The Ballad of Frankie Silver Page 4

  On one of the horses sat a young girl, so little and pale that at first I took her for a child. She was covered in a hooded woolen cloak, but I could see fair hair at the sides of her face, and her cheeks were rouged with cold. Frankie Silver was small and slight, but she had the wiry body of one who had seen her share of drudgery on a hardscrabble hill farm. She appeared to be about eighteen now, only seven years younger than I, but what a distance there was between us in experience and opportunity! At thirty, when I am still short of my prime, she will be an old woman, if childbirth or sickness does not take her first. Just now, though, she was lovely. Her hair was the color of straw, but her features were even and there was a pleasing aspect to her face, except for its sullen expression. At least she was not weeping, as I feared she would be, but perhaps if you have done what she is accused of, you have no tears within you.

  She seemed apprehensive, but from time to time when she would steal a glance at her surroundings, curiosity lit her face, banishing the frown of care. She was fine-featured-not as elegant as my Elizabeth, of course; not a lady; but pretty enough.

  She has never been to town before,I thought. There are many such girls in the wildwood, born and bred in log cabins, and strangers to the ways of gentlefolk. What a pity that this poor creature should see the sights on such a sad pretext as this.

  “This is your prisoner?” I asked Charlie Baker, still doubting the evidence of my own eyes.

  He nodded. “Frankie Silver.” He had thanked the man who was minding the horses and the prisoners, and told him to take the mounts to the livery stable. The young fellow holstered his pistol and walked away, somewhat reluctantly, I thought. There was a tale in this strange arrival, and he thought it his due to be in on the telling of it, in return for his services on the trail. He was to be disappointed. Charlie Baker would have the glory all to himself.

  “But, Constable, surely this… this child cannot be charged with murder.”

  Charlie Baker turned away, probably to hide a grin at my naïveté. “She’s a grown woman, right enough. Married these two years or thereabouts, and left a baby up yonder at the Silvers’ place. A fatherless one now.” He turned to the shivering young woman and untied the rope that looped under her horse’s belly, binding one of her ankles to the other. “Get down off your horse now, Miz Silver. Get up, Miz Stewart. Blackston. We’re to wait in the courthouse.”

  Barbara Stewart and her son trudged toward the courthouse steps without so much as a glance in my direction. The mother leaned against the shoulder of the sturdy youth, whether from weariness or despair I could not tell.

  Frankie Silver raised her hands from beneath the folds of her cloak, and for the first time I could see that her wrists were bound with hemp rope. Baker held the horse, and I assisted her in dismounting, for the hands of her brother were tied as well, so that he could not have assisted her. She seemed to add but little to the weight of the cloak itself; indeed, I could have carried her all the way into the courthouse without feeling the strain, but it would not have been seemly, and I did not. I set her properly upon the ground, and then, feeling as if I should pass some pleasantry with this small person who was in such straits, I said, “Well, madam, I hope that a stay in our jail will not be too terrible for you. I could wish you better lodging than this on a cold winter morning. They will not grant you bail, of course, but still, guilty or not, it is a great pity to keep a woman in such a tiny, cold room with no windows and no chair, and hardly room to turn around in.”

  She looked up at me for a moment, and then she shrugged. “Reckon what do you think I lived in before I came here?”

  I had not seen Sheriff Butler that morning, though I thought there was little for him to do on a snowbound Tuesday morning. If he was not at his home, then I thought a tavern the logical place to seek him out. There were several to choose from in Morganton. They offered lodging to those who came to town for the courtEdward Butler of Locust Grove, a prominent landowner and an active participant in the affairs of Burke County. Both of the Butler brothers were often to be found at the Erwins’ social gatherings, and we in turn had broken bread with them at Locust Grove. Will’s late wife had been a lifelong friend of my Elizabeth, who still mourned the untimely death of her childhood friend. Such are the bonds of friendship among the men of business in a small town. I wondered what Will would make of this piece of news.

  I greeted such folks as I knew in the tavern, and motioned for Sheriff Butler to accompany me outside. “Your duty calls, sir,” I said, trying not to make the matter sound important. He knew, though, that something was amiss, for he picked up his hat and coat and followed me to the street without a moment’s delay.

