He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on all of them at once. Every man and woman was sure Ivanhoe Grant was staring into his or her private soul, the place where their sins stood clustered like canned goods on a shelf, labeled by weight and size and brand. They held their breath. Nobody said anything—they knew when to listen for the breath of the Holy Ghost. They wanted to hear it. If they held their breath long enough, straining their ears, there it was: in the fluttering of their own hearts.

Ivanhoe Grant said, “They cut off their heads.” It was difficult to go on. He could feel the hot blade on his own neck. “They mounted the heads along the roads, as they mounted Jesus on the cross on the hill above Jerusalem.”

“Amen,” they said quietly.

He was clearly suffering. “On the hill of Calvary.”

“Calvary, Lord, Lord.”

“To warn against troublemakers. To keep the people down. But the people cannot be kept down. The people will rise!”

“Amen!”

“The people will rise on the wings of the Holy Ghost!”

“Amen!” they said more vigorously.

“Six strangers came to town. Their names are lost to history. The thieves crucified beside Jesus had names, but these black strangers had no names.”

“No names.”

That was part of the story they all knew, the part that made it folklore and not real truth.

“Except one.” He held up a shining finger, straight as a blade. The silence was absolute. He waited for it to become intolerable. “Daniel John Grant,” he whispered finally. “My father’s father. My own blood kin.”

The effect was electric. Alex Manly, standing in the back beside the door, could feel the energy crackle along the pews, leap the empty spaces, arcing distance. It crackled along his sleeves like static. It made the congregation buzz and murmur. So the story was true—not just a jack tale of haints and bogeymen and night spirits. If one of the men had a name, then the story was true. Now, all at once—now that it had really happened—it gained power. It loomed larger in their imaginations. It took on new meaning.

In one stroke, Ivanhoe Grant had altered entire childhoods, changed the story they lived by.

Alex Manly was amazed. The knowledge of what he had just heard struck his stomach like a bullet. His old fear returned. Something was possible that had not been possible a moment ago. He had been wrong about the threatening words—they were not empty. They were the voice of the bogeyman, and he was waiting for an answer.

Ivanhoe Grant lifted his long, beautiful arms and declared, “Every man and woman among you—every man and woman among you—must stand up and be counted. You cannot turn away from the earthly business of the Lord!”