The Ballad of Frankie Silver

by Sharyn McCrumb

  And so she was gone, locked away for another season to pass the harvest, and then the winter, in that narrow cell, and I’m afraid I gave little thought to her over the next several weeks, for we are busy enough at harvesttime. I know that the ladies of Morganton continued to visit her, though, for I have heard Elizabeth speak of it among her sisters. They have made quite a pet out of the county’s most notorious criminal, and I found myself wondering if the ladies were basking in the melodrama of the doomed woman, or whether they envied her the courage and determination she showed in disposing of an unwanted husband. The men of the county thought she had perpetrated a great wickedness, but I am not sure that the fair sex shared our thoughts on the matter. Many a man in the tavern was uneasy enough when the talk turned round to Frankie Silver, and those who professed the loudest that she should be hanged without delay were the very men who seemed the least respectful of their own wives. I wondered sometimes if brutish husbands behaved a little better that year because of the terrible example of retribution that Mrs. Silver had set before us.

  Several weeks after the dismissal of court, elections were held and John Boone took his place as the newly elected sheriff. I am sure he thought that the case of Frankie Silver would be over and done with before he took office, but it lingered still, harrowing him with the dreadful possibility of an execution in his term. Other prominent citizens of the county were still trying to persuade state officials to listen to reason. True to his word, Thomas Wilson wrote a letter to the governor on behalf of his client.

  Statesville 19

  November 1832

  My dear Sir,

  I hope you will pardon my troubling you with these few lines. The importance of the subject which I wish to mention will plead my justification. It is the condition of the unfortunate lady who is now confined in our jail at Morganton: Franky Silvers. She has been induced for some little time to believe a Pardon has been granted by your Excellency. This opinion has got abroad through a misunderstanding of Col. David Newland.

  It is not necessary that I should multiply in words or reasons why I think she should win a pardon. Suffice it to say that I have no hesitation in saying that the community expect her Pardon and I believe generally wish it. Mr. Joseph Erwin was present at the trial to whom I refer you. He, I know, at one time thought it a case very doubtful. I saw David Newland at Wilkesboro & read the letter which Hugh M. Stokes wrote on that subject. I fully concur in sentiment with him as to the opinion of the community. There is certainly one, but few more, who think or wish her execution. It is believed by many that her Parents was very instrumental in the perpetration of that horrid deed. If so, shurely it is a powerful reason why the executive clemency should be extended to one of her age and condition.

  I know, my dear sir, that you have often been reproached for extending the Ordinary Power vested in the Executive. You have nothing to fear from this approach: humanity is certainly one of the greatest attributes.

  I do hope and trust, Sir, that if it is consistent with your duty and feelings toward a miserable wretch that you will grant her a Pardon if not already done, and forward same to me at Morganton. I did request our Sheriff Mr. Boone to speak to you on the subject. I know your engagements and fear that I have already wearied your patience.

  Please accept the opinion of my highest esteem and regard for your welfare.

  Th. W. Wilson

  Montfort Stokes, who was in his final days as North Carolina’s head of state, declined to reply.

  In due course we found out why Judge Swain had not appeared to convene the fall term of Superior Court, and it proved to no one’s surprise that our judgment had been accurate: the gentleman had pressing business in grander places than our country backwater. David Lowry Swain was running for governor.

  He had resigned his judgeship in order to spend the autumn months campaigning for the office among his influential friends in Raleigh, while his duties to justice in the mountain counties lay forgotten, overshadowed by his ambition. When the news became known, this turn of events was remarked upon by various community leaders in Morganton, with varying degrees of approval. The most charitable remarks I heard concerning Judge Swain’s candidacy were to the effect that perhaps it was a good thing, since Swain was a native of Asheville; perhaps, as a westerner himself, Swain could do some good for the oft-neglected mountain areas of North Carolina. Some said they would vote for him, and others were not so sure. Former sheriff Will Butler said that if Judge Swain’s attention to duty as a circuit judge was any indication of his concern for his homeland, we would do better to elect a monkey as governor, for we could do no worse. I saw a great deal of sense in the sheriff’s estimation of the situation, but I did not say so, for discretion is a lawyer’s greatest virtue, and besides, I thought there was very little chance that a man from our part of the state would win anyhow, since the political power is and always has been concentrated in the eastern part of the state.

