red dust in their wake.
A guard with a rifle was posted on the porch of the white frame building, but the fellow knew me by sight, and he nodded a greeting, offering no objection when I went past him. I wanted to make sure that all the preliminaries for the execution had been performed, and that no detail had been overlooked. I suppose I was half hoping that a special messenger had arrived from Raleigh granting an eleventh-hour reprieve. Certainly one had done so in my dreams these past few nights, but when I entered the hallway of the jail, I could see that no hope remained.
John Boone looked as old and sick as I had ever seen him. He cannot have slept these past few days, for his eyes were bleak with weariness and his skin was gray as worm flesh. “Is all in readiness?” I asked him.
He nodded. “The preparations are made. The rope and the wagon stand ready, and all the constables will be present in case anyone tries to interfere with the execution.”
“Interfere?” The thought of an attack had not occurred to me until then. “The Stewarts, you mean?”
“Perhaps. She will not say who helped her to escape. Feelings are running high about the execution. We can trust no one.”
I saw that he was eyeing the white bundle under my arm, and I hastened to assure him that he had nothing to fear from me. “Miss Mary sent this to the prisoner,” I said. “It is only cloth. You will want to open it and examine it carefully, of course, but I think I can vouch for my sister-in-law.”
Sheriff Boone did not smile. “I can’t have anyone slipping her poison,” he grunted, unwrapping the package and fingering its contents. “It seems all right. From Miss Mary Erwin, you say? Will you want to give this to her yourself?”
I nodded. “I think I should. The ladies have asked me to say good-bye to her for them. I won’t stay very long, if you’ll allow me to go up now and see her.”
“All right. I think she’s calm enough, though she will not eat. Sarah Presnell has been with her most of the morning, but she left a little while ago. I think she’s making a last meal for Mrs. Silver. I reckon she’ll be glad of some company, to take her mind off her sorrow. The preacher came, but she wouldn’t see him.”
“What about her family?”
“Her father and brother are here in town, but I cannot allow them in the jail because of the escape. She has not asked for them.”
He clambered up the stairs, pausing for breath at the top step. “I hate to see this happen, Mr. Gaither. She’s no older than my children, poor lass.”
I patted his arm. “I know. We must try to ease her suffering all we can.”
I stood back while John Boone unlocked the door to the prisoner’s cell. “Visitor for you, Frankie!” he called out. “I’ll be downstairs,” he told me, and as he walked past me, I saw his eyes glisten with unshed tears in the dim light.
I clutched the bundle to my chest and stepped inside the little room. “Mrs. Silver? It’s Burgess Gaither here.”
She was sitting on her camp bed, swollen-eyed from weeping, but calm now. When she saw me, she shrank back against the wall and whispered, “Is it time?”
“No. It is early yet. The sheriff will come for you in a few hours, not I. I only wanted to bring you a gift from the ladies of the Erwin family. They send their regards, and they asked me to tell you that you will be remembered in their prayers.”
“They won’t be coming to see me, then, sir?”
“They thought it best not to, in case their tears upset you. They are grieving. They sent you this.” Again I held out the bundle, and this time she took it, walking the length of her chain and stretching her hands out to me like a toddling child. Her face brightened as she accepted the offering, and I thought what sad creatures we mortals are, to delight in gifts even as we are dying. I watched as she set the package down on the camp bed and carefully untied the twine that bound it. She unfolded the fabric and held it up to look at it in the sunlight from the window of her cell.
“Oh, sir,” she whispered, pressing the white linen against her body.
Miss Mary had sent the prisoner the dress of white lace and linen that she had worn last summer when the Erwin sisters first visited the jail. “Take her this,” my sister-in-law had said, thrusting the bundle into my hands and turning away with the first tears that I had ever seen upon her face. “It’s little enough that we can do for her.”
I remembered that little Mrs. Silver had admired the garment, touching it reverently as though it were the robe of a queen instead of the ordinary morning dress of a country gentlewoman. It pained me to think that her only hope of ever wearing such a garment was to come to town under a sentence of death.
“It’s a handsome dress,” said Mrs. Silver, fingering the delicate cloth. “Better than I ever had. She means me to have it?”
I nodded. Miss Mary had spent the evening sewing hour altering the dress to fit Frankie Silver’s tiny frame.
“They visited me, and read me stories to pass the time. I thank them for that.”
I nodded. “We all wish we could have done more.”
She turned her gaze to the window, and I think she was on the verge of weeping again, but after a moment she said, “I wish they’d tell me a story now. The time is heavy on my hands, and I am afraid.”
I wanted nothing more than to flee the narrow cell and take refuge in the July sunshine of the Presnells’ garden, but I could not leave that poor lost creature to contemplate her death alone. “Has the preacher been to see you?”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t see him. Last time he came, I wanted him to tell me about heaven, but he would not. He kept saying that unless I named all my sins I would burn forever. He asked me who set me free that night. I wouldn’t tell him, though. Do you think I will go to hell for that, sir?”
“No. I cannot think so.”
She sighed. “I’m weary of praying. Reckon the Lord and I will be talking it over face-to-face soon enough. I asked the preacher to tell me a story once, and he told me about the good thief who was crucified with Jesus but went with him to paradise.”
I had promised the ladies that I would do what I could to comfort Mrs. Silver, and there seemed no other way that I could help her. “I’m not much use as a storyteller,” I said, “but if it will ease your mind, I will do my best.”
I searched my memory for some tale that would distract the poor lost girl from the thought of her death, and perhaps it was her maiden name of Stewart as much as her present circumstances that suggested the only one that came to me. “It isn’t a happy story,” I warned her, “but it is about a queen, and it is true.”
She nodded. “Happy stories mostly ain’t true.” She hugged the dress to her and sat down upon her bed to listen.
“Long ago in Scotland there lived a beautiful young queen whose name was Stuart…”
“Same as mine.”
“Yes. She was called Mary, Queen of Scots, and her father had been the king, but he died and left the throne to her. She was said to be very beautiful, but she had a sad life. She married a handsome young man called Darnley, but he was blown to pieces in an explosion at a place called Kirk o’ Field, and afterward people said that Mary had killed him.”
“What happened to her? Did they hang her?”
“Well, she was put in prison at first.” I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, and then I told her, as simply as I could, the long tale of the intrigue between Mary, Queen of Scots, and
