the outlying areas, from the mountain lands, and from Table Rock and Jonas Ridge to witness the spectacle, who will shove and jostle one another for the best view of the gallows, it is only I-the one person who does not want to watch it happen-whose presence is required to see that the execution takes place. I am the eyes of the state of North Carolina, and I must tell the governor that what he wanted done has been done quickly and soberly, and that the county officials accorded the victim the civility and compassion of a solemn ritual.
There was to be no building of a gallows for the hanging of Frankie Silver. Burke County has no permanent scaffold, for although we must put men to death from time to time, such an event is sufficiently infrequent as to need no lasting reminder. Damon’s Hill is the traditional site chosen for executions. Our Golgotha, Miss Mary calls it, blasphemous again. I wonder why executions are carried out in high places-Calvary, Tower Hill in England, Gallows Hill in Salem… Is it some dim memory of the old custom of human sacrifice to the gods, or is it merely the state’s wish that government-mandated deaths should be as visible as possible, so that others might see the suffering of the offender and be themselves deterred from committing crimes? Whatever our unconscious motives for the choice, Damon’s Hill is the place where people are put to death in Burke County.
The hill is high enough to be seen from miles around, and it lies but a short distance from the jail and courthouse. On its summit is the place of execution: a broad, flat field, large enough to contain the great crowd of gawkers, and the dogs and horses and wagons that they would bring with them on gallows day. The field on Damon’s Hill is crowned by a towering oak tree whose girth is so vast that ten men hand in hand could not encircle its trunk. It is beautiful in its spreading limbs and luxuriant foliage. Perhaps the oak was already growing on Damon’s Hill when the colonists of Walter Raleigh’s expedition first set foot upon North Carolina soil three centuries ago. Trees seem to live forever. By comparison, the nineteen years of Frankie Silver’s little life seem no more than a flicker in time. That tree has outlived many a man in its long life span, and it has been the instrument of death for perhaps a score of others. That broad oak is the hanging tree.
It takes little enough to kill a convicted felon. A tree and a rope. John Boone procured the rope many days ago-before he could even bring himself to believe he would use it, I think, but he is a prudent man, and he knows that he must provide for every contingency. He has softened the gallows rope with mutton tallow and made sure that it is free of kinks, which would cause the rope to spin when a weight is attached to it. The thirty feet of hemp rope hangs now from a rafter in the barn behind the county jail. One end is looped tight around the rafter, and the other end is suspending a heavy sack of corn three feet above the barn’s dirt floor. Ropes stretch when a heavy weight pulls down on them. If they are not stretched beforehand, this may happen at the time of the execution, and the result is said to be terrible to behold.
“Boone has never hanged a prisoner before,” Squire Erwin told me when he returned from town one day in early July. “I had to go in and tell him a thing or two about the procedure, so that things will go smoothly when the time comes. Even when all goes well, a hanging is a brutal scene to watch, Burgess, but when something goes awry, it can be cruel beyond imagining. I was clerk of court for forty-four years, you know, and so I’ve seen my share of hangings, good and bad.”
“I know very little about it,” I said, with an inward shudder. Nor did I want to. “I believe I have heard that there is some skill required in gauging the length of the rope and the size of the victim.”
William Erwin nodded. “That’s it exactly,” he said. “The ratio is everything, and God help you if you get it wrong. We had a hanging once where the rope stretched out and the victim’s weight was not sufficient to the length of hemp. The poor devil landed on solid ground and had to be hoisted up again, crying piteously, while the onlookers moaned and wept to see his suffering.”
“That must not happen this time,” I said. “Though, of course, I hope that we may avoid the issue altogether with an eleventh-hour reprieve.”
“I had a word with John Boone. I think he knows what must be done if he is called upon to do it. He has no heart for it, poor soul, but he recognizes his duty.”
I shuddered again, mindful of my own obligation to be state’s witness. “Will it take long?”
The old man sighed. “I’ll warrant it will seem so to you, Burgess. It may feel like hours if you fix your eyes upon the condemned and watch the death throes, but you need not put yourself through that. Many a harder man than you has stared at the ground until the struggling ceased.”
“But how long?”
“A quarter of an hour, perhaps.”
“That much! Oh, surely not, sir! A rope around the neck cuts off the victim’s air supply, and no one can live so long without drawing breath.”
He sighed. “The rope is an imperfect instrument, son. It prevents most of the air from reaching the lungs-but not all of it. What follows is a sort of respiratory starvation-a slow stifling of the body, which fights for every morsel of air, even though the struggle prolongs the agony. We must hope that unconsciousness follows soon after the drop.”
“Does it, then?”
The squire looked away. “Often not.”
The ladies of the family were not present, of course, when we spoke of the process of hanging. Neither of us had any intention of discussing such an inappropriate subject in their presence, though I was certainly pressed for details about the matter by my wife and several of her sisters. The Carolina gentlewoman is not the delicate creature that society would have us believe.
“It is monstrous!” my wife announced to the gaggle of family in the hall one evening. “North Carolina actually means to hang a woman. I cannot believe it!”
Her father has little liking for bold talk from the ladies. “What would you have them do, Elizabeth?” he said harshly. “Should we give her a medal for butchering her husband? The state of Massachusetts once burnt a woman at the stake for murder. Would you prefer that?”
Elizabeth turned horrified eyes upon her father. “Burnt a woman? I do not believe that.”
I cleared my throat and said softly, “It was a slave woman, my dear. In colonial times.”
“Oh. Well. It is terrible nonetheless,” she said, stabbing at her embroidery with the needle until I feared for her fingers beneath the fabric. “And I am sure that hanging is no less cruel.”
“It will indeed be terrible to watch,” said her sister Catherine.
“We shall not go,” said Miss Mary Erwin, before her father could utter the same words.
We all turned to her in speechless wonder. Mary Erwin had been the champion of Mrs. Silver from the beginning. I could not believe that she would willingly abandon her cause at the last, although I was certain that the squire would have forbidden her to go in any case. “We shall not go,” she said again, and her voice was calm, but it brooked no argument.
“Why not?” asked Elizabeth.
“Mrs. Silver would not want us to see her die-shamed in front of a jeering crowd. The hanging will be her last violation, and then she will be at peace. We must remember her as she was in life. It is the last gift we can give her.”
The ladies all nodded in agreement, and the squire very wisely refrained from adding that he would not have permitted them to attend anyhow. It seemed that I was the only one of the immediate family who would be present at the death of Frankie Silver.
Miss Mary went back to her sewing. I watched her there, haloed in candlelight, making the tiny even stitches on the wool tapestry cloth, and I wondered what she was thinking behind that calm facade. Without looking up at me, she said, “Mr. Gaither, there is something I’d like you to take to the jail tomorrow.”
The governor had fixed the time of the hanging for Friday afternoon the twelfth of July, between the hours of one and four o’clock. I thought the actual time of the execution would be close to four: the late hour would allow the prisoner’s family time to make the journey if they wished, and it would enable most of the onlookers to travel to town from the farthest reaches of the county to view the spectacle. I arrived at the jail just before noon, to find the town streets already choked with people and horses, churning up great quantities of
