“That’s brilliant! You lynch a white man, they will clear out this county of colored folk. We’ll give up everything we’ve gained since the War.”

“Damned little enough,” Tom Miller said, resignation in his voice. It was becoming clear that they had not thought this thing through. They had a leader, but they didn’t have a plan. Grant’s only plan was mayhem.

“Let them go,” Peamon insisted. “Untie their hands. Now. Do it.”

Before Grant could reassert himself, Miller and the young men cut the twine with jackknives, and the white men stood there rubbing their wrists. One of them had pissed himself, and he stood with his hands clasped over his wet crotch.

Gouvenier said, “Well?”

Tom Miller turned him around bodily and pushed him away. “Go on, get out of here. All of you.”

Peamon hesitated.

“You, too, Mr. Peamon—you’ve shown us your colors.”

Head down, Peamon walked with Gouvenier and the other whites to the Light Infantry skirmish line, where Hugh MacRae waited. MacRae clapped Gouvenier on the back. Immediately, infantrymen seized Carter Peamon and bound his hands with ropes. J. Allan Taylor supervised.

“Now, wait a minute, John,” Gouvenier said. “This boy got us out of there.”

Taylor said, “He stood by while they trussed you up like hogs.” He tapped his field glasses.

“What are you going to do?” Peamon asked. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He hoped to God they weren’t going to turn the Gatling gun on his people. Get away, he thought—get far away and don’t look back. “You can’t just—”

“As we’re under martial law,” J. Allan Taylor said, “this colored boy will face a firing squad.”

“What for?” Peamon was incredulous. He lived by the law—due process, presumption of innocence, a jury of peers. These were the forces of law.

“Inciting insurrection.”

“Now, hold on,” MacRae said. This was getting way out of hand. The boy had just done them a big favor. They had what they wanted—no sense pushing their luck. It was one thing to fire on a mob of laborers, another to lynch a prominent citizen—even a Negro. And a politician at that. There would be questions, interference from federal judges, grand juries. Besides, the boy had always cooperated. You wanted to give some incentive. “Nobody’s declared martial law, John, not yet. You can’t just shoot the boy.”

“What, then?”

MacRae had a plan, a list, for later. He and J. Allan Taylor had worked it out weeks ago. Might as well start now. “Put him on a train,” MacRae reminded him. “Banish him.”

Peamon started to protest.

MacRae clapped him on the back. “Don’t thank me, boy—you did us a good turn. Least I can do is see you safely out of here.”