a visitor,” said Martha. “This is Mrs. Helen Honeycutt.”
Spencer’s greeting was almost cordial enough to hide his bewilderment. He had never seen the woman before in his life.
“I could make you some coffee,” Dr. Banner said, ushering them to chairs after the introductions had been made. “Since I’m a doctor, though, it is traditional for someone else to go and boil the water.”
“None for me, thanks.” Martha smiled at the sheriff. “I’m here to report on my assignments.”
“Your assignments—?”
Martha smiled and handed him a coffee-stained manila folder. “Here’s the case file you asked me about. Took me forever to find it.”
Spencer resisted the urge to sit down and open it immediately. He waited for Martha to explain the rest.
“Frankie Silver,” she prompted him. “You asked me, remember? The library said that there aren’t any books about her. Apparently nobody has ever written one. I’ve got the Book Place in Johnson City double-checking, and the librarian said she’d see if she could find some articles in local history books, but while we were talking about the case, Mrs. Honeycutt here came up to the desk and said that she’d heard that story as a child from her relatives over in North Carolina.”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” the older woman assured the sheriff, as if she expected him to scold her for it. “But I heard the name Frankie Silvers, and of course, being from a Mitchell County family, I know all about her, so I thought I’d offer to help.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Spencer, with the carefully cultivated courtesy of an elected official. He didn’t like to deal in hearsay, though. He yearned for a concise listing of facts bound, printed, and documented. I will go to the library myself,he thought, but he wasn’t well enough to go yet, and he couldn’t discourage Martha or hurt this woman’s feelings. At least this was a start. Aloud he said, “I’d be grateful for anything you could tell me.”
“It’s a true story that happened in Mitchell County, North Carolina. At the Dayton Bend in the Toe River is a place called Kona. It wasn’t called that when Frankie Silvers lived there in the 1830s, but that’s its name now. It wasn’t in Mitchell County back then, either. In those days Burke County hadn’t been subdivided, and its territory stretched all the way to Tennessee. That’s not part of the story, Sheriff. I just know that on my own, from looking up census records. I’m tracing my family back to the American Revolution. The Overmountain Men.”
Spencer nodded. “That must take a lot of research,” he said politely, and waited. He hoped he wasn’t going to hear a discourse on Mrs. Honeycutt’s glorious ancestors.
She blushed. “Well, I’ll just tell it straight out then,” she said. “My grandmother made a tale out of it, and I’ll tell it like she did, best I can remember. We’re not used to tale-telling any more, what with the TV and all, but I will try.”
Dr. Banner sat down on the sofa beside his patient and smiled encouragingly. “I’ve heard something of this story. I’d like to listen, too, if I may.”
Spencer reached for the notepad beside the telephone. “Do you mind if I ask you questions as you go along?”
Mrs. Honeycutt looked startled. “My goodness! You’d better wait ’til I’ve finished, or I might forget where I was. Being questioned by a sheriff is bound to make me nervous. And when you do ask me questions, I don’t know if I’ll know the answers, but I’ll try to help you as best I can.”
Spencer smiled reassuringly at his guest. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Helen Honeycutt perched nervously on the edge of the sofa, toying with the leather strap of her handbag. “I’m not a storyteller or anything like that,” she warned her audience. “I’m just going to say it as I was told it.”
“I’d be most grateful if you would,” said Spencer. On the lined message pad he wrote: “Frankie Silver, testimony of Helen Honeycutt, resident of Mitchell County.” He had already begun a file on the case as if it were one of his current investigations.
“Well, the way I heard it . . . at the Dayton Bend of the Toe River—which in Tennessee we call the Nolichucky—well, you know that. . . . Anyhow, in a little log cabin at Kona in the 1830s, there lived a young couple named Charlie and Frankie Silvers. Now, Charlie was a handsome boy,