The Ballad of Frankie Silver

Chapter Seven THE KNOCK at the door brought the sheriff out of his reverie. Spencer hobbled to the door without bothering to peer out the window to see whose vehicle was in his driveway.

There stood Charles Wythe Stanton, holding a potted plant with a yellow satin bow stuck into the soil among the leaves. Spencer had not seen the man for twenty years, except as a face in a news photo or a fleeting image on a television screen, but he recognized him at once. Colonel Stanton looked much as he had at the time of his daughter’s death. A little grayer, perhaps, and leaner, so that the lines on his face were more prominent, but he was still as handsome as a recruiting poster. The sort of person of whom people were wont to ask, “Are you somebody?” on the off chance that he might be Oliver North or Harrison Ford, or some other larger-than-life person that one never expected to meet in the flesh.

Spencer stepped back and motioned for him to come inside.

“Hello, Sheriff,” he said, holding out the plant as if it were a peace offering. “I’m glad to see that you’re up and about.”

Spencer set the arrangement on the nearest flat surface and followed his guest into the living room. Colonel Stanton had walked over to the sliding glass doors at the far end of the room, and he was admiring the view of green mountains reflecting cloud shadows in the sunshine. “It’s so peaceful up here,” he said. “I wanted to bury Emily in a cemetery near Johnson City, so that she could be encircled by mountains. She loved it up here. Anne wouldn’t hear of it, though. She wanted to bring our daughter home. To be near us. Perhaps she was right to do that. I don’t know.”

Spencer didn’t see that it mattered. “How is Mrs. Stanton?” he asked politely.

Stanton turned away from the view and did not look at it again. “We divorced some years back,” he said. “Emily was our only child. Losing her was hard on us. I expect there was more to the breakup than that, but it was certainly the precipitating cause. Chalk up another death to Lafayette Harkryder. One marriage.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Spencer.

The colonel shrugged. “These things happen.” He seemed for the first time to notice that his host was still standing. “Please sit down,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa. “I know you’re an invalid at the moment. I didn’t mean to keep you on your feet, Mr. Arrowood.”

Spencer began, “How did you know—”

Stanton smiled. “How to find you? Or that you were ill? A helpful young lady in your office answered both of those questions. I told her that we were old friends.”

“It’s been a long time,” said Spencer, making a mental note to give the new dispatcher, Jennaleigh, further instructions regarding the privacy of peace officers. He eased himself down in the overstuffed chair next to the sofa and motioned for the colonel to sit down.

“How are you, Sheriff?”

“On the mend. I’ll be back on duty by next week, I think.”

“A gunshot wound is a sobering experience, isn’t it? I took a hit once overseas, and I’ll never forget that feeling of stupefaction, followed by the absolute conviction that I was already dead. You never forget it.”

“I don’t guess I will.” Spencer didn’t want to swap war stories.

“I hear, though, that the person who shot you was killed in the capture.” The colonel smiled. “Your deputies are to be commended. They saved the state a lot of time and trouble.”

Spencer reminded himself that a man who had lost his only child was hardly the most objective observer of criminal proceedings. Besides, since Stanton knew nothing of the case or its participants, he could not realize how deeply the sheriff regretted the death of that particular fugitive. Spencer decided to let it pass. “What brings you to Tennessee?” he said.

Charles Stanton smiled. “The same unfinished business that brought me the first time we met, Mr. Arrowood. Lafayette Harkryder. I’m driving to Nashville to watch him die.”

“You’re going to be a witness?”

“Oh, yes. I promised Emily that at her funeral twenty years ago. No matter how long it takes, I told her, I will be there when his time comes, and I will watch him die.”

Spencer couldn’t think of anything to say. He couldn’t dispute the man’s right to justice, but his evident satisfaction made the sheriff uneasy.

“You’ll be there, too, won’t you?”

Spencer nodded. “Sheriff of the home county.”

“I thought so. I’ve been studying execution procedures for the last couple of months. There can be only sixteen witnesses at an execution.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “The warden or someone designated to represent him, the surgeon of the penitentiary, the prisoner’s attorney, relatives, and any clergyman he wishes to be present. And six respectable citizens.”

Spencer nodded. “The sheriff, or his representative and one other witness chosen by him. I knew that. I waived my other choice. And the other four are chosen by other law enforcement agencies, aren’t they?”

“Right.”

“But you’re going to witness the execution?” Spencer didn’t think the TBI would have appointed Colonel Stanton as one of their official witnesses. The eagerness in his voice would have put them off.

Stanton smiled. “Media witness. Don’t forget our friends in the press. The state press association, the Associated Press, and the radio and television newspeople get a total of five witnesses, and five alternates, in case one of the others can’t make it. I got one of the AP slots, in exchange for a promise to write about it.”

Spencer repressed a shudder. “Will you write the article?”

“I will. I’m a man of my word. I said I would watch that man die, and if writing an article is the cost of keeping that promise, then so be it.”

“I wish this execution would bring your daughter back, sir,” said Spencer, choosing his words carefully. “But since it won’t, I can’t say that I see much point in it.”

Charles Stanton narrowed his eyes. “People ought to pay their debts, Mr. Arrowood. Legally and morally. Debts have to be paid. So even if this execution isn’t a deterrent to others, even if this man would never kill again, and, yes, even though it will not bring my daughter back from the grave, at least a debt will be paid, and that’s something. I worked long and hard for this day. Maybe it even cost me my marriage. So when Fate Harkryder sits down in that electric chair, it will mean that twenty years of my life have not been wasted.”

Spencer nodded. He was thinking that there are many ways to serve a life sentence, and he wondered if Fate Harkryder’s death would set Charles Stanton free.

“I came to see if you’d like to ride to Nashville,” said Stanton. “I’ll be going up a day or so early, to pay my respects to the governor and to thank him for having the courage to let this happen on his watch. When I heard that you were injured, I thought I’d offer to take you with me. An invalid shouldn’t make a six-hour trip alone.”

“That’s very kind of you, Colonel,” said Spencer, “but I have some things to take care of here before I can leave. I’ll go up the actual day of the execution. If it’s still scheduled by then.”

Stanton smiled. “I can promise you it will still be scheduled. Three network news shows are interviewing me from Nashville between now and the time Fate Harkryder dies. They’re calling the segments things like ‘Justice at Last.’ The authorities won’t dare call it off. I’ve seen to that.”

Spencer wanted to say, But what if he isn’t guilty?But he kept silent, because guilt or innocence didn’t matter anymore to this man with a handsome face and dead eyes. Charles Stanton had hated Lafayette Harkryder for too long to change his mind now; no evidence would ever convince him that the condemned man was not guilty. Someone was going to die for Emily Stanton’s sake, and to that end Charles Stanton was a much more cunning killer than any Harkryder had ever been.

Charles Stanton stood up, smiling. “Well, I mustn’t keep you,” he said. “I know you’re not well, and I have a press conference this afternoon in Johnson City. I plan to use the new Trail Murders to draw attention to our cause. I wish Harkryder’s execution had come in time to deter this new killer.”

Spencer managed to nod. He was able to stay expressionless only because police work had given him twenty years of practice at concealing his emotions, but he felt his muscles tighten and his stomach churn.

“Are you close to an arrest yet, Sheriff?” asked Stanton, making his way to the door.

“I can’t say.” What murders? In my county?

“Too bad. I’ve actually heard people saying that the two cases might be related. I want to put a stop to that nonsense right away. I wouldn’t want the governor to have any excuse for a stay of execution.”

Spencer leaned against the door, taking deep breaths until he heard Stanton’s tires crunch the gravel in the driveway. He glanced at the telephone. No. He would go in. Holding his side, as if pressure could block the pain, he limped toward the kitchen counter, where his car keys lay in a bowl with his spare change. Alton Banner had not yet given the sheriff permission to drive, but Spencer told himself that it had been a couple of days since he’d asked, and he was confident that he was no risk to anyone but

himself behind the wheel. He would get down the mountain, one way or another. And he wanted some answers.

He backed his car out of the garage, around the gravel circle beneath the oak and hickory trees, and headed up the driveway. He was about six minutes from town, but the road led through field and forest, so that it might have been any century at all, but for the black ribbon of road that separated the meadows. Actually, that wasn’t true. Frankie Silver would have been bewildered by the missing chestnut trees, the strange kudzu vines, and other changes in the modern landscape, but Spencer was willing to settle for a lack of billboards and power lines. He tried to calm himself by blurring his thoughts into a distant hum, drowned out by the beauty of the surrounding mountains, and for a few miles he almost succeeded, but the sign marking the town limits of Hamelin brought him back to the business at hand. The sheriff’s department was two blocks away.

When he saw Deputy Joe LeDonne’s patrol car parked in the driveway, he felt his jaw clench. He had hoped to find Martha, but LeDonne would do. He hobbled out of the car, slamming the door until the window rattled. He managed to walk up the front steps without much hesitation, and by the time he reached the front door, he had filled his lungs with a deep breath to ward off any expressions of pain. He must be careful not to seem ill. He intended to take over the investigation, and he wanted to give his deputies no chance to use his injuries as an excuse to exclude him from the case. If he showed any weakness, LeDonne, with the best of intentions, was likely to summon Martha and then Alton Banner, and the pair of them would insist upon escorting the sheriff back home until he had recovered more completely from his wound. There was no time for that.

“What are you doing out?” Joe LeDonne had never got the hang of social amenities. Picturing the deputy at a press conference or a meeting of the board of supervisors made the sheriff wince even more than the pain in his gut.





“I feel fine,” Spencer told him. “Consider me back on duty. Begin with telling me why the hell I wasn’t informed about the homicides.”

LeDonne was sitting at his usual desk, with the Pepsi that was probably his dinner sitting to the left of the computer monitor. On the screen was a list of addresses and phone numbers. He was doing phone interviews, tracking witnesses. He didn’t look so great either, Spencer thought. Long hours and no days off were beginning to wear him down.

“We’re doing all we can,” said LeDonne. “The TBI is on it, and we’re doing interviews. That’s about it.”

