“Just a minute, Colonel,” MacRae said. He put an arm on J. Allan Taylor’s shoulder. “John and I are going to forgo the ceremony for the present. We’ll take up our offices first thing Monday morning.”

Waddell was momentarily flummoxed. “But why?” Something was cooking—he’d thought they’d let him in on all of it. But he should have known. With MacRae, there was always one more item on the agenda.

“Unfinished business,” Taylor said. “Nothing that concerns the board.”

“Right,” Waddell said. “Well. If there are no objections?” What were they up to? Whatever it was, they clearly didn’t want to be encumbered with the legalities of office.

While he was pondering, a justice of the peace arrived with a Bible, and, as they all raised their right hands, MacRae and Taylor slipped out.

After swearing in Waddell’s government, the justice swore in 250 special constables. By God, Waddell meant to have order. It was four o’clock. As the courthouse clock next door was tolling the hour, the board unanimously voted to declare the city under martial law.

Meanwhile, MacRae and Taylor ducked from the corridor of city hall into the portal to the Thalian Hall mezzanine. Flanked by autographed portraits of Tom Thumb, Helena Modjeska, John Phillip Sousa, and Frederick Douglass, all of whom had played there, they pored over two sheets of paper. One was a railroad timetable. The other was a list of names—all the men who must be banished from the city, for good. Even now, Roger Moore’s citizen-troops were rounding them up.

Alex Manly’s name was still at the top of the list, though he had already been reported shot five different times in five separate locations.

“When we finally get that dandy nigger, we’ll prop him up in a pine coffin outside city hall,” Taylor said. “The way they did with Jesse James.”

Manly’s brothers, Frank, Lewin, and Henry, were also on the list.

Ivanhoe Grant was on the list, as were Tom Miller, the pawnbroker, and the former Negro aldermen, Norwood and Green, who would be taken just as soon as they left city hall. Ben Keith was also on the list, along with Silas Wright and the former police chief, Melton. Lawyer Armond Scott had made the list. So had the customs collector, John Dancy, the Reverend Jim Telfair, the Reverend J. T. Lee of St. Stephen’s A.M.E., the Reverend J. Allen Kirk of Central Baptist, and Carter Peamon. Peamon’s name was crossed off.

It was a long list. There were nearly a hundred names in all: preachers, lawyers, merchants, restaurateurs, barbers, politicians, policemen, magistrates. All men with a lot to lose. The leaders of the Negro professional class.

Sam Jenks sat on the steps of his porch, gathering his wits and vaguely listening to Callie Register prattle about her husband, Farley, who had returned only a couple of days ago, fired from the railroad gang. Now, he was prowling with the vigilantes.