Three deputy sheriffs were also on duty, though the chief deputy, George Z. French, was in hiding in the rooms above his own at the Orton Hotel, the one place nobody thought to look for him. There had been open threats to hang him from an oak tree on Market Street. James Allen, a young man from Father Dennen’s parish, was protecting him. Allen considered French a corrupt bully, but he wanted to be able to face Father Dennen at Sunday mass without shame for the life he could have saved but didn’t.

Captain Walter G. MacRae, Hugh MacRae’s uncle, was now acting sheriff.

All told, a thousand armed white men, taking often contradictory orders from a variety of military and dubiously constituted civil authorities, occupied the city.

Sam Jenks was dimly aware of the commotion. Reflexively, he turned right when he reached Third Street, heading for home. His route took him past the jail, where a mob of Red Shirts was holding some kind of torchlight vigil. The torches sputtered in the rain, sending up plumes of black smoke. He made his way shakily to the outskirts of the crowd.

They got Tom Miller in there,” a skinny man said. “And a bunch of other rabble-rousers.” The man looked vaguely familiar. It was a minute or two before Sam could place him—he’d seen him at the house next door. Callie Register’s itinerant husband, Farley.

“What you planning to do?” Sam was rocking back and forth, trying to stay upright. His feet were soaked from walking through puddles and, standing still, he suddenly felt cold to the bone, and said so.

“Cold as a witch’s tit,” Farley agreed, standing close enough to smell the whiskey on Sam’s breath. “Got any more of that save-the-baby?”

Sam shook his head. “Been at the club.”

“Oh,” Farley said, nodding but disappointed. “Drinking with the mucky-mucks. Don’t I know you?”

“What’s going on?” Sam asked again.

“Going to take them niggers out of here and decorate a few lampposts.”

Sam was in no mood for another lynching.

The jail was a solid block of a building just behind the courthouse. The mob was laying siege to the front door, the public entrance with its wide stairs and tall, barred windows. Sam made his way toward it through the crowd, shoving and getting shoved back.

He couldn’t tell at first what was keeping the mob at bay. Why didn’t they just rush the entrance and take the prisoners? What was stopping them? When he at last clawed his way through the crowd, he saw their obstacle: Father Christopher Dennen. The priest stood, back against the door, arguing in a loud voice with Mike Dowling. The skirts of his cassock were spattered with mud. His red hair was matted, and his fists were balled.

“Father,” Dowling was saying, “I’m not going to ask you again. Now, if you’ll kindly move aside—”