“Tom Dula talked enough at the end, but he said nothing at all about her. Anyhow, I don’t think his preaching made him any converts. Nobody cared about the fine points of evidence by then. Most of the crowd believed him to be guilty, and they were ready to see him hang. At last, he ran out of words, and, giving his sister a tender farewell, he indicated to the sheriff that he was ready to proceed. It was half past two o’clock by then. A deputy threw the rope over the crosspiece of the gallows and tied it in place. Then at a signal from the sheriff, another deputy took hold of the horse’s bridle, and they led it away, so that the cart slipped out from under the prisoner’s feet.”
I shook my head. “Wasson made a hash of it, didn’t he?”
“Oh, yes. It was torture to watch. The drop was less than three feet-not enough to break the prisoner’s neck. So the end was not quick-or kind.”
“We don’t know how to hang people in this country, I tell you. In England, now…”
But Allison wasn’t listening. He was staring at the marble floor, but seeing the hanging happen again. “He did not struggle. It must have been agony for him to hang there while the rope slowly throttled him. I have wondered how long he was conscious during the ordeal, and if he could hear the roar of the crowd as he strangled. I hope not. I hope he passed out quickly. When I could no longer bear the sight of it, I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer for the repose of his soul. After thirteen minutes, Dr. Campbell pronounced him dead, but Wasson left the body suspended there on the gallows for ten minutes more, to make sure. And all the while, the rabble was cheering as if it were a horse race.”
I shuddered, trying not to envisage it myself. “He is out of it now, poor devil. I suppose the sister and her husband took him back to Wilkes County for burial?”
“Yes. They were going to bury him a mile or two from his mother’s place, on the farm of a prosperous cousin, I think. So he is at rest a good seven miles from the place where Laura Foster lies buried now.”
“Oh, he won’t care about that, Captain. He always said that she meant nothing to him, and I believe him. This was always about Ann. I wonder where there’ll bury her. At a crossroads with a stake through her heart, if they are wise.”
“She is but twenty-four, though. She may live to see the new century come in.”
“No, Captain. Like Jezebel and Cleopatra, I think she will die young. And, like you, I see no hope of heaven for her, but I can well imagine their reunion in the hereafter-two troubled souls reuniting after death… Ann Melton and Tom Dula, together in the mists of that ridge next to Reedy Branch.”
Captain Allison smiled. “You have grown fanciful, Governor Vance. If you knew Wilkes County as I do, you would never be able to imagine restless spirits in that quiet earth.”
I would have been content to let it rest there, with Captain Allison’s comforting epitaph ending the matter in a bucolic haze, but life is seldom so accommodating as that. Much as I might have wanted to forget the whole Wilkes County incident, and return to more profitable endeavors elsewhere, there was still the matter of the second defendant, Mrs. Ann Melton. Her trial was set for the court’s fall term, and, while it would be a brief and perfunctory appearance, thanks to Tom Dula’s confession, I was still obliged to attend and to confer with the prisoner about the state of her case. I took the train to Statesville to meet with her.
All was peaceful at the depot when I arrived, with flies buzzing in the late summer sunshine. I found it hard to imagine that only a few months earlier thousands of spectators had thronged in the adjacent field to watch a man die. I shuddered to imagine it, and made my way as quickly as I could to the county jail to see my remaining client.
The years of incarceration had been kind to Mrs. Melton. Her beauty was as striking now as it had been when I had first set eyes on her in October of 1866. Her hair was glossy and well brushed, and her skin glowed like polished ivory. The simple blue dress she wore was not new, but it was clean and well-kept, and I wondered who did her laundry and her mending. If she missed her children or her lover, I saw no evidence of the ravages of grief. She received me with that same regal courtesy that I remembered, as if she were a duchess and I a courtier come to do her bidding.
I sat down across from her at the little oak table in the jail, and prepared myself for a difficult interview with a distraught woman. I did not get it.
“Mrs. Melton, I am here to speak to you about your forthcoming trial, and I hope to effect your release shortly thereafter.”
She nodded, as if this was no more than she expected. “Thank you, Mr. Vance. I hope you will send word to my husband, so that he will bring the wagon to Statesville to collect me.”
“I will see to it. Have you been keeping well?”
She shrugged. “I get mortally tired of soup beans and corn bread. Have the apples come ripe yet?”
I considered it. “I think they lack a week or more yet, but the last of the summer tomatoes are still to be had. Perhaps I could arrange for a bag of tomatoes to be sent to you here.”
“Thank you, Mr. Vance. I’d be partial to some hard candy as well. There ain’t much to do in here.”
I nearly offered to send her some books, but then I recalled that, elegant as she was, Ann Melton could neither read nor write. In a way, all the world was her prison. I wondered what I would have done in my own incarceration if the pleasures of reading and correspondence had been denied me, but, as she knew no better, she would never miss it. I promised to get her some penny candy, mostly as expiation for all the pleasures my education had afforded me that she would never know.
I waited for her to ask after her family, or for some news of the outside world, but she remained silent, without a trace of distress or anxiety, patiently waiting for me to state my business.
“Let me tell you what you can expect when we go to court. Your trial will be so brief that it hardly merits the name. We will present the new evidence to the court and ask for your release.”
“New evidence?”
“Yes.” I hesitated to bring up a sensitive matter, for fear of disturbing her elegant serenity. “You know that Tom Dula was executed in May?”
Her expression did not change. “Yes, I do know that. They ought not to have done it. They had no witnesses, nor ary weapon, nor one whit of proof. We never said one word to those lawmen, and we ought to have been safe. It ain’t fair.”
Technically, I agreed with her, but as an officer of the court it did not behoove me to speak ill of its decisions. “Tom Dula died bravely, though,” I told her. “They tell me that he spoke for nearly an hour, exhorting people to live right, and that in his final moments he died like a soldier.” I had thought to quote lines from
I waited for a storm of weeping, but Ann Melton only shrugged. “No point in fighting what you can’t change. At least he didn’t give any satisfaction to them that come to see a sorry spectacle.”
“He left a confession, you know. He dictated it on the eve of his death to my colleague, Captain Allison.”
“He’d have done better to use the time trying to escape.”
“He had already tried that. They found a sliver of glass in his cell, and took it from him. He had been trying to wear away the iron shackles with it. It was only when they took it away from him that he sent for Captain Allison. He wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that he alone was responsible for the death of Laura Foster.”
“Well, he was. He shouldn’t have been having to do with her in the first place. He had no call to go chasing after Laura Foster, when he had always sworn that he loved me.”
“His confession will save you, though. His dying declaration proclaimed your innocence.”
Ann nodded, satisfied. “He owed me that. I have spent two years of my life locked away in this cell, and if he hadn’t fallen in with that no-account Laura Foster, none of this would ever have happened.”
I tried again. “He did a noble thing, Mrs. Melton. He gave his life for you.”
“Yes. But it doesn’t matter to him anymore, does it? He couldn’t save himself. He is dead and buried, back in Wilkes County. No use in both of us dying for the likes of her.” She twisted a stray lock of her dark hair. “You won’t forget about those sticks of candy you promised to send me, will you? I’m mighty partial to peppermint sticks.”
