain road and made the right turn that would take them east into North Carolina.

Nora Bonesteel said nothing.

She knew. He wouldn’t ask himself how, or whether his belief in that statement constituted faith of any kind, but he had to know about Frankie Silver, and there was no one else he could bring here who would be able to understand.

“I’ve been studying the case of Frankie Silver,” he told her, after many miles of silence. “You probably know the story, but I’d like to tell it if you wouldn’t mind listening. It would clear things in my mind.”

Nora Bonesteel nodded, and the sheriff began to go over the facts of Charlie Silver’s murder-haltingly at first, but then with greater assurance, until at last he forgot she was there, and he was simply thinking aloud to align his thoughts. The Harkryder case hovered in his mind, parallel to the story he was telling, but although it flickered through his consciousness from time to time, he could not yet see the link.

They drove the winding back roads of Mitchell County, North Carolina, past settlements with colorful names like Bandana and Loafers Glory. It was just as Spencer remembered it from two decades earlier, when he had made the journey with Nelse Miller. If progress had come in the intervening years, it was treading lightly.

When they arrived at the white frame church in the community of Kona on state route 80, the air was still and the shadows sharp, promising a day of breathless heat. Spencer parked his car in the gravel driveway of the churchyard. A slender blond man came out of the church building and waved to them. “I’ll be right back,” said Spencer, as he got out of the car and headed toward the old church.

The blond man was a Mr. Silver, the keeper of the family history. He could have been any age, and he had been born here in the county, but his accent had been worn away like a river rock, softened by years spent in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles. Now he had come home to stay, and to tend the legends. He had a serenity now that one did not often find in the big cities in which he had spent his youth. People-mostly distant relatives, but sometimes scholars and writers-came thousands of miles to ask their questions, to look at the little stones, and to compare the list of names on their genealogy charts with the reams of information in the collection at Kona. They wanted to know who they were, and they seemed to think that Mr. Silver could tell them. Sooner or later most of the visitors got around to asking about Frankie Silver. Mr. Silver knew all the questions, and most of the answers. He was used to it by now.

Spencer told him who they were and what they wanted. Mr. Silver spoke with him for ten minutes, pointing out landmarks and telling Spencer Arrowood what he needed to know. When he had finished, the two men shook hands and Mr. Silver went back across the road to the newer church to tend to the family-history collection housed in its basement. Later they could come over and look at the maps and the photographs, he said. Spencer thanked him again and walked back to the car.

“We’re in the right place,” he told Nora Bonesteel, as he opened the door and helped her out of the car. She nodded without surprise and followed him through the little mountain graveyard.

Spencer walked over to the three uncarved rocks at the edge of the cemetery. “That’s Charlie Silver,” he said.

Nora Bonesteel nodded again. “Yes.”

“They didn’t find him all at once.”

The old woman was looking at the sheriff, not at the grave, and she knew that he was troubled by more deaths than this one. “It’s over now,” she said.

Spencer knelt and ran his hand along the top of the weathered stone. “Charlie Silver. He’s been nineteen for a hundred and sixty-five years now. I used to wonder what kind of a man he was. Whether he deserved what he got. Do you know?”

Nora Bonesteel considered the question. “The cutting came after,” she said at last. “He went quick. She didn’t.”

“Yes, but did he deserve to die?”

“I won’t say that anyone deserves it. Sometimes it has to be done, that’s all.”

Spencer thought that over. “Yes. Perhaps it did. Frankie said that what happened in the cabin was self-defense. I guess somebody was meant to die that night. The only choice was who.”

“Or how many,” said Nora Bonesteel.

Spencer remembered the baby. What was her name? Nancy. That was it. Nancy Silver. Named for Charlie’s stepmother. At least she had been saved. He wanted to see where it had all happened. “The cabin site is back in the woods a few hundred yards,” he said. “We can’t get to it very easily from here in the churchyard, though.”

Nora Bonesteel pointed to a log cabin at the bottom of a hill on the other side of the paved road. “That was the Silvers’ cabin, wasn’t it?”