ELECTION DAY DAWNED chilly and clear. The first Negroes to venture outside found handbills tacked to their doors, plastered on shop windows, hammered onto telephone poles. Remember the 6, the handbills declared over a crude skull and crossbones. Which six? The answer was far from clear.

Alex Manly yanked the handbill from the back door of the Record. Three possibilities occurred to him: the six leading Republicans who had been ousted from the ticket; the six white businessmen who made up Group Six, a white supremacy organization he had learned about only yesterday; and the six Negroes who, according to the legend, were lynched in 1831, their severed heads mounted on poles on all the roads leading out of town. Lately, folks had been retelling that story a lot.

He stood reading, shirtless, in the chilly backyard of Free Love Hall. The rest of the text left no room for ambiguity: These degenerate sons of the white race whose positions made them influential in putting Negro rule on the whites, will suffer the penalty of their responsibility for any disturbance consequent on the determination of the white men of this county to carry the election at any cost.

So it hasn’t even happened yet and they’ve already picked out their scapegoats, he reflected—Benny Keith, Flavell Foster, Father Dennen, all the Yankees who had come here to seek their fortunes. And Mayor Wright and any others, black or white, who were trying to see past color. Inarticulate anger welled in him. He was not used to being inarticulate. He was used to speaking his mind. He had spent years mastering the craft of persuasion, the art of eloquence. But he had no say anymore.

He crushed the handbill in his fist. In this city, despite everything, he was still a stranger.

Frank stood suddenly at his shoulder. “White man don’t come around on ordinary business,” he said softly.

“Don’t I know, brother. Don’t I know.” Clawson’s visit last night. His final warning.

“They’ll be coming around on extraordinary business, directly.”

“No need to spell it out. I can read.”

“So you can, brother. Horse and buggy waiting. Just say the word.”

Castle Hayne again, under cover of darkness, slinking away like a common criminal, leaving behind everything—his people, his voice.

“Going to be a moon tonight,” Frank said. “Can’t be helped.”

“What will be,” Alex said.

“I have sent a wire to New Jersey. They will cable Carrie in London. Another two months, she’ll be home. You’ll forget all this.”

Home, Alex thought. Where would that be from now on? New Jersey, Asbury Park? Maybe Philadelphia? How would he face Carrie? How would he explain that he had run away?

“I will shame her,” he said.

“Shame ain’t got nothing to do with it.” Frank was getting angry. “Common sense. It ain’t worth getting killed.”

“No, brother, you’re right. You’re always right.”