The Ballad of Tom Dooley (32 page)

“It was in my mind to tell him that Ann Melton was not worth such a noble gesture, but the words stuck in my throat. I could see that the poor wretch wanted his death to count for something, and this was the only deed that lay within his power. ‘I will do as you ask,’ I told him.

“He nodded and said, ‘Thankee, Cap’n. And if it sets your mind at rest any, I’ll have you to know that I am not entirely blameless in this. I dug that grave, and I carried the corpse up the ridge to it. I reckon they’d hang me for that, same as if I’d killed her.’ I could not dispute the point, and when I told him so, he seemed more pleased than anything. ‘Well, then, let them take my life, and welcome to it. But mind—I told you—one life and no more for that of Laura Foster. That’s a fair enough trade. I’ll hold you to that, sir.’

“As I turned to go, he asked if he could have more paper to write down his thoughts, and from that I surmised that he intended upon making a last speech from the gallows. ‘Keep the pencil,’ I told him, ‘and I will instruct the jailer to bring you paper.’ He thanked me again, and then, in a soft voice, muffled, I thought, with unshed tears, he said, ‘I don’t suppose they would let me see Ann again—one last time?’

“I hesitated—not because there was any chance of it, but only because I was trying to decide how best to soften the blow of refusal. ‘She is another man’s wife, Tom,’ I reminded him, as gently as I could.

“He smiled at that, and then he said, ‘We have belonged to one another all our lives, and nothing either one of us ever did with anybody else amounted to a hill of beans.’

“I looked away. ‘Shall I tell her that, then?’

“He shook his head. ‘She knows.’”

*   *   *

I told Captain Allison that I had read an account of the hanging in the
Salisbury Watchman.
“May the first.
May Day.
There’s a sad irony in that. A day when maypoles should be garlanded with flowers, but instead in Iredell County they erected a pole and suspended a man from it until he died. Strictly speaking, both customs are barbaric, but I prefer the former.”

“Well, we both saw worse in the War, Governor.”

“That’s so. I fought up in Virginia at Malvern Hill—that was like a thousand hangings all at once. But at least there is some dignity to a battlefield death. People don’t crowd around to watch a man die, and cheer for his passing.”

“Not everyone cheered, Governor, but there were too many that did. I only went because I thought it was my duty to attend. I found it difficult to sleep that night after my interview with Dula in his cell, and after a restless night, I went along to the jail again about seven to see the prisoner one last time, in case he had changed his mind about that confession.

“The jailer took me along to his cell. ‘He paced near the whole night, Captain,’ he told me. ‘He was like a caged bear, lumbering to the length of that chain on his leg, back and forth, back and forth across the floor. I looked in on him towards daybreak, and he had stretched out on his cot with his eyes closed, but I don’t think he was sleeping. I took him in his breakfast, and told him there were preachers a-waiting to see him, and he allowed as how I could send them in.’”

“He found the Lord at the end? That eases my mind, Captain Allison—though I never thought to see it happen.”

“I had the honor of seeing him baptized by the Methodist minister. Once the prayers were concluded, I was able to speak to him privately. ‘This is a fine thing you have done, Tom,’ I told him. ‘It will be of great consolation to your mother and sister to know that you sought salvation at the last.’ He gave me a grim smile. ‘I don’t reckon my mother sets much store by the promises of preachers, Captain. But the baptism was free, and it seemed like a chance worth taking. I would like to believe there is a heaven. It’s the only hope I have of ever seeing Ann again.’

“I thought of his confession, resting still in my pocket. ‘But if she has done the murder, and if she dies unrepentant and unconfessed of the crime, then she will not go to heaven.’

“He smiled again. ‘Why, she’ll have to, Captain. It won’t be heaven without her.’”

*   *   *

Richard Allison and I passed the next few moments in silence, while I lit a cigar, and thought about what he had said. I was trying to pity the prisoner, but that sentiment kept getting mixed up with something very like envy. I revered my Harriette, and stood in awe of her piety and her devotion to our boys, but all the same … I wished I loved anything or anybody as much as that raw mountain boy loved Ann Melton.

Finally I said, “I suppose there was a carnival atmosphere in Statesville on gallows day?”

Captain Allison nodded. “Well before noon the crowds began to gather. The sheriff had called out guards to keep order, and the saloons were closed so that drunkenness should not make matters worse. People must have traveled forty miles to come—rustic-looking hill folk, sun-bronzed and chewing cuds of tobacco.”

“Yes, I came from those hills, Captain. Those are my people, and you should not be deceived by their outward appearance. They are the salt of the earth.”

“Begging your pardon, Governor. I spoke as I found. Some of the ruffians I encountered were soldiers who had served with Dula in the 42nd. They seemed to think that he was a desperate character, and they meant to see with what bravado he would meet his death. And I was dismayed to see how many women had come to see the execution.”

I smiled. “Dula was—what? Twenty-three? Tall and wiry, with a head of thick dark curls. I reckon if we had female juries he might have gone free on the strength of that.”

“That’s true enough.” Captain Allison sighed. “Unjust, but true. Beauty absolves a great many sins. Since juries are comprised of men, I think Ann Melton might well have prevailed even without her lover’s confession.”

“We shall not risk it, though. When Mrs. Melton comes to trial in the fall term of Superior Court, we must offer Dula’s confession in to evidence, and request a dismissal of the charges. He wanted to save her, and I think we must allow him to do it.”

