There was a ripple of amusement in the audience, but the witness ignored it and plunged ahead into her story. “Us women didn’t pay Christmas much mind, unless there was a church service near enough to go to, so it was just an ordinary day in the dead of winter, but real cold. The ground was hard as slate under drifts of snow, and the Toe River that runs brash past our mountain land was so hard froze that a body could walk on water. It was a day to run for shelter, if you had any call to be out in the elements at all, but I watched her coming, and Frankie Silver was walking slowly down the track in the frozen hillside, in no hurry to reach our place. And she may have been shaking, but we would have blamed that on the cold.”
Here the witness faltered, as if dreading what was to come.
“Tell us about Frankie Silver,” Wilson prompted her. “Your sister-in-law.”
“She’s just two years older than me, but prettier-I’ll give her that. I turned sixteen last month. Not that much was made of that, either, except that my brothers Alfred and Milton teased me about being their old-maid sister, seeing as how my sister-in-law Frankie was already expecting a young ’un by the time she was my age, and I hadn’t so much as kissed a man yet. I wasn’t studying to be like Miss Frances Stewart, I told them.”
Margaret Silver blushed. “The truth is, sometimes I wished I was more like her. She was little and fair, and she worked hard, too. Of course, she had to. Being married to Charlie and all.”
Margaret Silver ignored the rumble of laughter from the back of the court, but the noise drew scowls from both magistrates.
“Go on,” said Burgner. “And I’ll have less noise from the gallery, gentlemen.”
“About Frankie. Well, she kept that cabin clean, saw to the baby, tended the cows and the chickens, and did the cooking and the washing and kept the fire going. There are three of us girls to help Mama do what Frankie did all by herself. That set me against marrying up early, too.”
The two prisoners sat up straight when they heard these words, and they looked as if they might be about to chime in, but the lawyer silenced them with a shake of his head, and Margaret Silver hurried on.
“Charlie wasn’t much to bestir himself around the place, no, but he was dashing. People took to him. He and Frankie made a likely pair. It’s no wonder they married so young, and, of course, Charlie always did have an eye for beauty.”
“A man of refined tastes,” murmured Wilson, and I heard no hint of irony in his voice.
Margaret Silver nodded. “I guess Charlie must have taken after his mother’s people. We liked him fine, but we weren’t like him. He was handsome, and he could charm squirrels out of a gum tree with that smile of his, and he never said no to a jug or a fiddle tune, but…”
The magistrates gave Thomas Wilson a look, and he leaned in close to the witness and said softly, “It’s time to tell us what happened to Charlie, Miss Margaret.”
She took a deep breath and blinked back tears. “We were working when Frankie showed up. Of course, we always are, with ten folks to be fed at mealtimes, and a fire to be kept going, and young ’uns to be tended-my brother William, the youngest, isn’t but two years old.
“It was early morning when Frankie came in. She stood there on the threshold, stomping snow off her shoes and shaking the ice flints out of her hair. She handed me the baby, and began to untie her wraps and rub her hands together to warm them. I took the little Nancy over by the fire, peeling off her blankets and checking her fingers and toes for frostbite. It isn’t more than a quarter mile over the hill to their place, but the wind was fierce.” Her voice softened as she spoke of the child. I had to lean forward to hear her.
“Charlie’s baby is just over a year old.”
“And what is the child’s name?”
Margaret Silver smiled. “Why, it’s Nancy. Maybe Charlie named her after our mother that raised him, or maybe the name came from one of Frankie’s people, or maybe they just liked the sound of it. I don’t know what Frankie thought about that, but maybe she didn’t like her own mother’s name-Barbara-or maybe Charlie didn’t give her any say in the matter. Charlie would have his own way: if he could charm you into doing his bidding, he would, but if not, he could get ugly about it. It’s a pretty name, though… Nancy Silver… Folks said that if she got her mother’s looks and her father’s charm, she’d be a force to be reckoned with a dozen years hence.”
Talking about her young niece seemed to comfort the poor girl, but Wilson could not allow her prattle to take up the court’s time.
“You are dutiful to tell us so much, Miss Margaret,” said Wilson, and this time he was smiling gently. “But we do not require such detail, only the bare bones of the tale. Frankie turned up at your parents’ house that morning, then, with the baby, did she not?”
“She did.”
“And what did she say?”
“She was bragging. She said she had been working since sunup, chopping wood and scrubbing the cabin floor…” She faltered a moment when the gasps from the spectators nearly drowned her out. Perhaps it was the first time the poor girl had realized the significance of those words.
“What else did she say?”
“She wanted one of the boys to feed the cattle. Said Charlie was gone from home. So we sent Alfred back with her.”
“Did she say where Charlie was supposed to have gone?”
“Over to George Young’s. Most of the men get their Christmas liquor over at George’s place.”
“So you had no reason to doubt her story?”
“No. It sounded like Charlie, all right.”
Thomas Wilson permitted himself a perfunctory smile. “Tell us what happened then, Miss Margaret.”
“Well, Frankie took herself off then, but the next morning she was back, saying Charlie still hadn’t turned up. After a couple of days we took to searching the woods, but we never did find no trace of him. Not ’til Mr. Collis went to the cabin, after Frankie went home to her people.”
“Did you see the Stewarts at any time during all this?”
Margaret Silver thought about it. “I never did,” she finally admitted. “They didn’t stop by to sit a spell with us, or to ask after Charlie, not one bit.”
“But they said nothing about his disappearance? They were not seen at Charlie and Frankie Silver’s cabin?”
“Don’t reckon they were.”
Beside me Colonel Erwin stirred in his seat. “There it is, Mr. Gaither,” he murmured. “Wilson has established that there is not one whit of evidence linking the Stewart woman or her boy to this case. They said nothing and no one saw them. They will have to be let go. Wilson has done his best for that poor family, no doubt, but at what a cost!”
“What do you mean?” I whispered back.
“He has put a rope around the neck of Frankie Silver.”
I am alone now, but I do not mind the solitude.
I have lived all my life in one-room cabins, first with Daddy and Mama and my brothers, and then with Charlie and the baby. It seemed strange at first to have so much space on my own, and so much quiet. I had Mama and Blackston to talk to for the first week or so, but they were afraid that someone was listening, and we found that apart from that one big thing, we had not much to say to one another. Fear is like a stone in your mouth. When you have it, you cannot talk of anything else. So we passed the days in near-perfect silence, with dread kicking in our bellies. Then there was the hearing, and Mama and Blackston got bond and were let go. After that it was only me, to sit here and wait ’til spring.
I think I would not mind the prison cell but for the idleness. I don’t know what to do with my hands. They move in my lap and will not stay still. I asked the jailer’s wife if I could help her do the chores so as to pass the time, but she said I mayn’t be let out, and that she could not let me have an iron or a needle, for fear that I would use them for mischief. Her name is Sarah. She has a baby, and I ache to hold it, for it reminds me of my Nancy, but of course she will not bring it near me. I watch her sometimes when she plays with it out in the garden. Its golden curls glint in the sunshine, but if she looks up and sees me watching them, she frowns and takes the baby away. Her man has told her that I am mad, and although she sees that I am as mild as milk and never angry, she is still afraid, and hangs back, well away from the door of my cell, whenever she has cause to speak to me. I am a killer.