Spencer nodded. “It was Martha’s call, wasn’t it? Don’t disturb poor Spencer. He’s been sick.”

The deputy shrugged. “Something like that. She may be right, you know.”

They mean well,Spencer told himself, swallowing his rage. “We’ll leave that for now,” he said. “Tell me about the homicides.”

With a sigh of resignation, LeDonne picked up the case file and handed it to the sheriff. “At least sit down,” he said. “You look awful.”

“I’m fine.” He sat down, though. “Tell me what is being done.”

Step by step, LeDonne took him through the stages of the investigation, from the call reporting the discovery of the bodies to the several lists of possible witnesses being questioned by telephone or in

door-to-door canvasing. Spencer nodded as the case began to take shape.

LeDonne paused for breath. After a moment he said, “Is there anything else you would have done?”

The sheriff shrugged. “I don’t know. I’d have to think about it. I wouldn’t have ignored the possible link between this crime and the Harkryder case, though.”

“We didn’t ignore it. We questioned all of those witnesses we could find—Harmon, the two firemen from Alabama, even poor Willis Blaine’s widow. We came up empty.”

“Don’t you see what you’ve done? A man is set to die this week, and you’ve failed to follow up on new evidence that might save him.”

The deputy was silent for a few moments. Confrontations were all part of a day’s work in law enforcement, but LeDonne hated to have to quarrel with his boss, who was also his friend. They had known each other a long time now. LeDonne had spent his teenage years in Vietnam with an infantry line company. For a dozen years after that, he had drifted from one job to another, missing the excitement of combat and never succeeding in outrunning the rest of the memories. This little county on the shoulder of a Tennessee mountain was as close as he ever got to coming home. Spencer was obviously in no shape to handle the present situation. At last he said, “We don’t see a connection between the two cases. The TBI doesn’t see it, either.”

“You haven’t ruled it out.”

“It’s a coincidence, that’s all.”

“What if it isn’t?”

“Let it go, Spencer,” said Martha from the doorway. She came in, looking more tired than both of them, and perched on the edge of LeDonne’s desk. “I saw your car here,” she told the sheriff. “I was afraid you’d find out about this, but I kept hoping we’d solve it first. You’re in no shape to handle an investigation, and I knew you’d try, because of this Harkryder connection.”

“So there is a connection!”

Martha sighed. “Only in your mind, Spencer. Look, you need to trust us. I just finished the academy course, remember? Things have changed in the twenty years since you arrested Fate Harkryder. Back then the film The Collectorwas a creepy fairy tale; now it’s used as a training film, because there’s a whole new breed of serial killer out there. We know more about murder now than we used to. And one thing we know is that people don’t commit identical murders twenty years apart with nothing in between.”

“You’re betting a man’s life on this,” said Spencer.

“We’re following a good lead right now, and there’s no connection to the Harkryder case. This case isn’t your answer, Sheriff,” said Martha. She so seldom called him by his title that he looked up in surprise. “Why don’t you let me drive you home now?”

“No!” He was too forceful. The urgency that he had taken such trouble to conceal was now apparent, and he realized that his emotions were too close to the surface, a sign of his tenuous health. “I won’t get any rest anyhow, if I have to worry about this. I know you’ve checked over the Harkryder case, but let

me double-check. For my own peace of mind. You go home. I’ll stay here and pull some records.” “You’re in no shape to be working,” said Martha. “I can’t help thinking.” “It’s that damned execution, isn’t it?” said LeDonne. “Yes.” “Stay home then. The state wants a county witness, tell them I’ll go.” “It has to be me. Fate Harkryder is on death row because I put him there—and I may have been

wrong.” “I doubt it,” said LeDonne, as calmly as if they were talking about a bet on an old baseball game. “Nelse Miller was never happy about this conviction, but I was so sure of myself back then. It was my

first big case, and I thought his doubts about it were just sour grapes because he hadn’t been here to solve it.”

“So why didn’t he prove you wrong?” Spencer shrugged. “I gathered the evidence, that’s all. The district attorney and the jury were the ones who decided Fate Harkryder was guilty. And all the evidence was against him. Blood type, lack of alibi. He even had the dead girl’s jewelry on him when he was arrested.”

“You’ve got me convinced,” said LeDonne. “That’s as good as cases get, except on television.” “I know. But it feels wrong.” The deputy smiled. “Well, that’s bound to impress the Supreme Court,” he said. “I know. I need something besides twenty years’ experience and a hunch. I thought the Trail Murders

had the earmarks of serial killings. And they stopped after I arrested the suspect, right? If I had the right

man, the killings should have stopped. But now we have this case.” “Martha told you. Serial killers don’t take twenty-year breaks. More like twenty days. Most of them are under forty anyhow.”

“I know. I said it was a feeling. It doesn’t make sense yet, and I don’t have much to go on. But I want to look at some criminal records.” Spencer handed LeDonne a slip of paper from his telephone scratch pad. “Can we contact the TBI and get them to run these names through their computers?”

“Sure,” said LeDonne. “What are you looking for?” “I’ll know when I see it. Get me everything they’ve got.” The deputy handed Spencer the telephone. “You might as well go out to dinner with Martha, then,

because this will take a while. I take it you want to check more states than just Tennessee?”

“I want everything.”

LeDonne nodded at Martha. “You’ll have time for breakfast, too,” he said.

The officer-in-charge stacked the cardboard boxes on the bunk in Fate Harkryder’s cell. “We might as well get this taken care of now, Lafayette,” he said, but his tone was apologetic. “They’re moving you out of Two in an hour or so. To the quiet cell. I thought you might like some help.”

Fate nodded. “Thanks.” He noticed that Berry had said, “We’re moving you to the quiet cell,” instead of “We’re putting you on death watch.” A small point, perhaps, since it amounted to the same thing, but Fate’s existence had long been built upon small pleasures and petty annoyances in the great nothingness of prison time. Little things mattered. Berry wasn’t too bad for a guard. He was just doing his job. Maybe he understood things better than the lawyers did. You didn’t have to explain poverty to someone who worked as a prison guard.

Fate looked around, measuring his possessions, the accumulation of his entire adult life. They would fit easily into the four cardboard boxes. Now he must decide what to do with them. He began to take things off the shelf. Four bottles of Prell shampoo, a carton of cigarettes, a stack of unused yellow legal pads. . . . He thought how people on the outside would shake their heads at such a pitiful excuse for wealth. “Give those things to Milton,” he said, scooping the cigarettes and toilet articles into the smallest box. “God knows he needs it. Especially the shampoo.”

It was a feeble joke, but Berry smiled anyhow.

“What happens now?”

Berry shrugged. “You’re going to get some peace and quiet,” he said. “But the accommodations are a little sparse.”

“Compared to what?”

“The quiet cell has bars, like a jail. It has a bed, a sink, a toilet, and a writing table. That’s it. You’ll be allowed fifteen minutes a day outside the cell to shower; otherwise, that’s where you stay.”

“No exercise?”

“Not anymore. You’ll have someone to talk to, though. There’ll be two guards stationed outside the cell at all times. And you can have visitors.”

“Good. I want Milton to come over and play cards with me.”

“Sorry. No contact with other inmates. You can see your lawyers, your minister, a counselor, or members of your family. Family can go to the regular visitors’ lounge. Noncontact visitation.”

“Has anybody asked to see me?”

Berry turned away and began to take the posters and photographs off the wall. “Not that I know of,” he said. “Of course, that stuff goes through the front office. They might not have told me yet.”

“Sure.”

“I hear that a bunch of reporters want to interview you, though. Big shots from national TV, even.”

“I’ll pass.” He set the last of his possessions into a cardboard box. “Okay. That’s it. Do we move this to the new cell?”

Berry shook his head. “Most of it, no. You can take a couple of the legal pads with you,” he said. “And a Bible if you’ve got one.”

“What do I do with the rest of this stuff?” Fate pointed to the collection of letters, the documents concerning his case, a couple of books, and the signed photograph from one of the film stars who was sympathetic to his cause.

The guard shrugged. “Give them away, I guess. Your family? Your lawyers, maybe? If it was me, I think I’d give my belongings to someone that would want a keepsake to remember me by.”

Fate nodded. “That makes sense.” He began to place the objects into the remaining boxes.

“Well? What shall we do with these things?”

“Throw them away.”

Burgess Gaither

EXECUTION My day had come at last. Of all the days that I have lived on this earth—fewer than seven thousand of them, Miss Mary Erwin says, for I once asked her to do the sum for me—of all those days, there were only three that were altogether mine. I do not count the day that I was born, for that was mainly my mother’s time, and anyhow I remember nothing of it, so I cannot say if I was petted and made much of, or not. Perhaps they wished for another boy, and were disappointed when I arrived instead.

The first day that I can count as my very own was the day I married Charlie Silver. I suppose I should say that the day was half his, for Preacher said that being man and wife, we were to share our lives and all our worldly goods, but I don’t think Charlie wanted much to do with that day. He blushed and stammered, and tried to pretend he didn’t care a bit about all the foolishness of the celebration. A man is always a little shamefaced on his wedding day, like a fox caught in a baited trap, ensnared because his greed overcame his better judgment. The menfolk laughed at Charlie that spring day, and said he was caught for sure now. As the bride, I was praised and fussed over, as if I had won a prize or done something marvelous that no one ever did before, and I could not help feeling pleased and clever that I had managed to turn myself from an ordinary girl into a shining bride. Now I think it is a dirty lie. The man is the one who is winning the game that day, though they always pretend they are not, and the poor girl bride is led into a trap of hard work and harsh words, the ripping of childbirth and the drubbing of her man’s fists. It is the end of being young, but no one tells her so. Instead they make over her, and tell her how lucky she is. I wonder do slaves get dressed up in finery on the day they are sold.