  “A constable from the west county has brought in three prisoners,” I told him, steering him through the frozen carriage ruts toward the courthouse square.

  He heard me out in silence while I told of the warrant and the arrival of the constable. “Indeed I know little of what has transpired,” I said. “But since the jailer cannot be found at the moment, I have put Mr. Baker and his trio of prisoners in the courthouse to await your pleasure. When we have seen the ladies and the boy safely stowed in your custody, perhaps we can prevail upon the constable to tell us the circumstances that brought her here.”

  Will Butler permitted himself a smile. My use of the word “us” had not escaped him, but he nodded in agreement to my suggestion. “Yes, we must hear his tale, Burgess.”

  “He will have to speak with the tongues of angels to persuade me of the daughter’s guilt. I cannot speak for the other two, for I barely glimpsed them, but indeed I am convinced that an error has been made in arresting her. Wait until you see her, Butler! She looks scarcely more than a child.”

  “If the prisoner is, as you say, a pretty young woman, they must be sure enough of her guilt in the west county to bring her in at all. The trial will be in March, though, at the spring term of the court-but if worse comes to worst, the consequences of that trial will not occur until after my time. I don’t envy my successor his job.”

  I took his grisly meaning at once, but I doubted his prediction. “It will not come to that,” I told him. “They will not hang a woman.”

  I left Will Butler to his duty and went back to my office and my record books. I had extracted a promise from him to fetch me when the prisoners had been safely locked away into Gabe Presnell’s care. The Morganton jail is but a short walk from the courthouse, a two-story log structure with two rooms on the ground floor for the jailer’s lodging, and four rooms upstairs for the incarceration of prisoners. It is hardly a fit place for women to be kept, I thought, but I suppose it is better than the dirt-floored stockade that had served as the jail ten years ago. I had heard my father-in-law, Squire Erwin, speak of it, for he was clerk of Superior Court before me, and for much of his tenure that rude byre was in use as the county’s prison. Once he described to me the stench and the straw and the dirt floor.

  “Like a stable,” I had remarked.

  “Not at all,” said the squire. “No one would keep good horses in the wet and foul-smelling darkness of that log pen, but Burke County in its wisdom reckoned that such accommodations were good enough for its prisoners. We even locked up debtors in those days, poor wretches. Still, I suppose it was fit enough for most of the villains we got.”

  The new wooden jailhouse was a far cry better than the old log pen, and I had made light of its discomforts to the young woman prisoner, but, really, I’d sooner sleep on the courthouse lawn than up there in that tiny room, in too close proximity to the stink and the body lice of the other prisoners. Outdoors could be no colder, and at least the air would be clean.

  I went back to my ledger, and my breath still clouded the air above my desk. Still, a new year had begun and I had much to be thankful for, most of it due to my late brother, whose untimely death these two years past still grieved me. I had come to Morganton on Alfred’s coattails, courted his wife’s sister, and won her, though Alfred did not live to see us wed. My b
ride, Elizabeth, was three years my senior, intelligent, well-spoken, and every inch a lady, for all that she was no great beauty. She was an Erwin, though, and that counted for everything. Erwin was a name to conjure with in Burke County, for the Erwinswere Morganton. The two Erwin brothers who settled there in the late 1700s were gentlemen planters, and their numerous descendants owned vast expanses of land, commanding positions of respect and authority throughout the community. After more than forty years in residence, the Erwins looked after the people in Burke County with a benignity that was almost feudal. To a newly minted young lawyer, they seemed the epitome of hospitality and noble friendliness, offering lodging to newcomers and hosting dinners and parties at Bellevue and Belvidere for those who came to town for the circuit court in the spring and fall. To a new son-in-law, they were bountiful. They were kindness itself. When Miss Elizabeth Erwin graciously consented to be my wife, I was summoned to the study at Belvidere to face her father, who duly inquired into my prospects. I was obliged to tell him that but for my education, my profession of law, and my family’s good name-indeed, I had none.

