The Ballad of Frankie Silver

by Sharyn McCrumb

  It was a warm evening, the seventeenth of May, and I was pleased to see a red sunset, a sign that we should have no more of the spring rains that had blighted our days, muddied our roads, and made ponds of our fields for a good many days. I lingered on the courthouse lawn, talking with Sheriff Boone in the glow of the spring twilight. We were merely exchanging pleasantries, as I was leaving to go to Belvidere for dinner. I do not think we spoke of Frankie Silver, for her execution was still some weeks away, and I knew that the sheriff was uneasy in his mind about having to perform the grim task, and he did not care to talk about it. So it was apropos of nothing in particular when Boone said to me, “You know, Mr. Gaither, I have been thinking about John Sevier these past few days.”

  My mind was on other matters, I suppose. I was thinking of the baby’s cough, and of whether my old black coat would see me through another season, and I was wondering whom I should be put next to at dinner this evening, for I was too tired for sparkling inanities with the ladies or the sober political doomsaying of my elders. “John Sevier,” I said, to show that I was listening. I barely glanced at Sheriff Boone, for I was anxious to begin the evening, if only to see it over with. “A hero of the Battle of King’s Mountain. Sevier was a fine, bold fellow, and a patriot.”

  “Perhaps too bold,” said the sheriff. “But I believe he was a good man nonetheless.”

  I nodded. There were those who said that Sevier had been too cruel in his treatment of the Indians, but I hardly thought that John Boone would be concerned about such matters some thirty years after the fact. Then I recalled that Sevier had run off with another man’s wife over in Tennessee, and I wondered if the sheriff was hinting at some domestic trouble of his own as yet undreamed of by his neighbors. Surely not! Not wishing to hear treacly confidences from this somber old fellow, I eased the subject along a new path. “John Sevier. Indeed, sir, Old Nolichucky Jack was a credit to this country, whatever his personal faults, but, Sheriff, I believe that if we talk of the region’s favorite sons, surely it is your uncle whose fame has spread throughout the world, and whose star will burn the brightest and longest in memory. Rightly so.”

  John Boone blushed and nodded. The sheriff is the nephew of the great pioneer Daniel Boone, but he himself is a kindhearted and modest man, not much given to boasting about his lineage, and I wondered what had prompted his musings on long-dead heroes. I made one or two other inconsequential remarks praising the pathfinder of Kentucky, to which he made little reply, and then I took my leave of the sheriff. I left him standing in the twilight, and now that I think back on it, the old fellow looked as if he had something more to say to me but didn’t quite know how to begin. I left him thus, with his piece unsaid.

  I realize now, of course, what had put the thought of John Sevier into his head. It was not Sevier’s exploits in the Revolution that John Boone had been thinking of, nor of his elopement with Susannah Tipton, but a later incident, much closer to home. Nearly fifty years ago-before the time of Sheriff Boone and myself, but an incident still talked about-John Sevier and his supporters had wanted the mountain country to rid itself of North Carolina’s ownership. He had ample justification for this, I am sure, because North Carolina had been willing to cede the western lands to the federal government in payment of its war debt from the Revolution. We are a neglected section of the state even to this day. The State of Franklin was formed from the eastern counties of what is now Tennessee, and Sevier became its governor. Four years later the bold endeavor to form a new state collapsed in political infighting, and in 1788 the state of North Carolina sent a party of armed men to arrest John Sevier, to be tried on a charge of treason.

  He was brought in chains over the mountains to Morganton-a sad plight for one of the great leaders in our war for independence. The sheriff of Burke County at the time, William Morrison, had served with Sevier at King’s Mountain, and he was appalled that his old commander should be treated thus by order of the craven politicians in Raleigh. Sheriff Morrison struck off the prisoner’s chains, and granted him bail so that he might remain in Morganton, but not under lock and key, awaiting trial. The bond money was put up by the grandfathers of Eliza Grace McDowell. These old soldiers, Charles and Joseph McDowell, were themselves brothers, and also brother officers of John Sevier’s, one a colonel and the other a general in the Revolution.

