The Ballad of Frankie Silver by Sharyn McCrumb Read Free Book Online Page A

toil as a learned clerk in the halls of justice. I had been clerk of Superior Court for eighteen months, well liked and well content with my profession and my family, for Elizabeth and I had a son, whom we named William, after the old squire. We would name the next one Alfred.
    I had been at work for less than an hour when the sheriff and the messenger appeared at the door of my office. “Come with us, Burgess,” said Will Butler. “Constable Baker promises us a tale worthy of a tavern, but we had better get the news in private. Come to my house, and warm yourselves by my fire while we learn what this is about.”
    A short walk took us to Butler’s house. He settled us in the parlor, a simple enough room, but as warm and comfortable as a man could wish for. He offered us some corn whiskey that he kept in an earthenware jug—not the crystal decanter of brandy that Raleigh’s gentlemen lawyers might have proffered, but it was welcome nonetheless, and it chased away the last of the chill from our bones. Soon enough Constable Baker was sitting by the fire, thawing his muddy boots on the hearthrug and stroking the head of one of Butler’s hounds. We waited while the sheriff read the warrant from Justice of the Peace Baker.
    After a few moments of silence, Will Butler put aside the documents and looked at his guest. “Now,” he said, “tell me what has happened.”
    Charlie Baker warmed his throat with a swig of whiskey and began: “You know Jacob Silver from the other end of the county—along the Toe River, his land is—”
    “I do not know him,” I said.
    “Has someone killed this Jacob Silver?” asked Butler. He reached for the papers again, but then shook his head, remembering that another name was on the warrant as victim. He settled back in his chair then, seeing that Baker was bound and determined to make a tale of it. We might as well hear him out.
    “No, sir. No one killed the old man, though I think the grief of this has dealt a blow to his constitution. Jacob Silver is a well-respected man in the community. He’s got a smart bit of land over the mountains from a soldier’s grant. He came down from Maryland about twenty years ago, after the English war, him and some of his brothers. With him he brought his boy Charlie, whose mother had died birthing him. Not more than a lap baby, Charlie was then.
    “Old Jacob has a passel of children now. He married Nancy Reed over at Double Island, more than seventeen years ago, and they have about eight young ’uns. Charlie, the one that got killed, was that son from Maryland, by Jacob’s first wife. He wasn’t but nineteen years old. Two years ago he married Frankie—”
    “The name is probably Frances,” I murmured to Butler, who nodded in agreement.
    “That’s right,” said Baker. “Miss Frances Stewart she was before she married into the Silver clan. The other two prisoners, Barbara Stewart and youngest boy Blackston, live on the other side of the Toe River, about two miles downstream from the Jacob Silver homestead. It’s Isaiah Stewart’s place. He’s from Anson County, and he and his wife Barbara—”
    “Tell us about the murder,” said Will, losing patience at last. “We can sort out their bloodlines later.”
    “First sign of trouble was on December 23. That morning Frankie Silver went to her in-laws’ cabin, with the baby on her hip, and she told them that Charlie had lit out from home a couple of days back, and he hadn’t returned. She was wanting somebody to come feed the cows.”
    “Why didn’t she ask her own kinfolk to do it?”
    “The menfolk were gone. At least her father was away from home. She has an older brother, Jackson, who’s married to a Howell girl, but he was off with his father. I heard they were on a long hunt over in Kentucky. They weren’t back when I left there yesterday. I reckon the younger boy, Blackston, could have helped her. He’s about fifteen. But like I said, the Stewarts live two miles from Frankie,