The second day that was mine was when my baby Nancy came into the world, though that was one day Charlie claimed for his’n loud enough, as if I had nothing to do with it, laying there blood-soaked and spent on the straw pallet, while he strutted and crowed about how he was a daddy now. The way I saw it, she was five minutes his, and nine months mine, but I kept my peace on that, because in my joy I didn’t care at all that day who got the praise and the glad-handing. I had Nancy, and she was beautiful, and she was all mine, for I knew that after Charlie had done boasting about his firstborn, she’d see little

enough of him. I wearied of her sometimes after that, when she wouldn’t leave off crying, or when she spit up on a dress I had scrubbed clean on a creek rock ’til my fingers bled, but for all the little bit of trouble she ever was, I long to hold her one last time, and I count the day that she came into the world as my greatest gift and glory.

The third of my days is now.

This day, the twelfth of July in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-three, is well and truly all mine, and I share it with no one. It is my last. In some ways it will be like my wedding day, for I will wear white and put flowers in my hair. A solemn old man will escort me through the staring strangers, and a preacher will read words out of a book. Sarah Presnell has told me all of this about how it will be. She will not speak about what comes after, and it makes her cry when I press her for more, so I do not ask about it any longer. But I think about it. I wonder which is worse—the death, not knowing what comes after, or the wedding, when you think you know, but you’re wrong. Perhaps dying is most like childbirth: a terrible, rivening pain, and then a great joy that makes you forget all that came before.

It is Friday, an apt day for a public execution killing the innocent, as Miss Mary has remarked more than once. So far no one has rebuked her for the blasphemy of comparing the death of our Lord to the legally mandated execution of a convicted murderess. I think we are all a bit ashamed about what will take place, for we think that the sentence is unjust, and we know that Miss Mary speaks rashly because she feels powerless to stop it. There will be a good many harsh words said of what we do here before it is over.

I find it ironic that of all the wagonloads of people who have come to town from the outlying areas, from the mountain lands, and from Table Rock and Jonas Ridge to witness the spectacle, who will shove and jostle one another for the best view of the gallows, it is only I—the one person who does not want to watch it happen—whose presence is required to see that the execution takes place. I am the eyes of the state of North Carolina, and I must tell the governor that what he wanted done has been done quickly and soberly, and that the county officials accorded the victim the civility and compassion of a solemn ritual.

There was to be no building of a gallows for the hanging of Frankie Silver. Burke County has no permanent scaffold, for although we must put men to death from time to time, such an event is sufficiently infrequent as to need no lasting reminder. Damon’s Hill is the traditional site chosen for executions. Our Golgotha, Miss Mary calls it, blasphemous again. I wonder why executions are carried out in high places—Calvary, Tower Hill in England, Gallows Hill in Salem. . . . Is it some dim memory of the old custom of human sacrifice to the gods, or is it merely the state’s wish that government-mandated deaths should be as visible as possible, so that others might see the suffering of the offender and be themselves deterred from committing crimes? Whatever our unconscious motives for the choice, Damon’s Hill is the place where people are put to death in Burke County.

The hill is high enough to be seen from miles around, and it lies but a short distance from the jail and courthouse. On its summit is the place of execution: a broad, flat field, large enough to contain the great crowd of gawkers, and the dogs and horses and wagons that they would bring with them on gallows day. The field on Damon’s Hill is crowned by a towering oak tree whose girth is so vast that ten men hand in hand could not encircle its trunk. It is beautiful in its spreading limbs and luxuriant foliage. Perhaps the oak was already growing on Damon’s Hill when the colonists of Walter Raleigh’s expedition first set foot upon North Carolina soil three centuries ago. Trees seem to live forever. By comparison, the nineteen years of Frankie Silver’s little life seem no more than a flicker in time. That tree has outlived many a man in its long life span, and it has been the instrument of death for perhaps a score of others. That broad oak is the hanging tree.

It takes little enough to kill a convicted felon. A tree and a rope. John Boone procured the rope many days ago—before he could even bring himself to believe he would use it, I think, but he is a prudent man, and he knows that he must provide for every contingency. He has softened the gallows rope with mutton tallow and made sure that it is free of kinks, which would cause the rope to spin when a weight is attached to it. The thirty feet of hemp rope hangs now from a rafter in the barn behind the county jail. One end is looped tight around the rafter, and the other end is suspending a heavy sack of corn three feet above the barn’s dirt floor. Ropes stretch when a heavy weight pulls down on them. If they are not stretched beforehand, this may happen at the time of the execution, and the result is said to be terrible to behold.

“Boone has never hanged a prisoner before,” Squire Erwin told me when he returned from town one day in early July. “I had to go in and tell him a thing or two about the procedure, so that things will go smoothly when the time comes. Even when all goes well, a hanging is a brutal scene to watch, Burgess, but when something goes awry, it can be cruel beyond imagining. I was clerk of court for forty-four years, you know, and so I’ve seen my share of hangings, good and bad.”

“I know very little about it,” I said, with an inward shudder. Nor did I want to. “I believe I have heard that there is some skill required in gauging the length of the rope and the size of the victim.”

William Erwin nodded. “That’s it exactly,” he said. “The ratio is everything, and God help you if you get it wrong. We had a hanging once where the rope stretched out and the victim’s weight was not sufficient to the length of hemp. The poor devil landed on solid ground and had to be hoisted up again, crying piteously, while the onlookers moaned and wept to see his suffering.”

“That must not happen this time,” I said. “Though, of course, I hope that we may avoid the issue altogether with an eleventh-hour reprieve.”

“I had a word with John Boone. I think he knows what must be done if he is called upon to do it. He has no heart for it, poor soul, but he recognizes his duty.”

I shuddered again, mindful of my own obligation to be state’s witness. “Will it take long?”

The old man sighed. “I’ll warrant it will seem so to you, Burgess. It may feel like hours if you fix your eyes upon the condemned and watch the death throes, but you need not put yourself through that. Many a harder man than you has stared at the ground until the struggling ceased.”

“But how long?”

“A quarter of an hour, perhaps.”

“That much! Oh, surely not, sir! A rope around the neck cuts off the victim’s air supply, and no one can live so long without drawing breath.”

He sighed. “The rope is an imperfect instrument, son. It prevents most of the air from reaching the lungs—but not all of it. What follows is a sort of respiratory starvation—a slow stifling of the body, which fights for every morsel of air, even though the struggle prolongs the agony. We must hope that unconsciousness follows soon after the drop.”

“Does it, then?”

The squire looked away. “Often not.”

The ladies of the family were not present, of course, when we spoke of the process of hanging. Neither of us had any intention of discussing such an inappropriate subject in their presence, though I was certainly pressed for details about the matter by my wife and several of her sisters. The Carolina gentlewoman is not the delicate creature that society would have us believe.

“It is monstrous!” my wife announced to the gaggle of family in the hall one evening. “North Carolina actually means to hang a woman. I cannot believe it!”

Her father has little liking for bold talk from the ladies. “What would you have them do, Elizabeth?” he said harshly. “Should we give her a medal for butchering her husband? The state of Massachusetts once burnt a woman at the stake for murder. Would you prefer that?”

Elizabeth turned horrified eyes upon her father. “Burnt a woman? I do not believe that.”

I cleared my throat and said softly, “It was a slave woman, my dear. In colonial times.”

“Oh. Well. It is terrible nonetheless,” she said, stabbing at her embroidery with the needle until I feared for her fingers beneath the fabric. “And I am sure that hanging is no less cruel.”

“It will indeed be terrible to watch,” said her sister Catherine.

“We shall not go,” said Miss Mary Erwin, before her father could utter the same words.

We all turned to her in speechless wonder. Mary Erwin had been the champion of Mrs. Silver from the beginning. I could not believe that she would willingly abandon her cause at the last, although I was certain that the squire would have forbidden her to go in any case. “We shall not go,” she said again, and her voice was calm, but it brooked no argument.

“Why not?” asked Elizabeth.

“Mrs. Silver would not want us to see her die—shamed in front of a jeering crowd. The hanging will be her last violation, and then she will be at peace. We must remember her as she was in life. It is the last gift we can give her.”

The ladies all nodded in agreement, and the squire very wisely refrained from adding that he would not have permitted them to attend anyhow. It seemed that I was the only one of the immediate family who would be present at the death of Frankie Silver.

Miss Mary went back to her sewing. I watched her there, haloed in candlelight, making the tiny even stitches on the wool tapestry cloth, and I wondered what she was thinking behind that calm facade. Without looking up at me, she said, “Mr. Gaither, there is something I’d like you to take to the jail tomorrow.”

The governor had fixed the time of the hanging for Friday afternoon the twelfth of July, between the hours of one and four o’clock. I thought the actual time of the execution would be close to four: the late hour would allow the prisoner’s family time to make the journey if they wished, and it would enable most of the onlookers to travel to town from the farthest reaches of the county to view the spectacle. I arrived at the jail just before noon, to find the town streets already choked with people and horses, churning up great quantities of red dust in their wake.

A guard with a rifle was posted on the porch of the white frame building, but the fellow knew me by sight, and he nodded a greeting, offering no objection when I went past him. I wanted to make sure that all the preliminaries for the execution had been performed, and that no detail had been overlooked. I suppose I was half hoping that a special messenger had arrived from Raleigh granting an eleventh-hour reprieve. Certainly one had done so in my dreams these past few nights, but when I entered the hallway of the jail, I could see that no hope remained.

John Boone looked as old and sick as I had ever seen him. He cannot have slept these past few days, for his eyes were bleak with weariness and his skin was gray as worm flesh. “Is all in readiness?” I asked him.

He nodded. “The preparations are made. The rope and the wagon stand ready, and all the constables will be present in case anyone tries to interfere with the execution.”

“Interfere?” The thought of an attack had not occurred to me until then. “The Stewarts, you mean?”

“Perhaps. She will not say who helped her to escape. Feelings are running high about the execution. We can trust no one.”

I saw that he was eyeing the white bundle under my arm, and I hastened to assure him that he had nothing to fear from me. “Miss Mary sent this to the prisoner,” I said. “It is only cloth. You will want to open it and examine it carefully, of course, but I think I can vouch for my sister-in-law.”

Sheriff Boone did not smile. “I can’t have anyone slipping her poison,” he grunted, unwrapping the package and fingering its contents. “It seems all right. From Miss Mary Erwin, you say? Will you want to give this to her yourself?”

