But there is work here for free blacks, they’ve been told. This is a free port. Full of West Indians, freedmen, mulattoes from white mothers. A place that needs strong backs and clever hands. Worth the risk. There’s a man they have to see—owns a mill. Come daylight, they’ll find him and show him their papers. Meantime, best lie low.

All but one are wearing homespun. Their faces are dusky and lined, their hands horny and rough from work. The other, the one they call Daniel Grant, is slender and lithe. His hands are smooth as a woman’s, and yellow—like his face. His complexion is so fair that even in daylight he can pass for white. He wears a flannel suit and a linen shirt with a white man’s name, the mill owner’s, inked onto the inside of the left cuff. He is the only one of the six wearing shoes.

His voice is soft and resonant, a voice that comes up from his stomach and whispers things that sound so true five men have followed him a hundred miles from home to this river town.

They hunker on the wharf listening to the rush of the outgoing tide. The moon is invisible above the fog, silvering it with an otherworldly light.

One of the country men says, “The spirits is up and walking around, brothers.” He carries a forked cypress switch to ward off evil spirits. Now, he rubs it between thumb and fingers until it is warm from friction.

“Hush, now,” Grant says. “Don’t go talking haints and voodoo. It’s only the river fog.”

“Feel that chill? The spirits is floating down the river to the ocean. Going back to Africa, brother.” The country man rubs the forked stick some more. The love of Jesus is one thing, but a body needs every edge he can get in this wild river country.

“Just the night air cooling down,” Grant says. The fishy stink of low tide fills the close air. “ ‘The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters,’ ” he continues quietly, “ ‘yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.’ ”

“Amen,” one of the men murmurs.

Another laughs. “For spirits, they’s pretty ripe.”

“Don’t be taking it lightly, brother. Time of night to be indoors, bolt the shutters.”

“Ain’t that the word. Give me a soft place to lay my head.”

They have been sleeping out-of-doors for weeks. For two whole days, they wandered lost in the swamps, eyes peeled for cotton-mouths and gators. At last, they found the river. Providence had left a derelict rowboat stranded on the mud flats at the mouth of a feeder creek. “We’ll just borrow this boat awhile,” Grant had declared, and they oared across at turn of tide. The current was stalled, and the dark water piled up in foaming ridges—unnatural.

Now, the Cape Fear is once again rising.