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 term gala 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.
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