I nodded. “I think I should. The ladies have asked me to say good-bye to her for them. I won’t stay very long, if you’ll allow me to go up now and see her.”

“All right. I think she’s calm enough, though she will not eat. Sarah Presnell has been with her most of the morning, but she left a little while ago. I think she’s making a last meal for Mrs. Silver. I reckon she’ll be glad of some company, to take her mind off her sorrow. The preacher came, but she wouldn’t see him.”

“What about her family?”

“Her father and brother are here in town, but I cannot allow them in the jail because of the escape. She has not asked for them.”

He clambered up the stairs, pausing for breath at the top step. “I hate to see this happen, Mr. Gaither. She’s no older than my children, poor lass.”

I patted his arm. “I know. We must try to ease her suffering all we can.”

I stood back while John Boone unlocked the door to the prisoner’s cell. “Visitor for you, Frankie!” he called out. “I’ll be downstairs,” he told me, and as he walked past me, I saw his eyes glisten with unshed tears in the dim light.

I clutched the bundle to my chest and stepped inside the little room. “Mrs. Silver? It’s Burgess Gaither

here.”

She was sitting on her camp bed, swollen-eyed from weeping, but calm now. When she saw me, she shrank back against the wall and whispered, “Is it time?”

“No. It is early yet. The sheriff will come for you in a few hours, not I. I only wanted to bring you a gift from the ladies of the Erwin family. They send their regards, and they asked me to tell you that you will be remembered in their prayers.”

“They won’t be coming to see me, then, sir?”

“They thought it best not to, in case their tears upset you. They are grieving. They sent you this.” Again I held out the bundle, and this time she took it, walking the length of her chain and stretching her hands out to me like a toddling child. Her face brightened as she accepted the offering, and I thought what sad creatures we mortals are, to delight in gifts even as we are dying. I watched as she set the package down on the camp bed and carefully untied the twine that bound it. She unfolded the fabric and held it up to look at it in the sunlight from the window of her cell.

“Oh, sir,” she whispered, pressing the white linen against her body.

Miss Mary had sent the prisoner the dress of white lace and linen that she had worn last summer when the Erwin sisters first visited the jail. “Take her this,” my sister-in-law had said, thrusting the bundle into my hands and turning away with the first tears that I had ever seen upon her face. “It’s little enough that we can do for her.”

I remembered that little Mrs. Silver had admired the garment, touching it reverently as though it were the robe of a queen instead of the ordinary morning dress of a country gentlewoman. It pained me to think that her only hope of ever wearing such a garment was to come to town under a sentence of death.

“It’s a handsome dress,” said Mrs. Silver, fingering the delicate cloth. “Better than I ever had. She means me to have it?”

I nodded. Miss Mary had spent the evening sewing hour altering the dress to fit Frankie Silver’s tiny frame.

“They visited me, and read me stories to pass the time. I thank them for that.”

I nodded. “We all wish we could have done more.”

She turned her gaze to the window, and I think she was on the verge of weeping again, but after a moment she said, “I wish they’d tell me a story now. The time is heavy on my hands, and I am afraid.”

I wanted nothing more than to flee the narrow cell and take refuge in the July sunshine of the Presnells’ garden, but I could not leave that poor lost creature to contemplate her death alone. “Has the preacher been to see you?”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t see him. Last time he came, I wanted him to tell me about heaven, but he would not. He kept saying that unless I named all my sins I would burn forever. He asked me who set me free that night. I wouldn’t tell him, though. Do you think I will go to hell for that, sir?”

“No. I cannot think so.”

She sighed. “I’m weary of praying. Reckon the Lord and I will be talking it over face-to-face soon enough. I asked the preacher to tell me a story once, and he told me about the good thief who was crucified with Jesus but went with him to paradise.”

I had promised the ladies that I would do what I could to comfort Mrs. Silver, and there seemed no other way that I could help her. “I’m not much use as a storyteller,” I said, “but if it will ease your mind, I will do my best.”

I searched my memory for some tale that would distract the poor lost girl from the thought of her death, and perhaps it was her maiden name of Stewart as much as her present circumstances that suggested the only one that came to me. “It isn’t a happy story,” I warned her, “but it is about a queen, and it is true.”

She nodded. “Happy stories mostly ain’t true.” She hugged the dress to her and sat down upon her bed to listen.

“Long ago in Scotland there lived a beautiful young queen whose name was Stuart. . . .”

“Same as mine.”

“Yes. She was called Mary, Queen of Scots, and her father had been the king, but he died and left the throne to her. She was said to be very beautiful, but she had a sad life. She married a handsome young man called Darnley, but he was blown to pieces in an explosion at a place called Kirk o’ Field, and afterward people said that Mary had killed him.”

“What happened to her? Did they hang her?”

“Well, she was put in prison at first.” I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, and then I told her, as simply as I could, the long tale of the intrigue between Mary, Queen of Scots, and her cousin Elizabeth of England.

Frankie Silver sat listening to me, rubbing the sore on her ankle where the chain had rubbed, but her eyes were wide and she seemed transported by my clumsy attempt at telling the tale of two great queens. Perhaps for a moment or two she even forgot her own unhappy circumstances, but as I neared the end of the story, she was reminded all too clearly.

I came to the account of Queen Elizabeth signing the death warrant of her beautiful cousin, after being convinced that Mary was plotting to seize the throne of England. “And so, because she was charged with committing treason by planning to overthrow the rightful queen of England, she was condemned to die.”

Frankie Silver nodded.

“She was to be beheaded.” I began to wish that I had not embarked upon this particular tale to divert the prisoner, but as there was no turning back, I thought that perhaps Mary Stuart could inspire her fellow prisoner to courage on the scaffold. “They say that she went to her death very bravely. She spent the night in prayer with her ladies, and in the wee hours before dawn she walked to the block with the courage of a martyr.”

“She didn’t scream or cry when she saw the knife?”

“The ax. No. It does no good to weep at such a time. It only gladdens your enemies. Mary believed that

she would shortly be in heaven.”

“Did she wear white?”

I remembered the histories I had read, and I recalled seeing an illustration in a book once that showed the Queen of Scots going to the block in a wimpled headdress and a deep black dress in the Tudor fashion. “Yes,” I said, “I believe she wore white.”

She considered this for a few moments. “She died then?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she killed her husband?”

I took a deep breath. “If she did, I’m sure that she was very sorry, and I think she made her peace with God before the end. She died bravely.”

“Why wasn’t she afraid? I am. I have prayed and prayed, but I’m still afraid. So afraid.”

“Three years ago I watched my brother Alfred die,” I said. “He was a young man—not as young as you, but still in the bloom of his youth. He sickened, and when the doctor knew that all hope was lost, the family gathered at his bedside. Alfred had been in great pain, I think, from his illness, for he thrashed in his delirium and he soaked the sheets with the sweat of his fever, but in the end . . . in the last moment before his soul took flight, he grew calm and still, and a great peace settled over his face, almost as if someone had shone a light upon him, and he smiled at us—or, rather, beyond us—and then he was gone. I had never seen him happier.”

She nodded. “But it will hurt.”

“Only for a little while. And then it is finished, and you have come out on the other side. You are free.”

She nodded. “I will wear the dress, sir. Tell the ladies that. I will wear white for paradise.”

I left her then, and spent the hours of the early afternoon pacing the lawn of the courthouse and then sifting through the papers on my writing table, as if my mind could address any matter other than the execution. I stayed close to the courthouse all afternoon, for I wanted to be easy to find. Surely the reprieve will come to me,I thought. They must be able to locate me when the messenger arrives.I had read the finality in the governor’s message, but the death of that gentle young girl seemed so improbable that I could not help persuading myself that she would be saved.

At last the hands on my pocket watch advanced toward the hour of three, and I knew that it was time for the ceremony to proceed. With great reluctance I picked up the copy of the death warrant from among my papers, for it would have to be read to the prisoner before we escorted her to Damon’s Hill.

I returned to the jail to find that a small open cart had been drawn up to the porch, and the guard was now engaged in keeping at bay a great crowd of noisy onlookers, who were cheering and shouting for the hanging to commence. I looked for Isaiah Stewart and his eldest son, but I could not find them in that sea of faces.

When I went inside, I found that Sheriff Boone had already brought the prisoner downstairs to make ready for departure. Frankie Silver stood there, small and silent, surrounded by Burke County deputies.

Sarah Presnell hovered nearby, shedding silent tears as she watched the preparations.

Mrs. Silver was wearing the white dress that Miss Mary had sent her, and I was reminded once again of a bride, as I had been months before when the prisoner had entered the courtroom with her head held high and proceeded down the aisle almost in triumph. The only hint of mourning in her present attire was a black satin bonnet tied with ribbons under her chin. It was trimmed with one red rose. I knew that the bonnet would have to be removed when we reached the place of execution, but I saw no harm in letting her wear her finery until then. Mrs. Silver’s ankles were still shackled in the great iron chain, but her hands were unbound—another kindness on the part of Sheriff Boone, and one that I approved of, for it would only compound the ordeal for all of us if the poor girl became terrified and screamed all the way to the hanging tree. Please, God, keep her calm,I thought.

John Boone noticed me then. “We are nearly ready,” he told me.

I withdrew the death warrant from my pocket. “I must read her the sentence,” I reminded him.

He nodded impatiently. “Be quick about it then, sir. Let’s have it over with, if it has to be done.”

I turned to the prisoner. “I am required by law to read to you the judge’s order for your execution. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Go on.”

I found that the paper was shaking as I began to read from it, and it was then that I realized I was as unstrung as the rest of them. With many pauses for breath and composure, I managed to make it through the few sentences that ordered the death by hanging of Frances Stewart Silver on Friday, the twelfth day of July, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-three.

When I had finished, I looked at the prisoner, but she gave no sign of having heard me. I thought that to press her further would only increase her suffering, so I took my leave of them and turned to go.

“Mr. Gaither?” Frankie Silver’s voice called me back. “Do I look fitten?”

I looked at her, a tiny slip of a girl in a cast-off linen dress and a poke bonnet over her flaxen hair. “You look like a queen,” I said.

