The Ballad of Frankie Silver

by Sharyn McCrumb

  He wondered what had really happened that night. Any explanation-no matter how lame-might have saved her, but she had sat there stone-faced and silent.Not guilty.

  Lafayette Harkryder had done the same.

  He had been given a court-appointed lawyer, not one as young as Nicholas Woodfin, but not much older, either. Perhaps the attorney had lacked the experience to mount a proper defense to the charges, but since the defendant had no money, he also lacked the resources necessary to generate reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury. No private investigators muddied the waters of evidence with favorable findings; no psychiatrists or forensic experts were employed by the defense to refute the state’s witnesses. Fate Harkryder had not even been able to afford a suit jacket and tie to impress the jury with his respectability. He had sat in court in a red plaid flannel shirt and gray work pants, looking all the more barbaric in contrast to the sleek attorneys in their dark suits and crisp, starched shirts.

  All that was fine with the sheriff, provided the defendant was guilty. Sometimes the law needed all the help it could get to worm a conviction out of bleeding-heart juries, but he didn’t want to think that a man had been convicted of murder simply because he had violated the middle-class dress code. The penalty is greatest for breaking the laws that are unwritten.

  Spencer pictured the courtroom. Fate in his worn plaid shirt, and his nervous young attorney, correct but bland, and himself in his brown deputy sheriff’s uniform. Colonel Stanton had been almost as conspicuous as the lawyers in Wake County’s little courtroom. He had understood the symbols of society’s unwritten laws. He sat there day after day, ramrod straight, immaculate in his dress uniform, with every ribbon and medal on prominent display: the picture of solemn grief demanding justice. His wife was beside him most of the time, in a little suit and hat that would not have been out of place at a funeral or a church service. She had seemed a bit embarrassed to be there, blushing when anyone spoke to her and never looking at the defendant or the jury, but Colonel Stanton watched the proceedings with the alert gaze of a director viewing the dress rehearsal of the play. He took in everything, nodding when he agreed, and scowling when he did not. He took care to sit where the jury could not fail to see him, and perhaps because of his impressive looks and his air of command, they did seem to be watching him, testing their own reaction to a witness’s testimony by checking Stanton’s expression for approval.

  What about the other victim’s parents, Spencer thought. He tried to picture them in the courtroom, but the image would not be summoned. The Wilsons were elderly. They had come to court at least twice, Spencer knew, because he remembered speaking to them in the hall, but they were simple country people, and they had been overshadowed by the elegant Stantons.

  Outside the courtroom, Charles Wythe Stanton had also been in command. He radiated confidence, and dignified outrage over his daughter’s death. He was always ready to be photographed for the newspaper or to provide a sound bite for the television newsmen, and he would offer each reporter a poignant snapshot of pretty Emily. “She must not be forgotten,” he would say with a moist smile. “This trial is not just about that monster in there. It is about what Emily deserves, too, in exchange for her life.”

  Spencer admired the man for his poise in the face of the media. He’d had the microphone shoved in his face a few times during the course of the trial, and he knew that projecting an image of courageous intelligence was harder than it looked. The old sheriff, though, wanted nothing to do with the Stantons. More than once he refused their offers to take the officers to lunch.

  “That man is a creature of vengeance,” Nelse Miller remarked to his deputy, after court recessed on the third day. “Lafayette Harkryder might just as well have killed one of the Disney Mousketeers and been done with it, because this smooth-talking snake-oil man is going to hound him to the outskirts of hell. If you ever kill anybody, Spencer, make sure that they don’t have a damn bloodhound for a daddy.”

  “That’s how I’d want my kin to act if I had been murdered,” Spencer replied. “Stanton has a right to demand justice.”

  “I know he does. I’m just not sure that you can take one day of a person’s life, draw a line, and judge him on it.”

  “We do it every day,” said Spencer. “Yesterday I gave a speeding ticket to a member of the church choir.”

  Nelse Miller shook his head. “I’m getting old,” he said. “I keep thinking the world would be a better place if there were less justice and more charity.”