  David Swain did win, though. He was not chosen in the general election, which was held in November. At that time Andrew Jackson was reelected president, much to the consternation of a number of gentlemen in Burke County, and to Swain himself, who had bitterly opposed Jackson’s politics, but our local yeoman farmers were happy enough to hear of Old Hickory’s success, for he was a man of the people, and from these parts himself, and a few of them even vowed to make the long ride to Washington to attend the party for his inauguration in January. Then, in December, the politicians in Raleigh appointed David L. Swain to a special one-year term as governor of North Carolina, so in the end no one got to vote for him, but he became governor all the same, and in the main Will Butler was wrong about David Swain’s attitude toward the mountain counties. He was to prove a loyal friend to his home region, and he favored the advancement of the railroads into the western territories of the state, which would be a great boon to progress for the region, but he did not right all the wrongs in our portion of the state. Not by any means.

  “Mrs. Silver is quite delighted to hear of Governor Swain’s election to office,” Elizabeth remarked at breakfast one morning early in the new year of 1833. “My sister Mary tells me that she wept for joy when she was told.”

  I replied that I had not realized that Mrs. Silver took such an interest in politics, particularly since she was not likely to live long enough to enjoy the governor’s performance.

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “You are quite a bear this morning, Mr. Gaither,” she said. “Did last night’s rum punch not agree with you?”

  “It is wearing out its welcome,” I admitted, “but that does not alter the fact that I am concerned about all the attention you ladies are paying Mrs. Silver. She is quite unused to the society to which you expose her in your visits, and I do not know what she makes of all of you. Still, she should be using this time wisely to prepare her soul for the Hereafter, and I think you ladies are at best a distraction from that purpose.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “But she is not yet twenty! She has a long time to prepare for eternity.”

  “She has until March, and perhaps six weeks thereafter, for preparations to be made, and the execution to be carried out. A sentencing hearing is merely a formality, Elizabeth. There will be no new evidence, no jury, no appeal. It is a matter of scheduling, nothing more. Her fate has already been decided.”

  My wife favored me with a tolerant smile. “Her fate was decided before the new governor was appointed. Now, of course, everything has changed.”

  “Nothing has changed.”

  “But of course it has, dearest! David Swain of Asheville is now the governor of North Carolina. In short, he is one of us. And you must not forget that Mrs. Silver’s own attorney, Nicholas Woodfin, read law under Mr. Swain. A personal appeal can be made. That’s how these things are done.”

  Elizabeth smiled at me, the gentle, condescending smile of an Erwin with four aces. Her grandfather Sharpe had been a member of the Continental Congress, and she counted generals, legislators, and wealt
hy planters in her bloodline. Who was I to tell her that she was mistaken? So I merely nodded and let it pass. I was thinking, though, that if Mistress Elizabeth Erwin Gaither took an ax to her husband, she could very well get herself pardoned by her father’s good friend the governor, but it was not so with Frankie Silver. All the influential supporters in the world could not make her a woman of substance. And the sheltering wing of the Erwin ladies might not be enough to save her.

  Chapter Six

  SPENCER ARROWOOD had not been to church in many months, but this Sunday, despite his difficulty in getting around and the doctor’s misgivings about his leaving the house so soon, he had come. His family had belonged to the little white frame church for generations, and he felt that any thanks offered up for his continued existence should be said here. As usual, though, he came more with the intention of making additional requests than in thankfulness for mercies already bestowed.