They took her outside then, and bundled her into the back of the little one-horse cart. The shackles around her ankle caught on the side of the cart, and one of the sheriff’s men lifted it and laid it gently in beside her. She moved to cover the leg iron with her skirt as if it had been a delicate undergarment. People crowded around for a close look at the condemned prisoner, and some of them shouted encouragement, but she ignored them. She put her hand to her mouth when the rope was placed beside her, but after a moment’s alarm she was calm once more. Just as a constable slapped the reins and the cart began to move, Sarah Presnell hurried down the steps of the jail holding out half a fruit pie on a wooden plate. I could not make out the words she shouted above the roar of the crowd, but I saw that the pie was blackberry, and I remembered that Frankie Silver had spoken of her fondness for it. She leaned out the back of the cart and took the plate, with a little smile of thanks for her last friend. I went to my tethered horse and prepared to ride ahead and await the procession at Damon’s Hill. As I walked away, I saw Frankie Silver biting into the wine-dark pie, while Sarah Presnell stood on the jail porch, her apron to her face, and wept.

I was waiting at the top of Damon’s Hill when the sad procession arrived some twenty minutes later. I

had thought it best to arrive in advance of the prisoner in case any trouble awaited them at the place of execution. I did not dismount yet, for the saddle would give me a greater vantage point to scan the throng for troublemakers, though I saw none. An even greater crowd awaited the arrival of the prisoner, and the atmosphere in that summer meadow was that of a fair day. Children and dogs ran, laughed, and chased one another in and out among the clumps of spectators, and here and there a few cows grazed, untroubled by the mass of people invading their field. I was sorry to see a good many women in the crowd, but they were a very drab and common sort of female, and I saw no gentlewomen present. Such sights are not fit for the eyes of a lady.

Among the onlookers I saw old men selling meat pies and cups of cider from a stone jug. The term gala comes from gallows, and now I saw the truth of that word used to describe festivities. Most of those present did not know the prisoner or the victim, perhaps they did not even know the details of the case, but they were happy to have the monotony of their dreary lives broken by a spectacle, however tragic its outcome.

The summer sun beat down on me, and flies buzzed around the tail of my mare, and I realized that I was thirsty. I dabbed at my forehead with a linen handkerchief and vowed silently that my tongue would blacken and burst before I would take cider from those merry scavengers with their tin cups.

More people streamed into the meadow, and I knew that the sheriff’s procession must be near. I saw James Erwin break away from the others and canter toward me across the grass. He guided his great bay horse alongside mine. “At least we’ve a clear day for it,” he said, waving his straw hat at the clustering mayflies. “I thought the heavens themselves would open up for this travesty.”

“So they should,” I said. “This woman does not deserve to hang.”

A great roar went up from the crowd as the wooden cart rolled up the dirt path and lumbered across the field. We moved our mounts closer to the oak tree, ready to offer assistance if any were needed. From the top of Damon’s Hill, one can see all of Morganton spread out like a child’s toy village, and I turned away from the scene in the meadow to look at the deserted streets below.

James Erwin was watching me. “There will be no rider,” he said.

He was right. There was not. The dusty streets were as empty and silent as if it were midnight. My last hope was gone.

The cart was positioned beneath the oak tree now, and a deputy tossed one end of the rope over the thickest limb, a great log of a branch about twelve feet above the ground. It took him two tries to get the rope across it, and he suffered the jeers of the crowd for his clumsiness, though I doubted if those that mocked him could have done it any better.

James Erwin nudged me then, and nodded toward the crowd grouped closest to the cart. Isaiah Stewart and his son Jackson had shoved their way to a position near the prisoner, but a constable had stationed himself beside them, and I saw no sign of weapons. Frankie Silver saw them, but she made no move to embrace her father or brother, and her expression had not softened. She was dry-eyed and so were they.

The sheriff had taken one end of the rope and was making the noose: seven loops and a slipknot at the top of them. The softened rope was still greasy with mutton tallow, and flies kept alighting on the length of it. John Boone swatted them away. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and I think he was struck by the indignity of the poor creature’s last minutes on earth. I was glad that someone wept for her.

At last all was in readiness. The people swarmed closer to the cart for a better look, and the lawmen shooed them away again like mayflies. They will want a piece of the rope for a keepsake.

Gabe Presnell took hold of the horse’s halter to steady the cart, for the animal was frightened by the crush of people around it.

A minister who had approached the cart laid his hand upon Mrs. Silver’s shoulder and spoke to her in an urgent undertone. I knew that he was beseeching her to confess her sins, so that she might be forgiven and be spared the fires of hell in the Hereafter. She made him no reply, however, and a moment later he began to pray aloud in a sonorous voice. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness. . . .”

“The fifty-first Psalm,” muttered James Erwin. “The Tyburn Hymn, it’s called, because they always said it over the condemned at the scaffold in London.”

“. . . Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God. . . .”

Frankie Silver was pale, and her breath was coming in great gulps, but she seemed unmoved by the oration. She looked at the sky. Perhaps her thoughts were elsewhere, and the intonations of the minister were a fly buzz among the roar of the crowd.

“. . . For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart. . . .”

Someone shouted, “Get on with it!” and others in the crowd took up the chant.

A few moments later the parson stepped away from the prisoner’s side, and Sheriff Boone clambered into the cart and motioned for Mrs. Silver to rise. She swayed for an instant as she got to her feet, and one of the deputies took a length of rope and bound her hands to her sides. The sheriff, his furrowed face still streaked with tears, untied the black poke bonnet and removed it from her head. The crowd gasped to see that the prisoner’s blond hair had been cropped as short as a boy’s. It could not be allowed to entwine in the rope, which might have caused her more pain, but nonetheless it was a final indignity, and I grieved to see her shamed so.

The sheriff slipped the noose over her head and tightened it, placing the knot on the left side of her neck.

“Frances Stewart Silver,” he intoned, “it is my duty as sheriff of Burke County, North Carolina, to carry out the sentence handed down by Judge Henry Seawall of the Superior Court, that you be taken to the place of execution, and therein hanged by the neck until you are dead. And—” His voice faltered for a moment. He took a deep breath and managed to say, “And may God have mercy on your soul. Have you any last words?”

She had not been able to speak in court. She had kept her silence for the long months after the trial. Even those few of us who had heard her confession had not heard all of it, for she would not talk about the cutting up of Charlie Silver’s body, nor would she speak of her ill-starred escape from the county jail. This was her last chance. Her last chance, too, to make her peace with Almighty God so that she might be received into paradise. Many a highwayman confessed his guilt upon the scaffold for fear of torments in the Hereafter. Surely this poor creature would do no less.

She nodded, and took a step away from John Boone, toward the surging crowd, who suddenly fell

silent, for she had begun to speak. “Good people . . . I . . .”

“Die with it in you, Frankie!”

Isaiah Stewart’s voice rang out across the meadow. The words were a harsh command, and for a moment they hung there in the air, echoing in that charged silence, and then the roar from the spectators resumed louder than ever.

Frankie Silver hesitated for a moment, and a look passed between her and her father. He stared at her, stern-faced, arms crossed, waiting.

She stepped back and nodded to John Boone that she was ready. He was weeping openly now, but she was calm, and I’d like to think that her thoughts were on the Queen of Scots, whose story I had told her that morning, and how that Stuart woman had died bravely and with the dignity of a queen.

“The father has silenced her,” said James Erwin, after a startled silence. “Where was he when the Silver boy was murdered?”

“Miles away,” I replied. “In Kentucky, on a long hunt.”

“So he cannot be guilty. Then what did he not want her to say?”

I shook my head. Frankie Silver would take her secret to the grave. It was little enough to let her keep.

She stood there trembling in her white linen dress, with her hands roped to her sides. They slipped a white cloth hood over her head, so that the eager spectators could not revel in her death agonies. A man on the ground took hold of the end of the rope which dangled from the low branch, lashing it securely to the trunk of the oak.

“I cannot watch this,” said James Erwin.

Before I could reply, he had turned his horse and trotted away. He passed behind the crowd, and by the time he reached the edge of the meadow, the bay was in full gallop, and a moment later he had vanished from sight.

So I was left alone: the state’s official witness, there to see that the will of the people of North Carolina was done as the governor wished it done. They stood her up until the rope was taut, and then someone took hold of the horse’s bridle and led it away, so that the cart was no longer beneath the prisoner. For a moment her tiny feet had teetered on the edge of the cart, and then they dangled in the air above the grass of Damon’s Hill. The crowd gave a great shout when they saw her struggle at the end of the rope, swaying gently amid a circle of mayflies.

And I had to watch.

I am afraid now. I count my breaths, knowing how few are left to me. But deep underneath the pounding terror is a disbelief that I am bound to die. I cannot see the way of leaving this world, and I cannot imagine the next one. If I am to go to hell, then where is Charlie Silver? And if we should meet in paradise, will there be forgiveness between us? On your head be this, Charlie, for you are the one who made all of it happen. I reckon you have paid for it dear enough, though, and if God has pardoned you, then I will.

I wonder if there are mountains in heaven. The preacher talks of the city of God, but even if it is peopled with angels, I don’t want to go there. I am done with walls. I shall camp in God’s wilderness, where it is always summer. Then I will truly be home.

I hope that when they stand me up high with the rope around my neck, they will let me turn toward the mountains. I would like to see them one last time. My Nancy is up there. It’s all right if she forgets me, if she is happy in days to come. Let her be happy.

I cannot think about my Nancy anymore. I mean to die like a soldier.

They meant to be kind this morning. John Boone kissed my forehead and said that he would see me in heaven, and dear Sarah Presnell brought me pie as I was leaving on the cart. “I made the hood that will cover your head,” she whispered to me as she placed the pastry in my hand. “I soaked it in lavender water, so that when you can see no more, you will still have the smell of flowers to keep up your courage. Take a deep breath.”

Yes, a last deep breath. But at least it will smell of flowers.