  Sevier must have had powerful enemies in North Carolina government, or perhaps the politicians merely wished to make an example of anyone who would question the state’s authority. They meant to hang John Sevier, right there in Morganton, but that faithful old soldier-turned-sheriff William Morrison would have none of it. Before the court could be convened, word went out to John Sevier’s son that his father was at liberty within the town, but in peril of his life come the trial date. By and by, Sevier’s brother and his son John Jr. rode into town with some of his supporters, leading Sevier’s favorite saddle horse. Young Sevier found his father in the tavern with his old comrades, the McDowells of Quaker Meadows. “I’ve come to take my father home, sirs,” the young man told his father’s companions.

  The McDowells wished John Sevier Godspeed, and they watched him ride off with his faithful friends toward the Yellow Mountain Road, which would take them at last into Tennessee and away from the jurisdiction of the state of North Carolina. No posse ever set out to bring them back. Nothing more was ever done by the sheriff of Burke County or by the state of North Carolina to prosecute John Sevier. Indeed, in the autumn of the very next year, Sevier was elected to the North Carolina Senate, and he took his place in that august body and was present when the legislators voted to reinstate his rank of brigadier general. It was as if he had never been a shackled prisoner and the object of North Carolina’s vengeance.

  Surely that was the incident in John Sevier’s life that John Boone had been thinking of-not the war, not the attempt to secede from North Carolina, not the incident with the Tennessee lady, but the escape from the Burke County jail. The successful, unpursued escape from the very jail that Sheriff John Boone was now sworn to guard. Sometimes justice can best be served by avoiding the process of the law.

  Frankie Silver escaped from jail that night.

  Many stories were put about as to how she was able to flee, and I cannot say with any certainty which story is true. Everyone agreed that intruders had entered the building through a basement window and had unlocked the cell by means of a key. It seemed to have been done in stealth, for there was no battle between guards and rescuers. The most fanciful storytellers claimed that Frankie Silver’s brother Jack had made a wax impression of the lock of her cell door, and that he carved a key that would fit that lock, but I have never put much faith in that tale myself. I think-though I should never dream of saying it, much less trying to prove it-that a kind and scrupulous man could not bear the thought of hanging that poor, friendless little girl, and so, taking his text from the example of his predecessor Sheriff William Morrison, this gentleman left his own keys where the friends of the prisoner might get at them and thus spirit her away-perhaps, like John Sevier, to Tennessee, and then onward to the great empty Western lands, where she could disappear forever, beyond the reach of North Carolina’s terrible revenge. Or justice. Call it what you will.

  The next morning word of Frankie Silver’s escape spread around the county as fast as a horse could run. I was sitting peacefully at the breakfast table when a commotion in the hall alerted us to the presence of an urgent visitor, and one of the young constables burst in past the servant to tell me the news. I set down my cup and stared at the fellow. He fairly danced on the handwoven rug in his muddy boots, rifle in hand, and he had not even remembered to take off his hat when the servant let him in the front door. “She’s fled in the night, Mr. Gaither!” he said, and his eyes were bright with excitement as if he were announcing a fox-hunting party rather than a grim search for a killer. “Frankie Silver has broke out of jail!”

  I stared at him for one stricken moment, thinking a dozen thoughts at
once. Finally I managed to say, “Was anyone hurt in the escape?”

  He shook his head. “No one knew she was missing until they saw her cell empty this morning. Spirited clean away! Some of us are riding out in hopes of picking up her trail. Will you be going with us?”

  I looked across the table at my wife’s expression of dismay. She had clapped one hand to her mouth, as if determined to keep from crying out in protest of my going. I had no intention of doing so, however. Surely Elizabeth did not imagine that a respectable country lawyer and clerk of court would abandon his day’s business to go haring through the mountain wilderness with a horde of vigilantes? After the spring rains, the roads would be indistinguishable from the creeks. And what would her father the squire say if the fine saddle horse he had given me as a wedding gift came back lame from such a fool’s errand?