  Nelse Miller had fulminated through the entire trial, prompting Spencer to ask more than once, “Which side are you on?” One day the old sheriff might be carping about Colonel Stanton holding court before the media. Another time he remarked: “Have you ever noticed that you can tell which side a person is on in this case by the way they’re dressed?”

  That was true enough.

  The Stantons and their supporters always dressed in what Nelse Miller called “Episcopal uniforms,” while the Harkryders, who had no notion of showing their respect for the court-or perhaps they were-turned up in clothes that Spencer wouldn’t have worn to a yard sale: old stained work clothes, T-shirts with rude sayings printed on the front, and occasionally camouflage hunting outfits. Fate Harkryder’s mother was dead, but various other female relatives turned up from time to time, usually in bright print slacks and cheap blouses laden with dime-store beads. The jury wasn’t supposed to notice such things, but inevitably they did.

  Spencer’s clearest memory of the trial was the solemn, chiseled features of Colonel Stanton on one side of the courtroom, and sullen, scraggly Fate Harkryder on the other. Every day his two older brothers sat near the front of the courtroom, almost within touching distance of the defendant. They, too, glowered throughout the proceedings, muttering ominously when they disagreed with the witness testimony. Spencer kept his eye on them throughout the trial, watching for the bulge of a weapon in their clothing, or some sign that they meant to cause trouble.

  When the verdict was announced, one of the brothers shouted, “It’s a damned lie!”

  Spencer and the bailiff hurried to put themselves between the prisoner and his family, anticipating more than a shouting match, but Fate Harkryder had simply looked at his brothers for a long moment and shaken his head.

  They subsided once more into smoldering resentment. “We’ll fight this, boy,” one of them muttered.

  “You hang tough,” said the other one.

  Fate Harkryder nodded.

  By the time he was led handcuffed from the courtroom, his brothers were already gone. Spencer wondered if he had ever seen them again. Whatever happened to the Harkryder brothers, anyhow?

  Fate Harkryder had twenty years’ experience in not letting his feelings show. He sat impassively in the blue padded chair, studying the man in the green necktie who sat across from him. He was a stocky fellow in his early forties, with unruly dark hair and a tendency to perspire. He was smiling uncertainly, and creasing the corners of his paperwork. Fate was trying to decide why the man was nervous. Some people felt uneasy in the company of a convicted murderer, but since this man was a state psychologist who often studied prisoners, his current subject didn’t think the anxiety stemmed from that particular source. Race was not a factor, either. Fate decided that the man must be uneasy because he was talking to someone who would be dead in a few days’ time. Death is considered bad taste in polite society. People do not care to be reminded of it. Now that Fate had an execution date, even some of the guards had stopped looking directly at him, as if they were embarrassed by the presence of someone so close to the abyss.

  The psychologist managed a tentative smile as he pushed his glasses farther back along the bridge of his nose. “Now, Mr. Harkryder,” he said, “my name is Dr. Ritter. I don’t wish to alarm you in any way. I just wanted to have a talk with you to see if there are any concerns you’d like to voice.”

  “Concerns?” Fate blinked at him. He had found that playing dumb was an asset
in prison life. It gave you more time to evaluate your opponent, and sometimes it caused him to underestimate you, which was even more useful.

  “Yes. As you know, your-er-your execution is scheduled for later this month, and barring any unforeseen developments, it will take place at that time. I wondered if you’d like to express your feelings.”

  “I’m innocent, sir.”

  The psychologist looked away. “I know nothing whatever about the details of your case, Mr. Harkryder. I find it easier to counsel prisoners if I am not apprised of what they have done. My only concern is your peace of mind at this point in time.”

  “Well, sir, they’re going to kill me. How do you think I feel?”

  Ritter was ready for that one. “There are many possibilities, Mr. Harkryder. You might feel relief that your long stay in prison is at an end. You might embrace the opportunity to atone for your misdeeds. You might take solace in religion and look forward to peace and joy beyond this life.”