The earnest young lawyer also tried to comfort me. He told me tales about a queen whose name was the same as mine, but what do I know of queens and far-off castles? What does that tell me about what it will be like to die here, in a field in Burke County? It is terrible not to know what is coming. The white dress told me. Perhaps Miss Mary meant it as a sign to me, and if so I understood, and then I was no longer afraid. I put on the clean white dress, and at last I knew where I was going.

I remembered what was going to happen.

You dress yourself in a white robe, and you go with your kinfolk to the gathering place on the bank of a river. The preacher comes and stands at your side. He says words over you. . . . I have done this before . . . and a great congregation of people is there to witness the change in you. . . . The minister puts his hand on your head, and he plunges you downward into the river of death, and you float there for what seems like forever with your lungs bursting for a gulp of air. At last it is over, and when you rise up again, you will be glad, and free, and purified. And then you will walk with God.

And then you will walk with God.

At last—at long last—it was over, and they cut her down. Her little head fell forward upon her breast, and they laid her on the ground, while Dr. Tate felt her pulse for signs of life. There were none. We had seen the life go out of her, though it went slowly, and the sight was so harrowing that the great loutish crowd were themselves reduced to tears. I hope they were sorry they had come.

The body of Frankie Silver was given to her father and brother, with the hood still mercifully covering her face with its staring eyes and protruding tongue. Still stone-faced and silent, the Stewarts wrapped the tiny form in a blanket and laid it in the back of their wagon. They were heading back up the mountain, they said, to bury Frankie with her own people on Stewart land. But it is July, and the breathless heat makes the flies relentless. Forty miles up mountain is a long journey with a lifeless body in high summer. I think they must have buried her secretly that night somewhere along the Yellow Mountain Road, and it saddens me to think that she lies alone, so far from her loved ones. But she is at peace now in her fine white dress, and she is well away from Charlie Silver, so perhaps she is glad after all.

That night I went to James Erwin’s home and sat in silence by his fireside, drinking his brandy and not setting out for home until I was sure that Belvidere would be in darkness, and all the ladies long asleep.

Burgess Gaither

AFTERWARD After the death of Frankie Silver, I continued in my position as clerk of Superior Court for four more years, after which I went into private practice. My career had prospered, and I like to think that my ability had as much to do with my success as my family connections. Perhaps I never really felt at home in Morganton society, but I learned well enough how to act the part, and there were times when I went so far as to forget that I was an outsider in the ranks of the aristocracy. My family was as good as any of theirs, but the wealth was lacking. After two generations, the lack of a fortune removes one from polite society, so I took care that I should acquire one, for I had my sons to think of.

I represented Burke County in the State Senate in 1840–41, and at the end of that time President Tyler honored me with the appointment of superintendent of the United States Mint in Charlotte. Two years later, I returned to the State Senate, and this year, 1851, I ran for the United States Congress. I lost, though, to Thomas Clingman, so perhaps I shall return to the state legislature next year, if the good people of Burke see fit to send me back.

Despite the time I have spent at the Mint in Charlotte, and with the legislature in Raleigh, Morganton continues to be my home. A dozen years ago I built a little house on North Anderson Street. It is a one-story Greek Revival–style house, designed by Mr. Marsh of Charlotte, nothing as grand as Belvidere, of course, but it has a fine pedimented entrance porch supported by fluted Doric columns, and it is quite suitable for a town-dwelling attorney of modest means and no pretensions to aristocracy. I shall be happy to spend the rest of my days in that house, when I am no longer called upon to serve the citizenry with duties elsewhere.

Old Squire Erwin died in 1837, two years before his granddaughter Delia was born to Elizabeth and me. So now we have two sons, William and Alfred, to carry on the names of our departed loved ones, and our darling Delia, who is a proper little lady like her mother.

I saw Nicholas Woodfin from time to time after the trial of Frankie Silver, of course, for we were brother attorneys in the same district, and our paths were bound to cross both professionally and socially, for he, too, was a Whig in politics. He had prospered in the years since I first knew him. He is a shirttail relative now, for he married Miss Eliza Grace McDowell of Quaker Meadows, my wife’s cousin, and though they make their home in Asheville, we see them from time to time.

Woodfin served in the State Senate the year after I left it, but his true renown was as an eloquent trial attorney. By tacit agreement, we did not speak of his first capital case for many years thereafter. I think he was ashamed of his failure to secure a pardon for his client, and I think he was genuinely grieved and blamed himself for her tragedy. Since then, I have heard many of our fellow attorneys remark on the curious fact that Nicholas Woodfin refused to represent clients who were on trial for their lives. I thought I knew the reason why.

It was nearly twenty years after the case of Frankie Silver that we met again under circumstances that called to mind the events surrounding our first encounter.

In November 1851, William Waightstill Avery, a prominent fellow attorney and my own nephew by marriage, was charged with murder.

Waightstill was a student in college at the time of the trial of Frankie Silver, which made him nine years

younger than I, and I had always considered myself an older relative rather than a comrade. He was the son of my wife’s eldest sister Harriet, who had married Isaac Thomas Avery of Swan Ponds. Young Waightstill, who was named after his paternal grandfather, North Carolina’s first attorney general, was a clever and hardworking fellow who had graduated as valedictorian of his class at the state university in Chapel Hill. He went on to read law with Judge William Gaston, qualifying to practice in 1839, the year that I was elected to represent Burke County in the North Carolina State Senate. In 1851, at the time of his trial, Waightstill had just completed a second term representing Burke County in the North Carolina House of Commons. He was thirty-five years old.

The tragedy that led to his being charged with murder began eighteen days earlier, when Waightstill Avery was arguing a civil case in the McDowell County Superior Court. He was representing a McDowell County man named Ephraim Greenlee, a former client of attorney Samuel Fleming of Marion. Greenlee was accusing Fleming of fraud in connection with some disputed property, and during the course of arguing the case, Waightstill Avery blamed Sam Fleming for the disappearance of a will that was relevant evidence in the matter. I am not sure whether he was arguing that Fleming was careless, incompetent, or deliberately concealing the pertinent documents for his own gain, but one interpretation is scarcely better than the other when a lawyer’s reputation is at stake.

Fleming took exception to this slur on his skills as an attorney, for, of course, he denied any blame in the matter. Fleming was a tall, red-faced fellow with a thatch of auburn curls and a fiery temper to match. He towered over young Waightstill Avery, quivering with indignation and shouting that he’d have satisfaction for this insult to his honor.

Avery took this for the usual legal bravado that one hears bandied about in the law courts, but this time he had misjudged his opponent, with fatal consequences. When court was adjourned, Avery gathered up his papers and left the courthouse, but when he got outside, he saw that Samuel Fleming was waiting in the street for him, shouting abuse and brandishing a rawhide horsewhip in a threatening manner, while the north wind whipped his cape about him, making him look like an avenging devil. There’s those who would say that’s exactly what he was. Sam Fleming was not rich in friendships.

Now my nephew Avery was a small man, and he had perhaps the more pride and dignity because of it, but he was by no means a coward, nor was he an undistinguished citizen of the Carolina frontier. He had no reason to fear a fellow attorney, for although I say that he was a citizen of the “Carolina frontier,” things had changed a good deal in the two decades since the trial of Frankie Silver. True, there were as yet no railroads in the mountains, but the roads were better now. The population continued to grow, and the cities were no longer rustic hamlets dotted through the endless forest. The Indians had been removed across the Mississippi, the economy was flourishing, and western North Carolina was as pleasant and peaceful a place as one could find upon God’s green earth. We were civilized gentlemen serving the law, and brothers all by the mutual respect conferred by our profession.

Samuel Fleming cared nothing for the sanctity of the legal fraternity, nor for the peace of McDowell County. He was after blood.

I was not present when the altercation took place, but I heard many accounts of it afterward, and everyone agreed that Samuel Fleming was abusive and reckless in his manner. When Waightstill Avery tried to edge past his tormentor, knocking him down in the process, the enraged Mr. Fleming flung himself upon the smaller man, pounding him about the head and shoulders with a rock until he was stunned into insensibility. While poor Waightstill sat there in the muddy high street, attempting to get his bearings and regain his footing, Samuel Fleming lit into him with the horsewhip, punctuating each slash with an oath.

In his dazed and weakened condition, poor Avery could not defend himself. Indeed he was so much smaller and less robust than his opponent that it is doubtful whether he could have given a good account of himself even if he had been perfectly fit. He lay there in the mire, hands braced before him to shield his face and neck from the blows, while blood from the welts on his cheek dripped onto his broadcloth coat and spangled the mud beneath him with flecks of red.

I would like to think that someone in that great throng of onlookers went to his aid, while other right-thinking citizens pulled Samuel Fleming away and tried to talk sense into him. I never heard of anyone interfering, though, and I am forced to conclude that a crowd watched this shameful performance, and perhaps even cheered it on, with no thought toward rescuing the unfortunate victim.

At last—no doubt when his stream of invective had given out and his arm was tired—Fleming ceased his attack upon my unfortunate nephew and swaggered off, boasting about the thrashing that he had given to the young turkey cock who would question his competence as a lawyer. Waightstill Avery was helped to a house nearby, where his wounds were seen to, while a servant took a damp rag and tried as best she could to remove the streaks of mud from his coat and breeches. He was not badly hurt, but the shame and injustice of that public whipping festered inside Waightstill Avery worse than gangrene ever cankered an injured limb. In Morganton he made light of the cuts and bruises and kept his own counsel about his feelings toward his assailant, but word of Fleming’s continual boasting reached us in Burke County, and all of us knew that the incident was not over.

Two weeks after the confrontation in Marion, Mr. Fleming had yet another occasion to appear in court, but this time he was representing clients before Judge Kemp Battle at the new courthouse in Morganton. I call this building the new courthouse even though it is twenty years old, but I am nearly fifty now, and time does not move as slowly for me as it once did. This present courthouse was under construction at the time that Frankie Silver was in jail awaiting her execution, and I remember feeling glad at the time that after the tragic circumstances of the Silver case, we could put the past behind us and begin again the pursuit of justice in a new building. I have since learned that it is not so easy to wipe the slate clean; there is enough tragedy and iniquity in the world to fill any amount of courthouses and judicial buildings.