  William Willoughby Erwin was a lawyer himself, and he had been father-in-law to my older brother Alfred, who had married Miss Catherine Erwin in March of 1828, so I felt emboldened to speak frankly to him, since we were brother attorneys, and all but family in kinship. I told him that I had hoped that Alfred and I might have set up a law practice together, but that was not to be, for he died before I had even completed my training for the law, and I was forced to conclude my studies under the tutelage of Judge Caldwell. The Gaithers were educated and wellborn, but we were not well off. My father had died when I was twelve, and Alfred, the eldest child in the family, had taken on the duties of father to the eight younger Gaithers. He had been my guide, my friend, and my companion in the law, and I missed him sorely. With Alfred’s passing went my hopes for partnership and prosperity, and I admitted my penury readily enough, as I was sure Squire Erwin knew of it already.

  “But,” I told him, “I am an honest, God-fearing man, not afraid of hard work, neither accustomed to nor in need of luxury.” It was a pretty speech to make, standing on the squire’s turkey carpet, surrounded by his library of a thousand leather volumes. I waved my crystal wineglass for emphasis, nearly hitting the cut-glass chandelier that shimmered above me.

  William Erwin remained solemn at my declaration, but I fancy that there was a twinkle in his eye. “You’ll do,” he said. “We’ll see what can be done about your prospects, sir.”

  Perhaps he was thinking of the fact that his daughter Elizabeth had seven sisters, and that eligible young lawyers on the frontier were not so plentiful that one could afford to be too particular about prospective sons-in-law. So Elizabeth and I were married, and within a few months Squire Erwin resigned his post as Burke County’s clerk of Superior Court, a position he had held for forty-four years. The job was given to me.

  It was a steady income, and a respectable civil position that kept me on good terms with the legal community, and it provided me with a chance to learn more of my craft by observing more seasoned attorneys at work. In a few years’ time, my experience and my standing in the community would be such that I could afford to establish a law practice of my own. Until then, I was content to toil as a learned clerk in the halls of justice. I had been clerk of Superior Court for eighteen months, well liked and well content with my profession and my family, for Elizabeth and I had a son, whom we named William, after the old squire. We would name the next one Alfred.

  I had been at work for less than an hour when the sheriff and the messenger appeared at the door of my office. “Come with us, Burgess,” said Will Butler. “Constable Baker promises us a tale worthy of a tavern, but we had better get the news in private. Come to my house, and warm yourselves by my fire while we learn what this is about.”

  A short walk took us to Butler’s house. He settled us in the parlor, a simple enough room, but as warm and comfortable as a man could wish for. He offered us some corn whiskey that he kept in an earthenware jug-not the crystal decanter of brandy that Raleigh’s gentlemen lawyers might have proffered, but it was welcome nonetheless, and it chased away the last of the chill from our bones. Soon enough Constable Baker was sitting by the fire, thawing his muddy boots on the hearthrug and stroking the head of one of Butler’s hounds. We waited while the sheriff read the warrant from Justice of the Peace Baker.

  After a few moments of silence, Will Butler put aside the documents and looked at his guest. “Now,” he said, “tell me what has happened.”

  Charlie Baker warmed his throat with a swig of whiskey and began: “You know Jacob Silver from the other end of the county-along the Toe River, his land is-”

  “I do not know him,” I said.

  “Has someone killed this Jacob Silver?” asked Butler. He reached for the papers again, but then shook his head, remembering that another name was on the warrant as victim. He settled back in his chair then, seeing that Baker was bound and determined to make a tale of it. We might as well hear him out.

  “No, sir. No one killed the old man, though I think the grief of this has dealt a blow to his constitution. Jacob Silver is a well-respected man in the community. He’s got a smart bit of land over the mountains from a soldier’s grant. He came down from Maryland about twenty years ago, after the English war, him and some of his brothers. With him he brought his boy Charlie, whose mother had died birthing him. Not more than a lap baby, Charlie was then.

  “Old Jacob has a passel of children now. He married Nancy Reed over at Double Island, more than seventeen years ago, and they have about eight young ’uns. Charlie, the one that got killed, was that son from Maryland, by Jacob’s first wife. He wasn’t but nineteen years old. Two years ago he married Frankie-”

  “The name is probably Frances,” I murmured to Butler, who nodded in agreement.