  “I leave the chase in your capable hands, Jack,” I told the constable. “As an officer of the court, I should stay in town. There may be warrants to be drawn up, or other legal matters that need tending to.”

  He saw the sense in this-indeed, he saw more sense in this than there was, for I foresaw no legal business that would require my presence-but the excuse satisfied him, and presently Elizabeth and I were able to return to our breakfast in peace, though neither of us had much appetite for it any more.

  “She has escaped from jail!” said my wife in a tone of wonder. “I cannot believe it! How could she manage such a thing?”

  “With help, no doubt.” It was not my place to speculate on such matters, and I keep my thoughts to myself. Elizabeth has too many sisters to confide in.

  “But who could have helped her?”

  I smiled, thinking again of John Sevier. “Perhaps it was Eliza Grace McDowell, my dear. Her family seems to make a practice of it.”

  “Oh, Burgess, do be serious!” I don’t know whether Elizabeth took my meaning or not. I did not remind her of the incident. At last she said, “Do you think they will catch her?”

  “I hope not,” I said, before I thought better of it. I realized that my reluctance to see the prisoner recaptured was the real reason that I had been unwilling to join the searchers-though I am sure that I would have been of little use to the seasoned hunters and woodsmen who were on her trail. I did not want her found. So much simpler to let the prisoner disappear into the wilderness of Tennessee, as John Sevier once did a generation ago. Then John Boone would not have to dread the grim duty of hanging a woman, and we could end all of the clamoring to young Governor Swain, whose concerns lie elsewhere. Besides, if they caught Frankie Silver, I felt sure that it would go hard on her father and brother, who surely took her away-but it might also cause harm to the person who let her go. Such a trial would divide Morganton into hostile opposing camps, and such a rift would profit nothing. So, guilty or innocent, I wished Mrs. Silver Godspeed in her flight across the mountains, and I prayed that I might never see her again.

  Her escape was a nine days’ wonder in our little country town. People seemed to talk of nothing else, and they never tired of speculating on who might be responsible for the escape. I told no one of my conversation with John Boone, and he rode west with a search party, for it was his sworn duty to bring back an escaped prisoner, whatever his private feelings in the matter may have been.

  I wonder if any of those searchers wanted to catch the prisoner because they thought she deserved to die, or if they were simply acting on impulse, like hounds who will chase anything that runs, simply because it runs. It was a game of hide-and-seek, with the trackers pitting their skills against the wiles of the elusive prey. I am sure that there was a great deal of shouting and boasting and drinking done by the posse, and that in the end it all seemed such a great sport to them that they forgot the deadly purpose of their chase.

  She was not taken easily. Day after day went by with no word from the searchers, and news of the escape spread far beyond the borders of Burke County. Colonel Newland said that even the Raleigh newspaper carried an article about the missing prisoner, and we knew that other lawmen from the neighboring counties had joined in the search. Still, it had been a good many days since her escape, and it seemed likely that she was gone for good.

  “Seven days,” Miss Mary announced at dinner one night. “Surely she is out of reach by now. The Tennessee border is four days’ ride at most, is it not?”

  The squire gave his daughter a reproving glare. Such things are not talked of before white linen and crystal. “Are you referring to the escaped murderess, my dear?”

  “Of course she is, Father,” said Elizabeth. “We can talk of nothing else! We are quite beside ourselves with worry.”

  “I don’t think you need worry,” her father replied. “I do not believe that Mrs. Silver will break in to Belvidere and take an ax to us in our beds.”

  The Erwin women all stared at him for a moment’s consternation before they burst into laughter. It is the squire’s way of joking to pretend to misunderstand his wife and children, and then to allow himself to be instructed in the true significance of their remarks.

  “Oh, really, Daddy!” said Delia, who is the baby of the family, nearly twenty, and a great pet of her father. “We do not think Mrs. Silver presents any danger to anyone. We are allso in hopes that she will get away!”