I was there when it happened, but I confess that I felt no inkling of the tragedy that was to come.

Sam Fleming approached the table where Waightstill Avery was concentrating on a point of law in the case at hand. I did not think that Waightstill had even seen Fleming coming, so intent was he upon the argument before the judge, but the incident in Marion two weeks earlier still rankled, and he must have thought that Fleming intended to torment him further. When Fleming was an arm’s length away, Waightstill raised a pistol and pointed it toward his enemy, and before anyone in the courtroom could cry out or attempt to stop him, he fired the weapon point-blank at Samuel Fleming’s heart.

He was dead before anyone of us reached him, and Waightstill made no move to flee the consequences of his action. He stood there calmly, handed the pistol over to the bailiff, and said that his honor was satisfied now, and that he was willing to be tried for his actions, because Sam Fleming needed killing. And when the facts were put forth in the presence of a jury, Waightstill thought that justice would be done. They led him away, and took him to the jail for form’s sake, but he was out on bond before nightfall. I joined the family council at Belvidere to plan the strategy of my nephew’s defense.

The trial was held in November 1851, only a few weeks after the incident. Waightstill would not have to languish in jail for months awaiting judgment as poor Frankie Silver had done. He was neither poor nor friendless. When the day came for William Waightstill Avery to appear before the court in Morganton to answer for the death of Samuel Fleming, he was represented by four members of counsel, all gentlemen that he could count as friends, and all distinguished attorneys, if I may say that without boasting, for I was

one of their number.

So was Nicholas Woodfin. I knew him better now than I did all those years ago, when, as a newly fledged attorney, he had defended Frankie Silver. Now he was counted one of us, a kinsman of sorts, for he had been married to Eliza Grace some dozen years now.

The two other members of counsel were even more prominent men in the state, and perhaps they were chosen for their eminence more than for their legal skills. Mr. Tod R. Caldwell and General John Gray Bynum of Rutherfordton were both lawyers, but both had gained distinction in the political sphere rather than in the courtroom.

Tod Caldwell was an Irishman whose grandfather had been exiled from the old country in the rebellion of 1798. His father had been a shopkeeper in Morganton, and young Tod, who was a year or two younger than my nephew Waightstill Avery, had clerked in his father’s establishment before his own talent and ambition had led him off to study at the University of North Carolina. He simultaneously read law under the tutelage of David Lowry Swain, and became the first person ever to graduate from the university and receive his license to practice law at one and the same time. Then he went into law practice in Morganton, entering politics about ten years ago, when the county elected him to serve in the North Carolina House of Commons with our other county delegates, Mr. O. J. Neal and William Waightstill Avery. The two young men were friends and adversaries throughout their lives, for a town like Morganton is hardly big enough to cage two such lions. I have often thought that one of them will end up being governor. I had not thought that the other would end up on the scaffold.

“He is to have four lawyers?” I said to Woodfin when we all assembled a few days before the trial.

Nicholas Woodfin smiled. “There is no one so cautious—or so rightfully afraid—as an attorney who must face trial by jury.”

“I suppose it is mainly for show,” I said. “To demonstrate to the jury that the most prominent citizens of western North Carolina stand behind Waightstill in his hour of trouble.”

“Mostly that,” Woodfin agreed. “I believe I am to do most of the speechmaking, since I have the most trial experience.”

“You have made quite a name for yourself in the courtroom since we first met,” I told him. “We are all glad that you are making an exception to your rule about not appearing in capital cases.”

Woodfin nodded. “Waightstill is family as well as a friend and colleague,” he reminded me. “Besides, I do not really consider this a capital case.”

“Waightstill shot the fellow in open court. I saw it. It was no duel. I do not think that Fleming even saw the weapon. But, of course, as one of Waightstill’s attorneys, I cannot testify.”

Nicholas Woodfin smiled. “Nor can Waightstill, since he is the defendant, but from what I hear, there were witnesses aplenty to the horsewhipping incident in Marion. I think we can show a jury that Sam Fleming needed killing.”

“But why not challenge the fellow to a duel?” I asked. “Lord knows there is family precedent for that. Waightstill’s grandfather and namesake once got into just such a quarrel with a fellow lawyer over in Tennessee. They agreed to a duel, and when the time came for the battle of honor, each man carefully fired a shot over the head of the other. They left the field the best of friends—or so the family says.”

Woodfin looked thoughtful. “Who was the other lawyer?” “Andrew Jackson.” “I thought so.” Woodfin smiled. “Well, that was a long time ago, my friend, and there were giants in

those days, but here in 1851, we are given the task of defending a man whose opponent was even less of

a gentleman than Andrew Jackson. Horsewhipping a colleague in a public street! I ask you!” “And you think you can get him freed, despite the lapse of two weeks between incident and reprisal? Despite the scores of witnesses?”

“Of course I can,” said Woodfin. “No one should hang when his offense has been committed in defense

of his person or his honor.” “I wish you could have convinced a jury of that twenty years ago,” I said with a sigh. It was an impudent remark to make, I suppose, but I was uneasy with the dismissal of Samuel Fleming’s murder as a justifiable execution. Also, the memory of Frankie Silver had lain heavily on my mind these past few days, and my words were out before I could call them back.

Woodfin gave me a blank look. “Twenty years ago?” “In this very court. You lost that capital case, alas.” “Lord, yes. Little Mrs. Silver,” sighed Woodfin. “I have not forgotten her. I wish to this day that I could

have saved her. You were at that trial, too, weren’t you, Gaither?” I nodded. “I was clerk of Superior Court in those days.” “And old Tom Wilson was my co-counsel. I always pictured him as an unhappy cross between crow

and scarecrow. What has become of him, anyhow? I had thought to have seen him here.” I hesitated. “He no longer lives in Burke County,” I said at last. “He has taken his family off to Texas.” “Really? How long ago?” “Only a few months back.” “Thomas Wilson went to Texas? At his age? What was he, seventy?” “Only sixty, I think,” I said, as if that made it any less extraordinary for an elderly lawyer to strike out for

far-off territory. “But I thought he had been practicing law here in Morganton forever,” Woodfin protested. “Twenty years or so. Yes.” “And surely I’m correct in remembering that his wife had some connection to the Erwins of Belvidere?” “She is Matilda Erwin’s niece.” I had avoided looking at Woodfin as I made my replies, and he must

have realized that I was less than forthcoming about the matter of Thomas Wilson’s sudden departure.

He was watching me closely. “So,” he said, “Thomas Wilson has given up a twenty-year law practice, and a good farm near his influential relatives. At his advanced age, he has forsaken the state of Carolina to go and seek his fortune

in Texas. Does he think that he will have some political future out there in the new government in Austin, now that the territory has become a state?” “He has not gone to Austin,” I murmured. “Really, I know nothing about it.” Nicholas Woodfin was an excellent lawyer. Certainly he was too skilled at cross-examination to let this

remark pass, no matter how casually I endeavored to say it. “The Wilsons have notgone to Austin?” “No.” “Where then?” “I believe my wife has had a letter from Mrs. Wilson a few weeks back. It seems that the family has

settled in a little place called Seguin.” “Where in God’s name is that?” “They say that it is in the vicinity of San Antonio, where the Battle of the Alamo was fought.” “Seguin,” Woodfin repeated, searching his mind for a familiar ring to the word. He did not find one. “Is it

a spa of some sort? A restorative to health?” “No. It boasts no mineral springs. It is said to be a dry sort of place.” He pondered this. “Gold mining country?” “I think not.” “Land grants for gentlemen settlers?” “Not that I have heard. No.” “Is he practicing law, then?” “I believe he is. Certainly. I have not heard otherwise.” I cast about for some other topic to distract my

colleague from his interrogation. Even talk of Avery’s plight was beginning to seem preferable to our

current discussion. “I believe it is difficult to practice law in Texas,” said Woodfin. “One must not only know United States law, now that the territory is a state. One must also contend with old deeds from French jurisdiction, and also with Mexican law, which is based upon the Spanish system. It must be quite a challenge to an old fellow who has never practiced law outside the boundaries of North Carolina.”

I had no answer to this. Woodfin leaned back to watch me as he prolonged the silence, so that I should have ample time to reflect with him upon the absurdity of my statements. Why indeed should a man of nearly sixty leave his

farm and his law practice of twenty years to go to a remote village in Texas, removing his only son from a chance at a university education? If I had been an ordinary citizen upon the witness stand, I would have burst forth with the explanation simply to end the awkwardness of the encounter. But I, too, am an attorney. Perhaps I am not the seasoned trial lawyer that Woodfin is, but I hope I can hold my own in a discourse with my peers.

“Well, Mr. Wilson has gone off to seek a new life,” I said as heartily as I could manage.

“There is a saying I’ve heard in recent years,” said Woodfin thoughtfully. “Some men come to a time in their lives when they either go to hell or Texas.”

I managed a watery smile. “I’m sure we all wish Mr. Wilson luck in his bold new endeavor.”

Nicholas Woodfin nodded thoughtfully, for by now he had realized that as a gentleman I could not disclose Thomas Wilson’s reasons for leaving Morganton. “Wish him luck, indeed,” Woodfin echoed. “So you should, Mr. Gaither, for he will need all of it, and more, I think.”

I cast about for another subject to distract my colleague from further inquiries about the Wilsons. “Do you remember Jackson Stewart, the elder brother of Mrs. Silver?”

“I do,” said Woodfin. “He glowered at me from ten feet away throughout the trial. He had been in Kentucky with his father when the murder occurred, had he not? What became of him? Not hanged, too?”

I smiled. “Quite the reverse, I’m happy to say. You recall that there has been a new county that has been carved out of the western portion of Burke. Yancey County, it’s called. Jackson Stewart is running for the post of sheriff there.”

“I had not thought to hear that.”

“They say he stands a good chance of winning, too. He is prominent and well liked in the district. Odd that you should mention hanging, though, Woodfin, for I have heard that the other Stewart brother—the younger one who was arrested with his mother and sister— washanged as a horse thief in Kentucky. It may be idle talk, of course, but one of the Yancey constables swears that the whole Stewart family was cursed.”