  “That’s right,” said Baker. “Miss Frances Stewart she was before she married into the Silver clan. The other two prisoners, Barbara Stewart and youngest boy Blackston, live on the other side of the Toe River, about two miles downstream from the Jacob Silver homestead. It’s Isaiah Stewart’s place. He’s from Anson County, and he and his wife Barbara-”

  “Tell us about the murder,” said Will, losing patience at last. “We can sort out their bloodlines later.”

  “First sign of trouble was on December 23. That morning Frankie Silver went to her in-laws’ cabin, with the baby on her hip, and she told them that Charlie had lit out from home a couple of days back, and he hadn’t returned. She was wanting somebody to come feed the cows.”

  “Why didn’t she ask her own kinfolk to do it?”

  “The menfolk were gone. At least her father was away from home. She has an older brother, Jackson, who’s married to a Howell girl, but he was off with his father. I heard they were on a long hunt over in Kentucky. They weren’t back when I left there yesterday. I reckon the younger boy, Blackston, could have helped her. He’s about fifteen. But like I said, the Stewarts live two miles from Frankie, and over on the other side of the river, while the Silvers’ cabin is just a quarter mile down the hill from Frankie and Charlie’s place. The snow was knee-deep and the river was frozen. I reckon she didn’t want to chance crossing it, with the baby and all. Anyhow, she showed up at Charlie’s parents’ house, cool as snowmelt, saying he was gone getting his Christmas liquor. She said he had gone to George Young’s house with his jug and his fiddle. Boasted about how she’d been busy since sunup doing her washing and redding the cabin. She didn’t seem to mind much that her husband was gone, only she wanted somebody to feed the stock. So the Silvers sent over Alfred, their next oldest boy, to see to the cattle, and Frankie went back home.

  “Every day after that, Frankie would stop by, still more peevish than affrighted, saying Charlie wasn’t back yet, and the Silvers were growing more anxious by the minute. Charlie was a sunny fellow; always a smile and a song; everybody liked him. Finally Frankie said she didn’t care if he
r no-account husband came back or not, she was going to stay at her mother’s house, and she was taking the baby with her.

  “By then the Silvers were all-fired worried about Charlie, it being the dead of winter and all. Since Charlie Silver was a great one for drinking and fiddling, they thought it was just possible that he had found a party too good to leave and was holed up drunk somewhere, but it had been more than ten days by then, and it wasn’t like him to be gone that long. They sent over to George Young’s place, looking to find him, and George said that Charlie had come for that Christmas liquor right enough, and he had got it, but he said that Charlie had come and gone many days ago. The Youngs hadn’t seen him since.

  “By then the Silvers were hunting the woods for him, and all the trails that led to George’s cabin, in case Charlie had fallen or come to harm while he was on his way home from the Youngs’ place, and maybe the worse for drink. The Silvers and some of their neighbors and kinfolk even went down to examine the river, but it was frozen solid and covered with unbroken snow. There was no sign that anybody had fallen in. After that, some of the neighbors-my people, Elijah Green, the Youngs, the Howells, the Hutchinses, and old Jack Collis-kept up the search, and Jacob-he was beside himself by this time-he… well, he went over into Tennessee.”

  Whatever we had been expecting, it was not this. “Went to Tennessee?” said Butler. “What did he do that for?”

  Baker shrugged. “Advice, I reckon you’d call it. He had heard tell of a Guinea Negro there, over Jonesborough way, that people say has the conjure power.”

  I smiled at this touching bit of superstition, but then I recalled the tragic nature of this tale, and it sobered me at once. Parents who have lost a child will reach out for whatever comfort they can find. I was interested in this development. Guinea Negroes were said to have occult powers that they brought with them as a vestige of paganism from their own lands, but I had seldom heard of anyone asking them for more than simple fortune-telling: benign promises of a rosy future. This urgent task of finding a lost youth would prove a challenge indeed for such a conjure man. “And what did the African tell Mr. Silver?”