Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“Am I supposed to care what you think?”

“Well, I think you should get clemency.”

Fate Harkryder shrugged. “Sign a petition then. There are dozens of them. The Pope sent a nice letter to the governor on my behalf, and the anti-death penalty people are staging a vigil tonight, I hear. Candles and everything. A couple of movie stars have sent faxes to me pledging their support, only they’re not exactly sure what it was I’m supposed to have done. Seems like all of a sudden nobody wants me to die. I wonder if that’s because they’re all pretty sure it’s going to happen.”

“It doesn’t have to happen,” said Spencer. “Not if you tell them what really happened that night on the mountain.”

“I thought you knew that, Mr. Arrowood. You seemed mighty sure of yourself at the trial.”

“I was sure. But I was a kid then. So were you.”

“And now you know different?”

“Now I do.”

“So you came charging up here to save my life, did you?”

“I’m willing to try. Tell the truth about the Trail Murders. You can stop this.”

Fate Harkryder smiled. “Oh, we’re already trying to stop it, Sheriff. That’s what lawyers are for. Allan is at the governor’s office right now, trying to get in to see him to plead for a stay. I forget the grounds. Doesn’t matter. Whatever comes into his head, I guess. And the other one, that would be Justin, I believe-hell, they’re both kids-Justin got on a plane this morning and flew to Washington to talk to the Supreme Court. I’m famous, Mr. Arrowood. Everybody has heard of me.”

“Right. But nobody has heard of Tom and Ewell, have they?”

Fate Harkryder stared up at him for one frozen moment. Then he shrugged and turned away. “I guess they haven’t,” he said casually. “The black sheep of the family gets all the attention.”

“Not this time. I’ve been doing some checking. At the time of the Trail Murders, you were a minor. Your brothers were both over eighteen. You had no criminal record. They did. So-what did they tell you when you got arrested for the killings? Take the rap, Lafayette. You’re underage. You’ll do a couple of years at the most. Just don’t implicate your brothers. You can save us. Just don’t ever tell. Was it something like that?”

Fate Harkryder shrugged. “It’s your story, mister.”

Spencer nodded. “ Die with it in you, Frankie. It’s the same old story. Mountain families stick together, no matter what. You were willing to die to keep from betraying them.”

Fate Harkryder said nothing.

“That’s why the blood at the crime scene matched yours. Same family. Nowadays, with DNA, we could have got a closer match, but back then the results were less exact. We were close, but not close enough.”

Silence.

“Tom and Ewell did it, but they gave you the jewelry to sell. All the evidence that linked you to the crime scene would also link them. Brothers. Same blood type. All secretors. There are just two things I don’t know: Why did your brothers kill those two kids with such violence, and why didn’t you ever tell the truth about what happened-especially after you were sentenced to death?”

Fate Harkryder was staring at a blank wall, where a window ought to have been but wasn’t. Somewhere beyond the cinder block was the river and an elm-covered hill. The hill would be deep green now, a canopy of trees leading you on from ridge to ridge, as if the green wave of forest would carry you home. He sighed. “Who’d believe me, Sheriff?”

“I would. I ran a records check on your two brothers. I wanted to see what had become of them in the last twenty years.”

“We don’t keep in touch.”

Spencer felt the sweat prickle on his neck. I’m more nervous than he is, he thought. Maybe it’s because he’s been fighting this for twenty years, and I’ve just begun.

He said: “I ran the records check through the TBI. At the time of the Trail Murders, both your brothers had two felony convictions apiece. One for shoplifting, and one for robbing a convenience store.”

“Shoplifting?” The prisoner’s smile was ironic.

“Petty larceny was a felony in Tennessee at that time. We had another funny little law back then, too. The Career Criminal Act. Remember that? Three felony convictions, and you’re ineligible for parole. Forever. The law was repealed a few years later, but at the time of those murders, your brothers knew that if they were convicted of that crime, they would get either the death penalty or life in prison with no hope of release.”

Fate Harkryder sighed and looked away. Spencer wondered if he was remembering with regret a long-ago conversation with his brothers, or if he was just tired of talking about it. Twenty years of prison coupled with twenty years of legal battles would make a man weary of life.

“It must have seemed like a reasonable request at the time,” the sheriff said. “Your brothers can’t afford a conviction. You have no criminal record, and you’re only seventeen. When you get caught with the jewelry, they tell you to say nothing about what really happened. Take the rap if you have to. You’re a kid. It’ll only be a few years. You can do it. But to everyone’s surprise, you got the death penalty. And then you were stuck, weren’t you?”

“I said I wasn’t guilty.”

“All prisoners say they’re not guilty. We caught you with the victim’s personal effects. You must have known that if you didn’t explain that, you’d be convicted.” Spencer found himself thinking of Frankie Silver. We caught you in a lie. Why didn’t you tell us what really happened? Fate Harkryder didn’t tell, for the same reason Frankie Silver had kept silent. Because we’re Celts and mountain people, he thought. We don’t trust authority figures, and we haven’t since the Romans landed in Britain and started calling the shots. We never think the law is going to be on our side, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, we’re right. Who am I to change that today?

“So you took the blame for your brothers’ crime, and you’ve spent your entire adult life in prison,” he said. “What a waste.”

“Yeah, well, I was seventeen years old. What the hell did I know?”

“You learned fast, though, didn’t you? The first time you got raped in your cell, I bet you were real sorry you had been so noble.”

The condemned man shrugged. “You get used to anything. I survived.”

“They weren’t worth it, you know. Those brothers of yours. I ran a records check on them before I came here. You may not want to know what happened to them, but I did.”

“Found out, did you? That must have been a thrill.”

“I don’t know what I was hoping for: whether I wanted them to turn out to be notorious serial killers or missionaries to China. I guess I wanted them to be entirely better than you are or utterly worse. They were neither, of course. Tom is on parole in Kentucky for kidnapping and armed robbery, which makes me wonder what else he’s done that he hasn’t been caught at. And Ewell wasn’t on the computer, but we found him through Motor Vehicles. Your brother Ewell is a drunk who lives on welfare and odd jobs in Knoxville. I doubt his liver will last much longer.”

“Tom and Ewell,” said Fate Harkryder thoughtfully. “I haven’t really paid them much mind in years. In my head, they’re still twenty-something. The letters from home don’t mention them.”

“Didn’t you care what became of them? You gave up your life for them.”

“I cared at first, but… hell: Prison is another country. It’s like my old life was another incarnation-that it was me back in those days, and yet not me, so none of the people and places from before are real somehow. Tom and Ewell are no more real to me now than people I saw in movies when I was a kid. Maybe they’re less real. I still see John Wayne every now and then.”