Sasser was losing patience. “You dumb Mick.”

“L. B., please! Look, Mike, here’s the thing. We move now, there’s a chance the federal court will declare the election invalid. Troops come in, it’s the Yankee occupation all over again. Reconstruction, and the niggers in charge. We lose everything. The election’s got to happen first, see?”

Dowling slurped the rest of his whiskey-laced coffee. He was one of the mucky-mucks now. He had opinions. “Hang the election, I say. We’ll run things the way we want to run ’em.”

Suddenly, MacRae banged his fist on the table so forcefully that Dowling fell backward in his chair and had to grab the edge of the table to keep from sprawling on the floor. MacRae stood and planted one fist on the table. He poked an index finger into Dowling’s face. “Now, you listen to me. You’re going to take your men and ride home. You’re going to do nothing else until you hear from me. Got it?”

Dowling nodded. “Yes, sir.” He should have known better than to trust the damned high-hats.

“Good. This thing is way too big for you, Mike. Way too big. You’re pissing with the big dogs now—be careful you don’t get pissed on.”

Dowling recovered himself enough to be angry again. “Just what makes you think you can tell me what to do? My men and me ride out of here, who’s going to follow us? The Light Infantry can’t stand around all day.”

“You are a piece of goddamn work,” MacRae said, almost amused. What would it take to get through to this blockhead? “L. B., have your clerk call my house. Tell them to bring it over.”

They waited in silence for several minutes for MacRae’s man to arrive from up the street. Donald MacRae, Hugh’s brother, smartly turned out in the gray-and-red tunic of the Wilmington Light Infantry, clomped in carrying a portfolio. MacRae drew out a document and tossed it offhandedly onto the table.

L. B. Sasser said, “Thought we were keeping that under wraps.”

Dowling picked it up and read the first paragraph with great difficulty. He scrutinized it for a few minutes, then gave up. “What is it?”

Sasser grabbed the document with a sigh of disgust and read, “ ‘Believing that the Constitution of the United States contemplated a government to be carried on by an enlightened people—’ ”

“There’s going to be a mass meeting tomorrow,” Hugh MacRae explained.

“ ‘—believing that its framers did not anticipate the enfranchisement of an ignorant population of African origin—’ ”

MacRae said, “We’ll read the whole proclamation then.”

“ ‘—and did not contemplate for their descendants subjection to an inferior race, we the undersigned—’ ”

“They’re all going to sign it, every businessman in town.”

“ ‘—citizens of the City of Wilmington and County of New Hanover, do hereby declare that we will no longer be ruled, and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.’ ”