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.”