  “Or I might think that this life is all there is, and I’ve been cheated out of it by a state that framed me for a murder I didn’t commit.”

  “I had hoped you might be beyond that,” sighed the psychologist. “I realize that death is a very difficult thing to accept. That’s why we tend to concentrate on the little rituals that precede it as a way of distracting ourselves from the prospect of the death itself. Would you like to discuss some of those items?”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, to begin with a trivial one-why don’t you tell me what you’d like as a last meal?”

  Fate Harkryder shrugged. “I haven’t given it much thought,” he said. He had, of course. Back in Building Two, discussions of his last meal had been going on for weeks. After a while he began to notice that the suggestions from the other men tended to fit a pattern. They urged him to ask for steak and a milk shake; country-style steak, french fries, and strawberry shortcake with double whipped cream; a large pizza and a banana split. It was all comfort food-the dream menus of teenage boys, or of men whose last memories of happiness stretched that far back in their lives. It was food rich in grease, salt, and sugar, proposed by men who had lived for years on a bland, starchy diet that never quite filled them up.

  Other suggestions were a poor man’s idea of a high-class meal. The farm boy who had suggested a pound of shrimp, a pound of lobster, and a pound of prime rib had never tasted any of those things. Fate had no better ideas about what he should ask for on the night of his execution, and he was by no means sure that he could swallow a single mouthful of whatever was brought to him, but at least he prided himself on knowing why his comrades suggested the menus they did. After twenty years in confinement, he thought he might be as much of a psychologist as the perspiring man who sat across from him now.

  “No thoughts on a last meal,” Dr. Ritter was saying. He made a notation on his legal pad. “Let’s leave that then, shall we? You have plenty of time to consider that option. Now, is there anyone you would like to see in the coming days? Anyone you would wish us to contact?”

  A hooker,he thought. Names of various shapely movie stars ran though Fate Harkryder’s mind, but he no longer felt in a playful mood. Besides, he was sure that the fat man had heard such feeble efforts at wit before, and was probably expecting them. He probably had his chuckle and his pat answer ready in his froggy throat. Fate decided that the conversation was beginning to bore him. He shook his head. “No one.”

  “A relative, perhaps? Is your mother still living?”

  “She died when I was eight.”

  “Your father, then?”

  “Lung cancer. Ten years back.”

  “I see. I believe you have brothers, though. Perhaps you’d like a visit from them?”

  Fate Harkryder almost smiled. “Perhaps I would,” he said. “Why don’t you see if they’d like to come and say good-bye?”

  “I can certainly do that,” said Ritter smoothly. “Now let’s talk about you for a moment. Are you experiencing any symptoms of undue anxiety? Loss of appetite, trouble sleeping?”

  “Undueanxiety?” The prisoner stared at him. “The state of Tennessee is going to strap me into a chair and shoot electricity through my body until I burn to death from the inside out. Just what anxiety would you call undue?”

  “You would do well to remain hopeful. You might possibly get a stay of execution,” said the psychologist, ignoring the emotional outburst. “Meanwhile, we would hope that you can stay as calm and upbeat as possible under the circumstances. I can recommend sleeping tablets-in carefully controlled doses, of course-and perhaps some sort of tranquilizer for daytime use, if you feel that would help.”

  Fate Harkryder shook his head. “Keep the drugs,” he said. “If I only have a few more days to spend being alive, I don’t want to miss any of it. I intend to go down fighting.”

  Ritter’s frown told him that he had misunderstood.

  “Legally, I mean,” said Fate. “Appeals. Motions filed in every court we can think of. Messages to the governor.”

  “I see. Meanwhile, if you’d like, we can discuss the incident that put you here. Would you like to tell me your side of it?”

  “I don’t believe I would.”

  The psychologist shrugged. “Some men find it easier to go to their deaths having made their peace with this world. Is there any bit of unfinished business that troubles you?”

  “Not anything you can put right,” said the condemned man.