  “Really?” said the squire in mock amazement. “You wish her to escape justice? Delia, my dear, has anyone informed your Dr. Hardy of your feelings regarding husband killing?”

  Delia squealed and blushed prettily at the mention of her most ardent admirer, and the others began to laugh and tease her, and so the subject was forgotten. Later, however, as we were leaving the table, Miss Mary turned to me and murmured, “I hope that Delia will be more fortunate in her choice of a husband than Mrs. Silver was.”

  “There is no doubt of that,” I said. “And as for Mrs. Silver, at least it has ended well. She has made her escape, and we can only hope that she deserved this second chance at life that she has been given. Even now she is probably safe in Tennessee, making plans to go west and picking the wild blackberries she spoke of so fondly.”

  “I hope that you are right,” said Miss Mary. “But I shall continue to pray for her deliverance. Indeed, I will not rest easy about it until the hunt is abandoned and the last of the searchers has come back from the mountains.”

  “Do you not think that the governor would pardon her if she returns?”

  My sister-in-law hesitated. “Very likely he would,” she said. “But I think it is best not to put too much faith in men-or governments.”

  I heard the returning search party before I saw them. I had walked down to Newland’s to see if the stagecoach had arrived yet, and just as I was crossing the street to have a word with the colonel himself, a mighty whoop and a couple of piercing yells echoed down the street, accompanied by the drumming of hooves. A frail old man on a nearby porch jumped up and reached for his pistol before he remembered himself. The Indians had been gone for a generation or more. No one any younger than the old man would have even considered the possibility of a raid, for such Indians as there were nowadays lived farther to the west, or miles to the south in the Cherokee towns like Chota. These screaming warriors were savages of a different kind, and an instant after I heard their whooping I knew what it meant: the search party had come back, successful in their quest.

  I clambered onto the safety of Newland’s porch, in case the revelers decided to take a victory gallop along the main street of Morganton. Colonel Newland was emerging from his office just as I reached my vantage point by his doorway.

  “What is all this commotion?” he demanded, peering down the street in the direction of the noisemaking.

  “I am afraid it is the posse,” I told him.

  He glanced at me as if he wanted to dispute my theory, but curiosity got the better of both of us, and we jettisoned the argument in favor of leaning across the railings of the stage-office porch, straining for a glimpse of the returning riders. A moment later the procession came
into view. Half a dozen mud-caked riders on sweat-soaked horses rounded the bend in the road. The three leaders were waving their hats and shouting to passersby, glorying in the impromptu parade. Three more solemn horsemen followed a short distance behind, each holding the reins of his own mount, each leading a second horse on a short rope. I did not immediately recognize any of the search-party members, but I knew at once the identity of the three ragged and weary persons tied to the saddles of the horses in tow.

  Isaiah Stewart sat slumped forward, as if his weariness had overcome even his sorrow and his anger. His clothing was torn and muddy, and there were flecks of blood in his grizzled beard. He had not been taken easily, I thought. Beside him, Jackson Stewart sat up, defiantly glaring at the onlookers as though daring them to jeer at his plight. He is a great bear of a man, six feet in height and not lacking in girth, and all the welts and bruises upon him I imagined had been repaid with interest upon the persons of his captors. He wore iron shackles about his wrists, and over them a rope tying him to the saddle. Although Frankie Silver would have been regarded as the main prisoner, it was this accessory to her escape that the posse most feared. Mrs. Silver herself rode with eyes downcast, as oblivious to the stares of the crowd as she had been at her trial. Her hands were bound with rope, but her feet dangled at the horse’s side, not tied together beneath the belly of her mount, as were those of her accomplices. She was wearing men’s clothing: buckskin breeches and a homespun shirt beneath a man’s coat, and her blond hair tumbled out from beneath a wide-brimmed leather hat, although it must have been bound up when the searchers came upon them. She was small and sturdy enough to pass for a young boy. I thought the clothes must have belonged to Blackston Stewart, and I wondered if he had been left at home to tend the homestead, or if he had got away into the forest when the lawmen came.