  The sight of so many people whom Spencer had known for most of his life was reassuring to him in his new awareness of mortality, as if their concern and good wishes could keep death at bay for a little while longer. He sat in the pew beside his mother, uncomfortably warm in his navy sport coat and tie, still pale and weak from his injuries, but trying to seem as if nothing were amiss. From time to time members of the congregation smiled and waved to him from neighboring pews, and he tried to smile back, but perhaps he had ventured out too soon. He felt light-headed, and impossibly tired from the short walk from the car to the sanctuary. It was as if old age had overtaken him in the course of an hour, but this time, when he was well again, he could go back to youth. He wondered what it would be like when he was old for good, past going back. Perhaps he would not live to find out.

  When the service began, the comforting rhythm of the ritual washed over him without his being aware of the sense of the words. He stared up at the stained-glass window of the plump Victorian angel guiding a boy and girl over a bridge. As a child he had loved the radiant image, but its cloying sentimentality could not reach him now. He became distracted by the rhythms of his own body: the thud of heartbeat, the prickles of sweat on his forehead, the clump of bandage just above his waist which itched beneath his starched blue shirt. His body had become a clock ticking off the seconds of his allotted time until he reached the abyss, and the bridge that he would have to cross, angel or not.

  He was thinking that in twelve more days Fate Harkryder would go to the electric chair. While the opening hymn was sung, Spencer was standing silent, oblivious to the words, working out the number of hours in twelve days. Another part of his mind was wondering if he ought to try to talk to the condemned man on the eve of the execution. What was there to say, though? Please tell me that you did it, so that I’ll feel better? Why should he be allowed to feel better when in 288 hours Fate Harkryder would feel nothing at all.

  He felt regret at the thought of a man’s life being taken from him, and he forced an image of Emily Stanton’s body into his mind to remind him that this man deserved his death, but it did not lessen the uneasiness, and he realized that he was picturing the sullen adolescent that he had sent to prison years ago. Let him see the canting, frightened killer who had grown old and hardened in confinement, and perhaps he would resign himself to letting the man go. He would be able to watch it happen.

  Spencer had been sitting there thinking about the Harkryder case for some time, while the voices of the other parishioners faded into a hum at the back of his mind, when he realized that he was no longer in the sanctuary of the white frame church. He was standing in the shadows on a trail in the deep woods, and a small blond girl in a white dress was squatting a few yards away from him in the stony shallows of a mountain stream. The creek, forever shaded by deep woods, would be more melted ice than water, and even in summer it would be so cold that wading more than a few feet along the streambed would make your legs ache and your feet tingle, then go numb.

  The pale girl was washing a white cloth in the swift, silver water. Her hair was a faded gold, and she was small-boned, a white shadow in the filtered sunlight of the forest clearing. She was leaning over the stream, submerging the cloth in the bone-chilling water. She seemed not to feel the cold on her fingers. She scrubbed the stained cloth against a flat rock in the streambed, intent upon her work and indifferent to the observer. After a moment she looked up at him, without a smile or a flicker of expression, just a look that said he was there, and he knew that she was Frankie Silver.

  He tried to move toward her, but he found that he could not. When he opened his mouth to call out to her, she looked straight at him with narrowed eyes and a cold smile. Then she lifted the white cloth out of the water, and he saw the bloodstains that she had been trying to wash away.

  When he came to himself, he was standing with the rest of the congregation, and the last strains of a hymn were dying away into silence. Spencer saw that his hymnbook was open to “Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb,” and his mother had placed her hand on his arm and was shaking him gently.

  “I’m all right,” he murmured, rubbing his forehead to banish the last fragments of the dream. “I think I dozed off.”

  “I told you it was too soon for you to be out!” she hissed back.

  “No. I’m all right. I just have too much on my mind, that’s all.”