  Burgess Gaither

  THE ESCAPE

  They’ll not hang a woman, folks kept saying, over and over like rain on a roof. You’ll not hang, Frankie. I was a young girl, a proper married woman, the mother of an innocent babe. I was no madwoman crazed for blood, nor no town whore robbing a young blade and adding killing to the slate of her sins. You’ll not hang. And I carried myself meek and mild every time the court met, with my hair combed smooth, and my dress as clean and fitten as I could get it. “She’s a pretty little thing!” the men would say when I passed by. “She don’t look like no Jezebel.” And I would keep my head down low and pretend not to hear them, for it was all a game, and if I could not tell the truth flat out to that court full of strangers and be done with it, why then I must play their game and take care to win.

  I had done good. The fine town ladies brought me pies and came and sat with me and read out the Bible in my cell, and I was thankful, for they were kind, but the tales I liked best were the fairy stories that my mama used to tell me. There was one about a beautiful princess who was walled up in a tower, and a handsome prince rode up and saved her. When my mama told the story, the princess had long golden hair like mine, and the prince was a dark-haired man with a big house and all the money he needed. I didn’t ask for the ladies to tell me stories like that, for it wouldn’t have been fitten, but I thought about them all the same, to myself, and to pass the time I pretended that I was the princess in that tower, awaiting to be saved.

  The ladies told me that people were working hard to get me a pardon. They were writing letters to Governor Stokes, begging him for mercy, and there was talk of getting up a letter signed by half the county, asking that my life be spared.

  Governor Stokes left office at the new year, and the new governor was a man called David Swain, who came from Buncombe County, not far from here. Then the jailer’s wife, Sarah Presnell, who wasn’t one for making fine promises, she came to my cell with the news, and she said, “Happen you’ll be all right now, Frankie, for the new governor is from these parts, and he’ll be made to listen to all the folks who won’t stand to see you hang.” The other ladies of Morganton came and said the same. They told me that even the jury was sorry they had ordered me hanged, and that some of them had signed their name to the paper asking the governor for mercy. I reckoned it would be all right then, just like Mama said. I sat through the winter thinking about how big my baby Nancy was getting and wondering how many teeth she had, and if she was walking good yet. I reckoned I’d see her in the spring. She’d have
to get to know me all over again, but at least we’d be together, when I got shut of this old town.

  But then in March a new judge came, and he was old and sour, with a pinch-prune face and eyes like the pebbles in the creek bed, and he looked at me as if I were a shriveled-up old woman, and you could tell that he didn’t think me a pretty little thing, but only a wicked murderess to be damned and sent to hell, and he was the one to do it.

  He fixed the twenty-eighth of June as my day to die.

  I never figured on dying in tomato time. Leaving my baby without a mama or a daddy to look out for her. Going into the cold clay while my teeth are still strong and my hair is yellow as moonlight. It don’t seem right.

  The ladies tell me that Daddy has been stumping around the county like a bear tied to a stake, trying to get some help for me. He went hat in hand to this colonel and to that gentleman, and they all gave him advice, but sometimes they’d say the opposite of one another. At last I reckon Daddy figured it was up to him to look out for his own. And what could I say when they came for me? I wanted to live. I wanted to feel the grass again on my bare ankles, and drink spring water.

  So when they stood there in the night with the key to my cell a-dangling from Jack’s hand, I didn’t spare a thought for the governor or the fine ladies of Morganton with their pies and their petitions. I put on Jack’s old shirt and breeches and blacked my face with coal dust, and I went with them.

  The people in that town meant well, most of them, trying to help me with letters and such, but we don’t take charity from strangers if we can help it. It’s not our way. I’d rather trust a surefooted horse and a steep mountain than all the fine words in the world.

  I know that people have said I must have known something about it, but upon my oath I did not. Though I should have guessed, perhaps. I had heard the story often enough, when people spoke of Eliza Grace McDowell. The family is proud of it, and perhaps they should be, but just lately it troubles me all the same.