“She isn’t worth it, Governor, though I shouldn’t say such a thing of a client. Still, it’s the truth. She is a vain and proud woman, who thinks she is worth any sacrifice a man may make on the altar of her beauty. And I firmly believe that she killed that girl, even if we never find out the reason why. She ought not to be saved.”

“No. But neither should poor Tom have died in vain. Try to look at it that way. You were with him to the end, Captain?”

“Yes, and no one ever more heartily wished themselves elsewhere than I did that day. They took him out of his cell about half past twelve, and Sheriff Wasson and some deputies led him out to the town square. They had a cart waiting there to convey him to the place of execution. They meant to hang him from the back of it, too, of course.”

“Yes, it is a distressing sight, watching a man ride off to his death in a cart, sitting upon the very coffin in which his body shall rest in an hour’s time. His coffin was with him, I suppose?”

“Yes. He sat upon it. But at least his sister was permitted to ride in the cart with him, and, perhaps for her sake, he smiled and spoke calmly to her as the procession went along. His sister and her husband had brought the coffin with them from Wilkes County—a heartbreaking errand for the poor young woman, but at least he had someone to claim his body. I was seated next to the minister, keeping my balance in the cart as best I could, but we were engulfed by the multitude of spectators—black folk and white, men and women, even children, and I cannot imagine what their parents were thinking to allow them to attend such a spectacle. There were people in carriages, on horseback, or simply walking in the throng alongside the cart—a sea of eager, cruel faces. I hope never to see the like again. Tom seemed oblivious to all these strangers, though. He kept talking about how he had been saved, and assuring his sister that he would see her in heaven. He seemed more concerned for her peace of mind than for his own fate.”

“Did you have far to go?”

“No. Only to that open field beside the train depot, but the accompanying crowds so impeded our progress that it took us nearly half an hour to get there. There were even more people waiting around the gallows—and some enterprising young boys had climbed in to the trees surrounding the field, in hopes of getting a better view of the proceedings. It was barbaric. I shouldn’t like to die in the midst of all that.”

“Nor will you, Captain. Rest assured. You and I will die in our beds like gentlemen, and no one will be singing broadside ballads about us after we’re gone.”

“Well, if they do write any songs about Tom Dula, I suppose he has earned them. He died
game,
as he would have phrased it. When they pulled the cart up underneath the gallows, we all got out, leaving him there alone with his coffin. This must have been Sheriff Wasson’s first hanging, for he had erected a shoddy excuse for a gallows that couldn’t have taken an hour to put together. Two upright posts of cheap pine, with a crosspiece set across the top. I was afraid the thing would not hold his weight, and that he would topple to the ground still alive. It sickened me to think of it.”

“I daresay it might have broken under
my
weight,” I said, patting my substantial girth. There had been lean times during the War, but I had been making up for it since, and it showed. “But I take your point about Sheriff Wasson. There are problems with North Carolina’s one-term sheriff law, and you have hit upon a major one. It is the county sheriff who must hang the convicted prisoners, but in a four-year term, a sheriff is not likely to perform enough executions to become proficient at it. We ought to follow England’s example and have one well-trained hangman to service the whole state. It would be a kindness to all concerned not to have our executions turned into botched exercises in torture through the incompetence of the hangman.”

“Well, Governor, if you ever get elected to office again, perhaps you could suggest such a plan. And you might consider limiting the condemned man’s last words, while you’re about it.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m famous for my speech making. If I had a rope around my neck, I believe I could talk for a week.”

“Yes, perhaps it was the fear of death that made him talk at such length. Or perhaps he thought that if he could stall long enough, a rider would come tearing up the road, waving the Governor’s pardon—but of course, no such thing happened. He talked about his childhood in Happy Valley, and he talked about his experiences in the War. He even touched on politics in his harangue. Apparently, he is not fond of our new governor Holden. Called him a secessionist.”

“Yes, they weren’t fond of the Confederacy in Wilkes County. That’s why I moved the trial to Statesville. As the former Confederate Governor, I thought I could win with a sympathetic jury in a county where I was personally popular—or at least not vilified as a secessionist.”

“We agreed with you, though, Armfield and I. As we had no evidence to refute the charges, it did seem the best course.”

“Did Dula get around to talking of the murder in his oration?”

“He did. He protested his innocence loud and long, but he also commented on the physical evidence presented in the trial. Something about the roads leading to the Bates’ place. Oh, and the map that the prosecution put in to evidence. He cursed Colonel Isbell, who drew it, and he insisted that there were errors in the map. And he accused some of the state’s witnesses of swearing falsely against him.”

“Did he mention the servant girl, Pauline Foster? I’d agree with him there. What was it the newspaper called her? A monster of depravity?”

“Well, a woman who has recently given birth to a black child, although her husband is as white as she is … one can hardly call her faithful.”

“He may only be a common-law husband at that. Some poor old wretch from up the mountain who thinks a simpering young woman is a prize. I wonder what she told him about the child. I’d give worlds to know who its father is myself.”

“I doubt she would ever say, if indeed she knows.”

“The Foster women have an uncommon gift among the fair sex: they can hold their tongues. In the two years she has languished in jail, Ann Melton has not said one word in her defense or to accuse anyone else of the crime. She is a sphinx. And it has served her well. She will go free. I have no doubt of it.”

“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?”