Woodfin smiled at this superstitious extravagance. “Cursed? How so?”

“They have all died violent deaths, apparently. The father—Isaiah Stewart—was killed while felling a tree. Crushed. And a few years after that, Barbara Stewart, his widow, was out picking blackberries, and a rattlesnake bit her. She died a terrible death, I was told.”

“The poisoning of snakebite is slow and painful. I’m not sure that I wouldn’t prefer the hangman’s rope,” said Woodfin. “I suppose folks in the hills think that the hand of Providence has struck down the Stewarts for their part in the killing?”

“I suppose some of them do think that,” I said, “but I would not agree with them. Life is hard on the frontier. There are a good many ways to catch your death before you succumb to old age.”

“Didn’t Mrs. Silver have a child? Has it, too, felt the wrath of divine retribution?”

“I don’t believe so. The little girl would be twenty-one or thereabout today, as I recall. I know that she lived to grow up. About four years after her mother’s execution, the Stewarts appeared in court here in Morganton, petitioning for the right to custody of the child.”

I remembered the sad scene in the courtroom. The little girl was her mother in miniature, with a calico dress and flaxen hair spilling out from beneath a little poke bonnet. Her large, troubled eyes that stared at strangers without fear or favor. She clung to the hand of one of Charlie’s sisters, but she sat still and quiet through the little hearing, though I am sure that she understood none of it. Perhaps if she had understood, she would not have listened so calmly to the arguments concerning her fate. The Silver family had raised the child from the time her mother was taken into custody, and it must have been difficult for her to be taken from the only home she knew. I hope that she visited back and forth for the rest of her childhood, for I know that the families lived close to each other.

“Was the petition for custody granted?” asked Woodfin.

“Oh, yes. Upon the usual conditions. The girl had to be taught to read, and upon her eighteenth birthday she was to receive certain material goods, and so on. I had occasion to speak to Jackson Stewart once at a political meeting, and he mentioned that his niece had got married.”

“To a brave man, no doubt,” said Woodfin with a chuckle. Then he sighed. “That was unworthy of me. No one knows better than I that the child’s mother was unjustly hanged. I wish the daughter well.”

“We might wish that she has made a better choice of husband than her mother did.”

“That, certainly,” Woodfin agreed. “You know, though, that case haunts me yet. I cannot help thinking that if Mrs. Silver had known more about her own rights under the law, or if she had been able to read, even, she might have been saved.”

“Let it go,” I told him. “You did your best at the time.”

He smiled. “I atone in little ways. I have paid for the education of needy girls and boys, and a good part of the salaries of the Asheville Female Academy are paid by me. I never want another young woman to die because she was unlearned. I look at my own daughters now, and I think of that poor lost little thing.”

I was glad to hear that Woodfin is doing charitable works to soften his regret at his first case lost, but privately I wondered if a fine education ever saved a woman from a brutish husband. There are gentlewomen of my acquaintance whose lot in life is little better than Frankie Silver’s, for all their silks and lace.

The trial of William Waightstill Avery took place on a bitter Friday in late autumn, before Judge Kemp Battle in the court in Morganton. He had not languished in jail. He was arraigned on Wednesday, a true bill returned by the grand jury on Thursday, and Friday we went to trial.

Nicholas Woodfin spoke for the defense. He argued first that although eighteen days had passed between the original encounter and the homicide, the outrage committed by Fleming was so gross, and Avery’s suffering and humiliation so great, that his passions had not cooled, and therefore his shooting of the victim was no more than manslaughter.

“Well, I will overrule that,” Kemp Battle declared, and he gave Woodfin a look that said: Damn your impudence.“The jury is directed to consider the offense to be murder, not manslaughter, if the defendant is found to be of sound mind at the time of the incident.”

Upon hearing those words, Nick Woodfin changed his tack as smoothly as a Yankee clipper. “But of course Mr. Avery was not of sound mind at the time,” he protested. “How could he be? He was injured in body and soul by the cowardly attack on his person by Mr. Fleming in the public street of Marion. He went mad with shame and rage. His very honor was at stake.”

There was much more of this in the course of the morning. Mr. Caldwell, Mr. Bynum, and I were all called upon to add our words to that of Woodfin’s, and we all stood and said much the same: Waightstill is the kindest of men; surely he was mad with the injustice done to his honor and his person; he is very sorry for it now.

I thought, perhaps, that Judge Battle saw our plausible arguments as whitewash over the stain of our friend’s misdeed. He heard us out in grim but red-faced silence. Still, it was not for him to decide the fate of Waightstill Avery. Twelve jurors, all men of Burke County known to Waightstill at least on sight, sat in judgment of the murder case.

Woodfin gestured and shouted, waxing high on the indignity of a public thrashing, and then pitching his voice low and steady as a growl when he spoke of the festering anger that followed, and of the shame Waightstill Avery felt when friends told him that Fleming was boasting of his foul deed. What choice did he have but to cleanse his name in the blood of his tormentor?

It was a stirring speech. The theatre lost a titan when Nick Woodfin chose the law instead of the stage as his profession. I could see the jurors, watching wide-eyed as the performance rose in pitch, and I have no doubt that had he been a Plantagenet, instead of a country lawyer, Woodfin could have got them to invade France with the power of his words. He has gained much in skill and style since the days when I first knew him.

At last he judged that the jurors had heard enough. The prosecution got up again and argued that shooting a man in cold blood in the sanctity of a courtroom, in front of six dozen witnesses, was murder, by God, and what else could you call it? The state’s lawyer conceded that Waightstill Avery was rich, and well connected, and that he rejoiced in the eloquence of his friends, who stood here now to defend him, but, be that as it may, Avery had—with the arrogance of the rich—appointed himself judge and executioner upon a fellow attorney. Were the honest citizens of Burke County going to let him get away with it?

The jury retired in the early afternoon to deliberate the matter. I watched the twelve men file out of the courtroom. “I suppose we might wait in the tavern,” I remarked hopefully to my fellow attorneys, for I felt much in need of a change of air.

Mr. Bynum smiled. “Why don’t we wait half an hour so that Waightstill can join the party?”

“But surely—”

Woodfin nodded in agreement. “Unless I miss my guess, we haven’t time to leave the premises. The jury should be back within the hour.”

They were back in ten minutes. As the jurors filed in, my colleagues exchanged satisfied glances, as if the speed of the verdict were a tribute to their skills of oratory, but I was still not convinced that the verdict would be a favorable one, for I had seen the shooting take place myself, and I could not call the killing of an unarmed man “self-defense,” regardless of the provocation several weeks earlier.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” asked Judge Battle, in a tone that suggested surprise at seeing them again so soon.

“We have, Your Honor.” The foreman handed a slip of paper to the bailiff, who conveyed it to Battle.

“The prisoner will rise.”

Waightstill got to his feet and stood there with great calmness, but I saw that he was gripping the edge of the table with both hands. Even the most confident of men must realize that a jury is a capricious creature. No one knows this better than a lawyer.

Judge Kemp Battle studied the words on the paper for an agonizing minute before he looked up and announced, “The jury finds the defendant not guilty.” He paused here, as if he wanted to say more, but instead he shook his head and sighed. “Mr. Avery, you are free to go. The jury is thanked for its time.”

The color came back into Waightstill’s face, and he released his grip on the table. Tod Caldwell pounded his old adversary on the back, shouting, “We’ve done it!” as a crowd of well-wishers surrounded the defense table. My own congratulations were left unsaid, and I think the omission went unnoticed by my nephew and his supporters.

I gathered up my notes from the trial and made my way upstream against the crowd of spectators, seeking the open air. The day was bleak and colorless, with a spitting rain and gusts of cold wind coming down off the mountains as if to sweep away every last leaf of autumn in their wake. Despite the chill and the damp, I braved the elements on the side of the courthouse lawn, out of sight of the main entrance, through which the spectators and the celebrants would be leaving. I was thinking of John Boone, dead these fifteen years, and of all the trials that had come and gone since I arrived in Morganton.

Presently I heard footsteps approaching from behind me, and I turned to see Nicholas Woodfin in his great black cape coming toward me. “We have carried the day,” he said, smiling.

“Yes,” I said.

“We are going to the tavern now, as you suggested, to celebrate the jury’s good judgment, and I’ll wager that our old friend will spend more there than his defense cost him. Walk with me.”

I shook my head. In my present mood, the brown stubble of garden beside the courthouse suited me better than the prospect of revelry in the tavern. “I will join you later,” I said.

“You are not pleased? Waightstill has a great political future. And we have saved him.”

“So we have,” I said. I turned away and left him staring after me. The dead leaves crackled under my feet, and the north wind numbed my face until I felt nothing at all.

So William Waightstill Avery went free. We had saved him—for another dozen years, anyhow—and he used them well. He served two terms in the State Senate, and fathered three more children with his wife Mary Corinna, who was the daughter of a governor. But the Bible says that he who sheddeth blood shall his own blood be shed by others. In Waightstill Avery’s case, the volley answering the death of Samuel Fleming was fired in June 1864, at a place called the Winding Stairs, where the mountains rise not twenty miles west of Morganton. There the Confederate North Carolina First Regiment troops were overtaken by Kirk’s raiders, Federals from Tennessee, and Waightstill Avery was wounded in the skirmish. He died of those wounds on July 3, 1864, and I hoped I mourned the death of a brave soldier as sincerely

as anyone that day in the churchyard of our Presbyterian church.

As I stood there in the dappled sunshine of the old cemetery, paying my last respects, I thought that I stood in an ever diminishing circle of light. My dear Elizabeth had passed away, and last year we laid her sister the lionhearted Miss Mary into the earth at Belvidere. So many brave people had left this world, and I was growing old alone.

As they lowered Waightstill’s coffin into the earth, I heard the drone of flies about my head and I could not help thinking about another “brave little soldier” who had died on a July day many years back, and who lay in unconsecrated ground somewhere up the mountain, unmourned and unremembered. I wish I could have taken just one rose from the mound of flowers on William Waightstill Avery’s coffin and laid it on the grave of Frankie Silver.