The Ballad of Frankie Silver - By Sharyn McCrumb Page 0,20
was checking up on his patient in an after-hours visit to the sheriff’s mountain cabin. “I don’t generally make house calls these days,” he remarked as he examined the stitches on the wound. “It frightens the younger members of my profession. I made an exception in your case, however, because any man who is fool enough to get himself shot for trespassing is probably fool enough to try to drive himself into town for his doctor’s appointment.”
Spencer did not reply. Useless to argue that in “trespassing” he had been in the line of duty, enforcing a court order, or to protest that he felt well enough to end his convalescence. The old man had his own opinions on everything, and he was unlikely to be deterred by the facts as his patient saw them.
“I don’t know why you live up here anyhow,” Banner went on, as he continued to poke and prod his patient. “The road up this mountain is a sheet of glass in the wintertime. I wouldn’t even try it in a four-wheel drive. It’s damned near vertical, that’s what it is. You’re like all the rest of these mountaineers. Moonstruck over these hills, and willing to sacrifice damn near anything to stay in them. It’s incurable, though. Forty years in an east Tennessee medical practice has taught me that right enough. Incurable.”
“Well, aside from that, how am I?” asked the sheriff.
Alton Banner peered at Spencer over the top of his glasses. “That depends,” he said. “If you were planning to take a couple of weeks off and go to Wrightsville Beach, then I’d say you were making satisfactory progress, considering your age and your indifferent attitude toward your own health, but if you’re angling to get back in that patrol car, I would be forced to downgrade your condition to critical. Now, which is it?”
“Neither one at the moment. It’s just that they want me in Nashville six weeks from now.”
“Six weeks! Well, then. If you continue to progress as you have been, I see no problem with that. You won’t be prancing around like Garth Brooks, mind you, but I’d say that if you just want to drive over to the state capital for a meeting with the bureaucrats sometime next month, I could in good conscience allow that.”
“I see.”
The toneless reply made Banner look up. “What’s the matter?” he said, peering at his patient. “Did I give you the wrong answer? If you want to skip a budget hearing, just say the word.”
“It’s more than that.” Spencer handed him the letter from the Department of Corrections.
Alton Banner scanned the letter. “Summoned . . . execution . . . six weeks—my God! Fate Harkryder! Hearing that name is like a goose walking over my grave. I haven’t thought about him in years.”
The sheriff nodded. “You remember, though, don’t you? You were there.”
“I was. I never will forget it.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, thinking back on a night that they both would have preferred to forget.
“That was the night of Emily Stanton’s murder. Gone before I got there, poor thing. You had to break the news to her parents, but I saw them at the trial. I remember her father asking me, Did she suffer? —and God help me, I took a deep breath and I lied to that man, because I couldn’t stand to utter the truth any more than he could stand to hear it.”
Spencer nodded. “They drove over from Wilmington the next day. So did the Wilson boy’s mother, but I can’t remember her very well. Just the Stantons.”
The flash of headlights on the front window and the crunch of gravel indicated that another visitor had arrived at the sheriff’s ridgetop home.
Dr. Banner pushed aside the curtain and peered out. “You’ve got visitors. Looks like Martha’s car,” he grunted. “Shall I make myself scarce?”
“No,” said Spencer. “She’s probably just bringing up some more mail from the office.”
“She’s got some woman with her,” the doctor announced.
“My mother?”
“No. About her age, though.” Spencer struggled to his feet, but Alton Banner motioned for him to sit back down. “You’re an invalid. You stay put. I’ll answer the door. Do-gooders! I reckon it’s too late to put the lights out and pretend we’re not here.”
Spencer laughed. “Who’s being a mountaineer now?”
A moment later Alton Banner put on a welcoming smile and flung open the door. Martha Ayers ushered in a timid-looking older woman whose tinted blond hair did nothing to disguise her age.