  People were beginning to file out of the pews now, and he realized that the service was over. It seemed to him that only a few minutes had passed since he’d gone into the church. Several of his mother’s friends paused in the aisle to wish him well, and he shook white-gloved hands with a tentative smile. He hoped his mother had not invited company over for Sunday dinner. He was not equal to the small talk of village acquaintances.

  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, Sheriff,” said a soft voice beside him.

  He turned to find that Nora Bonesteel, one of the oldest parishioners, had slipped into the pew behind them. She was tall and straight in her blue church dress with the gray wool shawl draped over her shoulders. Her hair, still more dark than silver, was pulled back in two wings framing her face, and drawn into a knot at the back of her head. She touched his arm and he suddenly felt cold. “The poor in spirit,” he murmured, recognizing the Beatitudes. Miss Bonesteel had been his Sunday school teacher more years ago than either of them cared to remember. “For they shall see God.”

  The old woman smiled and shook her head. “You never could keep those verses straight, could you? It’s:For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ”

  He shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s why I didn’t see God.”

  “What did you see?”

  People told tales about Nora Bonesteel, though nobody ever said she wasn’t a good, righteous woman. She knew things, though. She saw things before they happened, and she had a way of knowing secret things no one would have dreamed of telling her. She didn’t exactly meddle in other people’s lives, but if you went to her for help, she always knew what it was you’d come about. The old folks claimed that Nora Bonesteel even talked to the dead, but Spencer could not let himself believe that, so he chose never to consider the matter at all. He had known her all his life.

  What did you see?

  “Frankie Silver.” He blurted it out before he thought better of it. Nora Bonesteel had always been able to get the truth out of him, even when he was a sullen teenager who passed the few minutes between Sunday school and church sneaking a cigarette in the back of the churchyard with some of the older boys. Nora Bonesteel had put a stop to that one spring morning without so much as a word passing between them.

  Frankie Silver.

  Anyone else might have said, “Who?” or, “You must have been dreaming!” Or they might have passed the remark off as a joke, but Nora Bonesteel did none of those things. She considered the matter for a moment and nodded slowly.

  “I have heard that she walks,” she said. “Though I have never seen her myself. It’s not surprising, though, is it?”

  “No?” He could not believe that he was hav
ing this conversation in broad daylight in the sanctuary of the little white church. The place was nearly empty now. His mother had walked toward the door to speak to some of her friends, so there was no one to overhear them.

  “They say that those who die by violence often walk. Hers was a cruel death.”

  “Do you know what really happened that night?”

  Nora Bonesteel shook her head. “It’s not for me to say. But if you have seen her, she means to tell you something, Spencer. You’d best find out what it is.”

  That night Spencer Arrowood sat in a circle of light at his dining room table with case-file papers and books of North Carolina history mingling in a pile in front of him. What was there about the Harkryder case that had reminded Nelse Miller of Frankie Silver? He couldn’t see it. He didn’t think Nelse had known the connection, either. It was a hunch of some sort that had never clarified itself in the old man’s mind. Spencer hadn’t taken much stock in such things in those days, but now, twenty years older and wiser, he believed that the intuition of an experienced cop could be counted as probable cause. If you lived long enough, you knew things just from instinct and observation.

  By now Spencer had read all the material that the libraries could supply on the Silver case. Some of it was speculative, and most of it repetitive, but he had read it all, and the connection between the legend and the Harkryder boy still eluded him. When he looked at the Silver case as a lawman would, he could see why Constable Baker had no choice but to arrest Frankie Silver for the crime. The jury had no alternative, either. Since the grand jury had not indicted the Stewarts, they were offered no other suspects on whom to cast the blame. During the trial Frankie Silver had given no explanation for the fact that she had lied about Charlie’s whereabouts, or for the fact that his remains had been found in their own cabin. “Not guilty,” she said. Take it or leave it. They left it. Had to. He understood all that. But his instinct told him that there was something terribly wrong with the case. Eighteen-year-old girls do not kill without provocation, and they don’t cut up bodies.