Sam could not turn away—his eyes were captured by the spectacle. When at last the heat made him look away, he spied the woman in the crimson Eaton jacket grinning toward the flames, scrawling onto her notebook pages with a blind hand.

Back at Colonel Waddell’s house, Bessie King fretted. Her hands needed to be doing something. Those high-and-mighty men who had followed the Colonel out the door had murder in their eyes. She didn’t want to know where they were going, or why. “Lord, bring my boy back to this house before the reckoning,” she prayed out loud as she cleaned up the kitchen and rinsed the breakfast dishes at the sink. The cold water sloshed out of the pump and splashed her apron, but she didn’t notice.

The parlor carpet was soiled from boots and men’s heavy shoes. She fetched the vacuum sweeper, the newest gadget the Colonel had procured for the household. She could get the carpet much cleaner by hauling it out to the back porch, folding it over the banister, and whacking it with her broom, but her back was too tired today. She rolled the mechanical sweeper back and forth over the carpet, listening to the roller brush spin and the dirt rattle up into the metal canister. When she stopped, the house was silent. She rolled the gadget back into the kitchen closet and closed the door on it.

It was a powerful lonely morning. Her boy was out on the streets somewhere. Her little girl, too—slipped out during breakfast.

She sighed and held back tears. Humming softly to quiet her nerves, she climbed the stairs to see about Miz Gabrielle. Surely, she must crave some company, too.

Chapter Seventeen

A man’s life, his whole integrity, comes down to little moments when he could have done the right thing, but didn’t—because he wasn’t paying attention.

C H A P T E R   S E V E N T E E N

Thursday, November 10

THE VIGILANTES MARCHED back to the Wilmington Light Infantry Armory in a boisterous, ragged column, men falling out here and there along the way to take a drink or do mischief to the Negroes’ homes. As the last elements accumulated in the armory yard, Waddell faced them from the marble steps, hands clasped behind his back, plumed hat cocked over his right brow.

Sam stood off to the side watching the mob, taking notes. He picked out the crimson Eaton jacket of the lady reporter.

“Gentlemen!” Waddell announced sternly. “We have done what we set out to do! The Negro newspaper is finished. From this moment on, the editor Manly is declared by this community to be an outlaw, to be shot on sight—”