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 termgala 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.