He could hear them singing now. He’d heard them off and on all night, as the breeze shifted. Hymns, mostly. From time to time, when he recognized the tune, he hummed along quietly. Sometimes, the rain drowned out the voices, but now it was letting up. The government weather office predicted tomorrow would be crisp and clear. They’d freeze out there. Why had they taken their children? Fear, he supposed. A powerful fear, to drive a man and his whole family into a cold swamp on a November night.

He puffed on his cigar and thought fondly of his wife, Mary, asleep back at the house. Then he thought of his boy in Mexico, building a dam. Maybe he would take Mary down for a visit. But the boy might be gone before they could make it down there—he was always on the move, always building, soaring along as if he had a perfect map of the complicated future. Lord, how he missed that boy.

Kenan studied the sky—still black. When the stars came out, he would pull the tarp off the gun and wipe it down good with an oily rag.

There was still a good six hours till first light. If anything happened tonight, they would be ready. There was no need to inventory the ammunition—he’d worked hard all day to make sure they didn’t fire a single shot.

Chapter Twenty

When the high-hat preacher, with his spike-tailed coat and with gun on his shoulder, went out hunting blackbirds, it was not much of a surprise to see others not so prominent in church affairs acting as he did.

C H A P T E R   T W E N T Y

Sunday, November 13

BY FRIDAY MORNING, the killing was mostly done, and the banishments began. Squads operating under the orders of Hugh MacRae, J. Allan Taylor, and the others of the Secret Nine combed the city for the men on their list. Many of them, including all the Manlys, had already fled. Some, such as Silas Wright, they simply could not find.

First, they emptied the jail. Former Police Chief Melton, United States Commissioner Robert Bunting, and Bunting’s mulatto wife, Nancy, were placed on the three-fifteen northbound Zephyr, along with four Negroes prominent in local politics: lawyer William Henderson, a police sergeant, Charles Gilbert, and merchants Isaac Loftin and Charles McAllister. McAllister was said to have sold guns to blacks.

Another caravan from the jail included Tom Miller, Magistrate R. B. Pickens, the Reverend Isaac Bell, James Loughlin, who was clerk of the Front Street City Market, and ward boss A. I. Bryant. All of them were herded aboard the southbound Limited. Miller was especially bitter—he left behind dozens of rental properties, a pawnshop inventory worth fifty thousand dollars, and a fat portfolio of debts owed to him by white clients, none of which would ever be paid.